thereupon forfeit his Kingship and Crown and became a private person and enemy dissolved the Constitution both of the Kingdom and Parliament and not only violated all Law in the branches but plucked up the very root of it in destroying the Parliamentary Establishment as much as in him lay and thereby introduced another Law of Arms From whence he deduceth 3. Conclusions 1 The Justice of secluding the Members 2ly The Sufficiency of the authority that condemned and executed the King 3ly The Legality of the remaining Members continuing and sitting as the Parliament and Supreme Authority of England which after the Kings beheading and other Members and Lords seclusion descended and was transmitted to them by the Law of war for the people This he determines to be Law and Reason too sufficient to convince both Royallists and Presbyterians of the Lawfulnes of the Power and present sitting acting as a Parliament by those few Members at Westminster secluding all the rest To which I answer 1. That if the Kings death by Law Reason dissolved the Parliament in an orderly cause because his writs of summons abated by his death they could not treat with him concerning his and his Kingdoms affairs nor he consent to any Bills after his decease Which he freely grants Then by the self-same Reason Law his violent death must dissolve this Parliament as I have largely proved 2ly If the Kings levying war against the Parliament did actually dissolve the very Constitution Law of the Parliament and Kingdom and made him no King at all but a private person which he layes for his foundation then it must necessarily dissolve the Parliament and Kingdom too and make them no Parliament no Kingdom at all as well as himself no King For how can the Parliament continue when its very Constitution is dissolved 3ly By this Position it inevitably follows that we had neither King Parliament Kingdom nor any Laws at all but only of Warr from the beginning of the wars or first battel at least between the Kings and Parliaments forces many years before his death But this the King kingdom Parliament the sitting as well as secluded Members both Armies and our whole 3. kingdoms ever denied in all their Votes Orders Ordinances Declarations Remonstrances Petitions Treaties Propositions whatsoever from 1641. till December 1648. and Nedham himself in his Diurnalls and Mercuries In all which the Parliament both Houses and Army-Officers stiled him their KING and the King and his party ever stiled them the Houses of Parliament Therefore this position must be a most Notorious Falshood wherein Interest doth grosly lie 4ly Those he stiles the honest faithfull Members in their very Votes of Non addresses passed by force and fraud in their Knack for the Kings tryalâ— Impeachment Proceedings Sentence of condemnation against him after our seclusion in their Declaration of 17 Martii 1648. after his death and sundry other Papers ever stiled and acknowledged him TO BE KING and ENGLAND HIS KINGDOM notwithstanding the wars between him and the Parliament Therefore the very war did not Vnking nor make him a Private person nor dissolve the Constitution of the Kingdom and Parliament else there could not be a war against or between the King or Parliament if the war it self unkinged him unparliamented them and dissolved all their constitutions 5ly No person by the a Law of God Nature Nations the Great Charter Laws Statutes of England and Votes of Parliament ought actually to forfeit or to be ipso facto deprived of his Office Freehold Liberties Estate Life without a legal proceeding tryal conviction judgement attainder Much less then the King himself the Supreme Magistrate and Governor of the Realm in whom all have a common interest unkinged and made a private person or publike Enemy and totally deprived of his Crown and Soveraignty Therefore his actual levying war against the Parliament without before any legal impeachment conviction or sentence of deposition could not unking nor make him a private person as the cases of Edward the 2. and Richard the 2. and the b Parliaments which deprived them of their Kingships after their resignations clearly resolved against this Jesuitical new Doctrine 6ly If the King by his bare levying war against the Parliament actually lost his Kingship and became a meer private person before any sentence of deprivation then by the self-same reason law every Traitor levying war or conspiring against the King every Murderer Theef Felon corrupt Judge Justice Mayor Sherif Inferior Officer by the very committing of Treason Murder Felony Adultery Bribery Injustice and breach of their respective trusts should be actually attainted of those offences their Lands Offices presently confiscated without any Indictment trial verdict judgement against them yea every act of Adultery by any Husband or Wife should actually dissolve the bond of marriage for ever without and before any Sentence of divorce between them which * Mr. Wheatly publikely recanted as a dangerous error And how destructive such new Nedham Interest Law would prove to all mens lives liberties estates yea to every mans soul since every act of sinne by like consequence should actually damn and make even Saints themselves to fall totally and finally from Grace and Gods favor let all judicious men resolve 7ly If this be Law then had the King and Parliament upon any Treaty after the wars accorded he ought to have been new proclamed installed crowned King again and the Parliament resummoned by new writs 8ly He confesseth this to be the very principle of Barclay the Jesuit from whom he borrows it p. 34. Therefore his present Parliament and Republike built thereon are purely Jesuitical by his own confession 9ly This Jesuits position is not so bad as his He speaks not of every Civil war made by a King upon his Subjects for which there may be just occasions but only of a King warring upon his people of purpose to extirpate and destroy them which he saith it seems almost impossible any King should be so mad as ever to attempt Which the King in his war against the Parliament by his victories proceedings against the Prisoners Members Towns he took during the wars in sparing all their lives actually really and oft times verbally and professedly disclamed in all his Proclamations Speeches Remonstrances Messages to and Treaties with the Houses Therefore his war against them did neither unking him nor make him a private person and publike Enemy by this Jesuites resolution 10ly If the Kings war against the Parliament did really unking him then certainly the Generals Army-Officers and Armies actual levying war upon both Houses of Parliament by secluding securing the Members and King did really uncommission and unarmy them and made them no Officers no Army at all but a rebellious rout and all Members concurring with them therein no Members no Parliament at all The sequel is infallible Therefore Nedham must either now disclaim this desperate Jesuitical position with all his 3. Treasonable
Conclusions from it or else henceforth disclame the Army-Officers Army and their formerly suppressed now revived Parliament 11ly Admit his Paradox true that the King by his war against the Parliament actually ceased to be a King c. yet his Inference thence that the Parliament was not dissolved by his death but continued after it is most false yea the contrary thence inevitably follows that it was wholly dissolved long before his death so soon as he ceased to be a King and became a private person and that by the expresse resolution of the whole Parliaments of 22 R. 2. and 1. H. 4. rot Parl. n. 1 2 3. in a case most like to ours * Henry Duke of Lancaster raising a great Army to lay Title to the Crown King Richard the 2d bringing an Army to suppresse him the King finding his forces over-weak and the Dukes too potent for him having seised Bristol and other sorts thereupon a Parlee was had between them and agreed King Richard should summon a Parliament at Westminster wherein he should resign his Crown renounce his Kingship and the Duke to succeed him Upon this he accordingly summoned a Parliament where he formally resigned renounced his Kingship and was actually deposed of it by sentence and Henry the 4. who claimed the Crown upon his resignation declared King Which done it was resolved declared both by the Parliament King Lords Commons Judges that this Parliament was actually dissolved by King Richards deposing to all intents and a new Parliament ordered to be summoned by King Henry in his own name wherein he was declared crowned King and the resignation deposing of Richard the 2. ratified and recorded Therefore by the resolution of both these Parliaments by Nedhams own position if true the last Parliament of King Charles was so farr from being continued only by his wars even after his death which else would have dissolved it without dispute that it actually dissolved it in his life time six years before his death by degrading him from his Kingship and making him a private person And then his Westminster Juncto sitting from 1648. to 1653. and now again cannot have the least shadow of right law reason to sit act as any part of the last Parliament summoned by the King neither could the whole Parliamentary and supreme power descend or be transferred to them alone by any Law or colour of right whatsoever by the Kings war death or our seclusions as he most absurdly concludes 12ly The sum of all Nedhams discourse to support his present Parliaments and Republikes right title is but this That in civil wars and commotions the conquering or prevailing party gains a legal Supreme Authority and Parliamentary power over over the whole That the Kings royal authority devolved by conquest to the Parliament the whole Parliamentary Authority to his Juncto by their forcible seclusion of the Majority of the Commons and suppression of the House of Lords And if so then by the self-same consequence the whole Kingly and Parliamental Authority was lawfully devolved on the Lord General Fairfax and Army-Officers when they seised the King secluded the Members suppressed the Lords and placed Guards on those that sate in 1648. Or at least to such of them as were then Members of the Commons House not to the Juncto since or now sitting That afterwards it descended devolved to General Cromwell when he conquered and turned the Juncto out of doors April 20. 1653. as he and the Army-Officers then argued who thereupon after some Moneths exercise thereof by making New Laws and imposing New Taxes at Whitehall Anno 1653. afterwards transferred it by deed to their Litle Conventicle elected by them in September part of which resigning back their Supreme power to Cromwell he thereupon claimed it as wholly and absolutely vested ia himself without any limits as he declared in his printed Speeches 1654. and 1657. whereupon he detained it under the Title of A ROYAL PROTECTOR till his death then delegating it to his Son Richard who by this original Title enjoyed it till overpowred by his Brother Fleetwood and other Army-Officers who by this right of the Long Sword alone unprotectored him and then called in the remainder of the Old Juncto to sit and act as a Parliament under them So that by Nedhams Doctrine the Supreme Regal and Parliamental power is legally residing in those Army-Officers who have conquered all the rest till some other greater stronger power shall be able to conquer them and his Westminster Conventicle is but their Substitute to act vote what they shall prescribe And by the self-same principle as the Army-Officers by rebelling against and suppressing the Parliament and their Masters who raised waged them for their defence contrary to all Laws of God man their own Oathes Commissions thereby gained a just and legal Title as he argues to the Supreme Regal and Parliamental Authority of the Nation not the people in whom they pretended it to be vested so any Traytor by killing or dispossessing his lawfull Soveraign any Son by killing or disseising his Father any Servant by imprisoning killing or turning keeping his Master out of doors every Theef plunderer in the world able by force to take away any persons purse goods house lands or shall by power make himself a Judge Justice Magistrate or take away another mans wife shall have a just and legal Title against the owners and all others and Nedhams Parliament and new Republike can neither condemn nor execute any Thief Pirate Murderer Plunderer Adulterer Ravisher nor punish any disseiser or wrong-doer whatsoever that was stronger than the party injured since they all may justifie their force actions to be lawfull against the letter of the 6 7 8 9 and 10 Commandements by the self-same Law Divinity Saintlike Title of the longest Sword the greatest might and prevailing party I hope by this time he and all others clearly discern the desperate fatal consequences of his Jesuitical position and that his Interest will not lie is but a meer sink of Lies and destructive paradoxes If all this will not help to prop up the legal Soveraign Authority of his present Parliament and Republike he hath 3. other Pillars to support them p. 37. 1. The Law of Necessity a pretty bull when as the old proverb resolves Necessitas non habet legem I am sure it will now admit of no Law Justice Conscience Equity 2. Did not the beheaded King plead this Law for Ship-money Excise and other illegal projects yet the long a Parliament adjudged necessity in these cases to be no Law nor Plea at all And shall those very Members plead it in their own case now who then judged it no Law nor Plea in his 3ly This Law was pleaded by Cromwel and the Army-Officers in April 1653. for the dissolution of those now sitting who together with Nedham p. 40. resolve it no Law or Plea at all and can it be justly urged now for their restitution 4ly
It is a pretext for all villany treachery impiety violence being acted in the world as I have proved in my Epistle to my Speech and the secluded Members in their Vindication when the Officers pretended it for our seclusion and can it then be made the foundation of Commonwealths and its Junctoes constitution 5ly He addes out of Grotius l. 2. de Jure Belli cap. 6. Necessitas summa reducit res ad merum jus naturae If so and we are now reduced to such a necessity as he argues then it followes 1. That this extreme necessity which exempts any part of a Kingdom Republike City from the power jurisdiction of the whole as Grotius there resolves hath much more exempted our whole three Kingdoms the intire Lords House and Nobility the Majority of the old Commons House yet surviving with all Counties Cities Boroughs for which they served from the power jurisdiction of the present usurping Juncto Army so that they have no right authority colour at all to impose any new Laws Taxes Militiaes Excises on all or any of them nor yet to imprison sequester punish any of them for defending themselves by force of arms against their unjust usurpations over them 2ly That they can impose no new Government or Republike on all or any of them without their own free voluntary elections consents because all politick Governments and Corporations are and ought to be made by voluntary contract and free consent of all the parts ac propterea jus ejus in partes ex primae va voluntate metiendum est as Grotius there resolves 3ly That all the integral parts of any politick body when the first agreement and Government which united them into a Kingdom or Republike is dissolved as Nedham asserts our Kingdom and Parliament are by the meer right and Law of Nature have as inseparable inherent a right vote to cast themselves into another new form of Government as any one prevailing party of that body being all equally men Englishmen free-men by Nature and having no superiority over each other Therefore the Supreme authority and Parliamentary power in our present condition and extreme necessity by Grotius his decision is not devolved to the Westminster Juncto or Army-Officers as Nedham absurdly concludes against his Oracle Grotius but to the generality of the people as this very Juncto voted Jan 6. 1648. and the Army-Officers declared in their Agreement of the people presented to them November 20. 1648. and Jan. 20. 1649. Therefore by their own Votes resolutions practices the generality of the people not the Juncto are now the Supreme authoritie and those 50 or 60 Members of the old Parliament and Army have not the least pretext of Right Law Reason power to domineer over all the Nobility Gentry Clergy Freemen of the Nation and the secluded Members nor totally to seclude them all from their Councils Company muchlesse to secure disarm plunder them at their pleasures to double treble their Taxes to use them not like their fellow freemen but their Aegyptian bond-slaves as now they do What such an Extremity Necessity may put then our whole three Nations justly upon by Grotius and Nedhams Law too let them wisely and timely consider for their own and the publike safety His 2. Pillar is this of Grotius That In a civil warr the written and established Laws of Nations are of no force Indeed we now finde it true by sad experience under our New Legifers and Tax-masters and then that only is to be admitted Law which shall be setled by the prevailing party How this new doctrine will suit with all our late Parliamentary Votes Ordinances Declarations Remonstrances Protestations League Covenant Soldiers Commissions and Army-Remonstrances or with our Civil war which was only for the preservation and defence of our antient fundamental Laws Statutes and Great Charter of our Liberties against all arbitrary encroachments alterations violations of them Or with the Junctoes Declaration March 17. 1648. for turning our Kingdom into a Free State wherein they promise over and over inviolably to defend and maintain these antient Laws The Badges of our Fréedom and the most excellent of all other Laws in the world by violation alteration or abrogation whereof greater mischiefs would inevitably befall us than ever we suffered under our Kings and Kingly Government Or how it will accord with their Proclamation May 7. 1659. to like purpose let Nedham and that power for which he pleads resolve us To whose arbitrary wills and tyranny if this monstrous paradox be Oracle he prostrates all our Laws and Liberties after full 17 years bloody contests and most cruel Concertations for their Defence against this his position and practice His 3. pillar is this which he applies to the particular case of the secluded Members p. 37. Si qui jure suo uti non possunt eorum jus accrescit praesentibus Grotius l. 2. c. 5. His meaning is that if any Members of a Senate Court or Parliament be absent through sickness or any other voluntary or necessary occasions the rest may sit and act will it thence follow as this Mountebank argues Ergo the Minor part of the Commons House may sit and act now and heretofore not only as a Commons House but absolute Parliament because they and the Army forcibly secluded the Major part the whole House of Lords and beheaded King Such a grosse Nonsequitur as this is no better justified from Grotius words than this The Army may forcibly seclude all but 5. or 6 of those now sitting or leave Fleetwood and Sir Henry Vane alone Ergo in such a case the whole right and power of the Parliament accrues to them alone and they may sit vote as a Parliament and make what Laws Acts and impose what Taxes Excises they please as Cromwell and his Council did at Whitehall upon the self-same ground Vno absurdo dato mille sequuntur You see now by this time the falshood absurdity and dangerous consequences of Nedhams Atheistical Jesuitical Principles whereon he would bottom the continuance revival justice legality of his pretended Parliament and Republike laying a ground for and encouraging all disorders confusions violences treacheries and villanies whatsoever by the Law of Necessity and the longest sword and what a necessary Tool he is for the party because he can say or print any thing for them though never so false absurd mischievous and yet not be in danger of his head they are his own expressions p. 32. 37. I shall inform him of some other Principles prescribed to all Saints Christians and Souldiers by God and Christ himself which they ought to follow under pain of damnation The first is Mat. 7. 12. All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you do ye even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets The 2. is Mat. 22. 21. Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods The 3. i Luke 3. 14. Do
violence to no man neither accuse any falsly and be content with your wages The 4. is Rom. 13. 7 8. Render therefore to all their dues c. Owe nothing to any man but love one another The 5. is Prov. 24. 21. My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with those who are given to change The 6. is Ps. 4. 8. Whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report do And if he can found his present or former Parliament Republike or Interest will not lie and forecited Conclusions on these Principles I shall be his Proselyte till then I cannot I dare not but renounce them I shall not follow him in his Wild-goose chase any further to prove the old Parliament undissolved and now revived what he writes of * Cromwels Parliaments and Conventions during the preternatural dead Interval from April 53. to May 59. That they had not the legal force and vertue of Parliaments That they were nothing in Law of themselves being creatures of another extraction though he writ the quite contrary in his life-time That the Members of this revived Parliament sitting in them did not own them for legal Parliaments That their sitting in them as Parliaments could not prejudice nor conclude the Body now sitting becanse a body of men in equal power and right cannot be concluded by particular acts done by their own Members without consent of the rest And that though they did not own those Parliaments nor the power that called them yet their many and great complaints of their being secluded from them by force or new Oathes as an infringement of the Peoples right in Parliament were just and they might well complain because their complaint of violation was grounded only upon the General Right inherent in the People will fully manifest the Parliament of King Charles to be fully dissolved by his death notwithstanding any private Members sitting in it afterwards his pretended Parliament of Commons then and now sitting to be no Parliament at all nor yet revived in Law or verity that yet M. Prynne and other Members might justly complain of their forcible seclusion from it in the peoples general inherent right as themselves did when secluded from Cromwels Parliaments which they held void and null And that if it be still in being and was only suspended by Cromwels 6. years force in respect only of the actual exercise of their power not their inherent right which is now revived All the secluded Members Lords and Charls Stewart too ought in right and justice to be recalled and remitted to their rights from which they were forcibly interrupted as well as those now sitting having no legal power ground nor colour to seclude them as I have already proved To cloze up this Question I shall propose this Dilemma to my dissenting Opponents If the old Parliament were totally and finally dissolved by the Kings death as Rogers confesseth and Nedham grants in point of Law and Reason Then those few Commons sitting after his death and now again cannot possibly be a Parliament nor Committee of Parliament in any sence 1. Because never summoned by any writ to any such Parl. as this 2. Because never elected intrusted by the people who elected thē in the old Parliament to sit in this or any other Parliament without a King and House of Lords 3ly Because not new elected by their old electors or any other Counties Cities Boroughs since the Kings death to sit alone as then or now they do 4ly Because permitted desired to sit at first only by the Army-Officers their former mercenary Servants and now invited to sit again only upon some of their motions having no pretence of Law or right to elect or create them a Parliament or Representative of the People of England much lesse then of Scotland and Ireland 5ly Because they are not the fifth part of a Commons House for number or quality by our old Laws Statutes or the new Instrument or Advice most Counties Cities Boroughs of the Nation having not so much as one Knight Citizen or Burgesse in it to represent them and Scotland Ireland none at all and so by the Armies own Declaration at St. Albans their own Agreement of the People and own Votes for An Equal Representative can be no Parliament at all but the highest archest usurpers over the whole Kingdoms Rights and Privileges In the * Parliament of 15 E. 2. in the Act for the Exile of the two Spencers Cl. 15 E. 3. m. 32. dorso the Parliaments of 4 E. 3. rot Parl. n. 1. 28 E. 3. n. 9 10. 21 E. 3. rot Parl. n. 21. 21 R. 2. rot Par. n. 15 16. 22 R. 2. rot Par. n. 3. Plac. Coronae n. 7 to 16. it was adjudged resoved declared by the King and Parliament that the accroaching and usurping of REGAL POWER by the ' two Spencers Roger Mortymer Earl of March the Duke of Glocester Arundel Archbishop of York the Earls of Arundel and others by keeping the Lords Great Men and Counsel of the King from his presence the Parliament and Council by placing and displacing publike Officers at their pleasures By condemning executing Lords and others of the Kings Subjects without his privity by might and power both in and out of Parliament By not permitting the King to hear the petitions and complaints of his Nobles and People and to do them justice against these usurpers oppressions to their own and the Kings disinheriting By compelling the King to grant pardons to Rebells and others who slew his faithfull Lords and Subjects By seising disposing of the Kings Treasure and Revenues at their pleasures and enforcing the King to grant them a Commission to manage his Royal affairs trust and revenues in restraint and derogation of his royal power and prerogative was no lesse than High Treason by Law For some of which encroachments of Regality some of them were Banished others of them Beheaded and Executed as Traytors and their Estates confiscated by Iudgements and Acts of Parliament If then the encroaching and usurping of REGAL POWER in any of these particulars be no lesse than HIGH TREASON by the resolution of these Parliaments then questionlesse the usurpation exercise not only of Regal power in the highest degree in calling creating dissolving Parliaments giving the royal assents to Bils Pardons executing Lords Commons creating publike Officers making new Seals issuing out Writs Commissions making Warr and Peace coyning Money c. but also of Parliamental power too in making new Laws Acts Treasons repealing altering old Lawes and forms of Processe imposing new Taxes Excises Forfeitures Militiaes erecting new Courts Judicatures neither of all which the King can do by his regal Power but in and by the Parliament only wherein both the Power of the King in its highest orb and of all the Lords Commons are united concentred must needs be the highest Treason that
possibly can be committed both against the King Kingdom Parliament Lords Commons People all injured usurped on tyrannized over dishonored and oppressed thereby in the highest degree Which should discourage deterr all those who have any dread of God Men or love to Parliaments and their Native Country from usurping such a power as well for their own as the publick weal If the long Parliament be still in being and now revived as Nedham pleads but proves not at all his own principles evincing the contrary then all the Lords and secluded Members ought in right and Justice to be freely admitted for the premised reasons else those now sitting and acting without them will incurr the guilt of High Treason for Usurping both Regal and Parliamental power by meer force without any Act of Parliament which an express Act of Parliament made by assent of all the 3. Estates cannot transfer unto them as the Statute of 1 H. 4. c. 3. and Parliament of 1 H. 4. rot Parl. n. 25. expresly resolve and I have proved in my Narrative p. 22 23 24. since the Highest regal and Parliamentary trusts for the publike good safety reposed in many by the people cannot be transferred nor delegated unto a few nor the Parliament power trust assigned over any more than the * Regal Having dispatched these grand questions I shall be briefer in the 4th being only this Whether the Oathes of Supremacy Allegiance and Homage to the late King his Heirs and Successors were finally determined by and expired at his death Nedham p. 41 42. and Rogers p. 33. affirming they are because the old form of Kingly Government is lawfully as they say extinguished and a new form introduced and so the Oath impossible because the persons and things to whom they were made are at an end Which opinion having largely refuted in my Concordia Discors proving those Oathes to be still obligatory and binding by unanswerable Scripture-presidents and authorities to which neither of these Antagonists reply one syllable I shall briefly reply to what they object 1. That the frame of our Kingly Government was not legally dissolved but violently and trayterously interrupted only as he saith this Parliament and Republike were by Cromwels intrusion 2ly That by the resolution of our Statutes Judges Laws which admit no Interregnum we have still a Kingdom a King an Heir and Successor to the Crown in actual being though out of actual not legal possession to whom we may and ought to make good our Oathes 3ly That our fellow-members and subjects who took these Oathes as well as we can neither absolve themselves nor us by their perjury or treachery in violating them by their late forcible illegal proceedings and new Ingagement against the King his Heirs and successors 4ly That it is both possible just necessary safe honourable Christian for them and us and our 3. Kingdoms Churches Religion to call in the right heir and successor to the Crown upon honorable Terms there being no obstacle to it but only want of will or the covetousness rapine ambition guilt or fear of punishment in some particular persons in present power against the general desire and interest of our 3. whole Kingdoms Nations endangered embroyled oppressed and well-nigh totally ruined exhausted by his long seclusion 5. That these Objectors and others slighting neglecting violating absolving themselves and others from the conscientious obligation legal performance of these sacred Oathes obliging themselves in particular and the whole Kingdom in general to the late King his Heirs and Successors in perpetuity is no argument of their piety saintship religion fear of God honesty truth justice but of their avowed Atheism Impiety Injustice contempt of God and all his threats judgments denounced inflicted upon Perjured infringers of their Oathes Covenants to their King and others 6ly That for the violation of these Oathes the whole three Kingdoms have deeply mourned suffred in sundry kinds ever since 1648. and are now likely to be ruined by Taxes Contributions Oppressions of all sorts losse of trade unseasonable weather diseases epidemically reigning and other judgements 7ly That Abraham himself the father of all the faithfull swearing by God that he would not deal falsly with Abimelech nor with his Son nor with his Sons son but according to the kindness he had done to Abraham Gen. 21. 23 24 c. and his care to perform his Oath hath justified not only the lawfulness of all our Oathes to the King his heirs and successors but confirmed our Obligation to them all and how conscientiously we ought to perform them without fraud or falshood yea disowning all those from being of his faith or spiritual seed who make little conscience to perform them 8ly Thus as the Apostle resolves Gal. 3. 16 17. That the Covenant made by God to Abraham and his seed in Christ before the Law which was made 430. years after cannot disannull that it should make the Promise of no effect So the New Ingagement made taken after these two Oathes to our New Governors and their late Oath to be Constant as well as True and Faithfull to their new Republike without King or Single person or House of Lords obliging those who take it if binding not only to sundry Perjuries Treasons and constant perseverance in them without repentance cannot disannull these former Oathes to the King his heirs and successors and make them of no effect as Rogers tells us which I have elswhere proved 9ly John Rogers p. 9. informs us that Cleomines the Lacedemonian sware to his friend Archonides that he would do all things joyntly with him and Act nothing without his HEAD were in it After which watching his time he cut off his Companions head and to keep his Covenant after he had par boyled it he kept it by him honored and preserved it and upon every weighty matter or consultation would set his Scull by him and tell it what he purposed saying that he did not violate his Ingagement or break his Oath in the least séeing he did ever take counsel with the head of Archonides and did nothing without it Verily my Antagonists and those Members they plead for have dealt more falsly with the late King Lords and their fellow Members than Cleomines with Archonides they twice Swore Protested Vowed and Covenanted too over and over to be true and faithful to the King and to act all things Ioyntly with him the Lords and their fellow Commons in Parliament and transact nothing without their heads and advice were in it But though afterwards watching their opportunity they cut off the Kings head and some of the Lords as he did his Friends suppressed the whole House of Lords and secluded most of their fellow Commoners yet they do not set either their heads sculls or any of their seeming persons before them in the House when they consult upon every or any weighty matter nor tell them what they purpose And yet they and these their Advocates tell us and
A Brief Necessary VINDICATION Of the Old and New SECLUDED MEMBERS from the false malicious CALVMNIES AND Of the Fundamental Rights Liberties Privileges Government Interest of the Freemen Parliaments People of England from the late avowed Subversions 1. Of John Rogers in his Un-christian Concertation with Mr. Prynne and others 2. Of M Nedham in his Interest will not lie Wherein the true Good Old Cause is asserted the false routed The old secluded Members cleared from all pretended breach of trust The old Parliament proved to be totally dissolved by the Kings death The sitting Juncto to be no Parliament and speedily to be dissolved by the Army-Officers The Oathes of Supremacy Allegiance Fealty to the King his Heirs and Successors to be still binding continuing The New Commonwealth to be the Iesuites Project Ch. Stewart not sworn to Popery as Nedham slanders him The restitution of our Hereditary King and Kingly Government not an Vtopian Republike evidenced beyond contradiction to be Englands true Interest both as Men and Christians and the only way to peace safety settlement By WILLIAM PRYNNE of Swainswick Esq a Bencher of Lincolns-Inne Jer. 51. 9 10. We would have healed ENGLISH BABYLON but she would not be healed forsake her and let us go every one to his own Country for her judgement reacheth unto heaven and is lifted up even to the skies The Lord hath brought forth our righteousness come and let us declare in Zion the work of the Lord our God Ps. 63. 11. But the mouth of them that speak Lies shall be stopped London Printed and are to be sold by Edward Thomas at the Adam and Eve in Little Britain 1659. A brief necessary Vindication of the Old and New secluded Members c. ON the 17. of this instant September during my private retirement in the Country for my health and quiet I received 2. Books fraught with malicious calumnies bitter scoffs insufferable Reproaches against my Self and other secluded Members yea destructive to the very fundamental Rights Liberties Privileges Government Interest of the Freemen Parliaments and Realm of England for which we have so many years contested The 1. of these thus intituled A Christian Concertation with M. Prynne M. Baxter M. Harrington for the true Cause of the Commonwealth c. by J Rogers A most scurrillous Pasquil fraught with absurd impertinencies conjuring canting new-coyned a swelling words of vanity odious comparisons bitter scoffs rayling Epethites b loathsom stinking obscene Queres defiling the very air c boyish tricks playing with mens names and reputations which he d severely censures in others yet is most guilty of himself displaying him to be rather a e conjuring Sorcerer than Gospel-Minister an Apostate scoffing Lucian than sober real Christian standing much in need of the f several Pills he prescribes Mr. Baxster to purge his filthy stomack spleen brain heart pen from such rotten stinking humors for the future almost every page in his book being either g Scandalum Magnum or Scandalum Magnatum to use his own expressions often distilling from him but his h egregious flattery of his own faction The 2. Interest will not lie Or a View of Englands True Interest by Mar Nedham which had he intituled Interest will lie Or a View of Englands False Interest by Mar. England it had been a true Character of it The first most furiously chargeth me and my secluded companions in the Van the later in the Rear The one with whole Vollies of fired squibs more like a Whiffler than a Muskateer shooting nothing but wild-fire and i bitter words without bullets The other like a Trumpeter rather than a Trooper sounding a fierce charge against us with his Trumpet without wounding us with his Lance or Sword which are very obtuse To avoid prolixity impertinence and repetitions I shall reduce all the material Differences between us into 6. distinct Questions wherin I shall refute what they have published relating to my self the other secluded Members the Rights Privileges Interest of our Parliaments and Nation with all possible Brevity omitting their personal scoffs and scurrilities The 1. Question between J. Rogers and Mr. Prynne wherein Nedham hath no share is but this Whether the Defence maintenance of the true Protestant Religion the Kings royal person authority government posterity the privileges and rights of Parliament consisting of King Lords and Commons the Laws Statutes of the Land the Liberty Property of the Subject and peace safety of the Kingdom were the only True and Good Old Cause for which the long Parliament and their Armies first took up Arms in 1642. and continued them till the Treaty with the King 1648. as Mr. Prynne asserts and proves like k a Lawyer by punctual Evidences Witnesses Votes Declarations Remonstrances Ordinances of both Houses yea of the Army-Officers Generals Council during all the wars in his Good Old Cause rightly stated his True and perfect Narrative The Re-publicans and others spurious Good Old cause briefly and truly anatomized and in his Concordia Discors Or whether the erecting of a New Commonwealth and Parliament without a King and House of Lords and Majority of the Commons House upon the ruines of the late King Kingdom Parliament since 1648. to 1653. and the reviving of it May 7. 1659. by some swaying Army-Officers and the farr Minor part of the old Commons House confederating with them by meer armed power secluding the greatest Number of the surviving Members and whole House of Lords Which J. Rogers endeavors to prove like a Logician without any evidence witness but his own Ipse scripsit though l professedly disclamed by both Houses of Parliament and the Army too in sundry printed Declarations as the highest scandal never once entring into their loyal thoughts When this Logician with all his Sophistry Anatomy Pills Physick can make that which was never in being but since 1648. as we all know and himself asserts in his Concertation p. 7 9. to be the Good Old Cause in being m long before the last Parliament of King Charles for whose defence they first took up arms in 1642. Or that cause which never once entred into their thoughts and was professedly disclamed till 1648. to be the cause they proclamed and fought for from the wars beginning he must yeeld up his Spurious Good Old Cause as desperate his scurrillous Goos-quils to use his n own words dashing the GALL of his ink upon Mr. Prynnes former papers to little purpose in this particular but to blot them a little not to answer them a line nor the Argument of them in the least The 2. Question is this Whether Mr. Prynne with the Majority of the Commons House and whole House of Peers were forcibly secluded the Parliament by the Army for any real breach and forfeiture of their trusts in 1648. or ever legally impeached convicted thereof either then or since before any lawfull Judicature This Rogers briefly and not very positively
hopes of future peace settlement and involve us in endless wars changes revolutions as visible sad experience hath evidenced ever since mutinying the common soldiers against us by misreports the very next morning Dec 6. marching with several Regiments of horse and foot to the doors of both Houses guarding all accesses to them where they seised my Self with above 40 Members more at the House door going to discharge their trusts pulled two Members out of the House it self secluded and chased away above 200 Members more besides the Lords whole House And whether the passing of this vote alone after 6. years intestine wars at the earnest desire of our whole 3 Kingdoms almost ruined by them according to our judgements consciences Oaths Protestation Covenant Duty and the trust reposed in us by our electors upon such ample Concessions of Liberty benefit to the Subjects security to Religion and safety to our 3 Kingdoms the Army Parliament all adhering to them as our ancestors selves never formerly possessed expected desired and we never since enjoyed nor can expect under any New Republike or Parliamentary Conventicle whatsoever was a breach of our Parliamentary trusts and a closing with the King upon his own terms and such as within a short time would of necessity have yeelded up betrayed our lives liberties and whole cause contested for into the Kings tyrannical power as these Army-Officers and this impudent Mountebank most scandalously affirm let their own consciences and our whole 3 Nations judge the secured and secluded Members in their Vindication and I in My Speech in Parliament and Epistle before it having so largely resuted it that the Devil himself the a Father of lies would blush to revive such a Lie and Slander as this And how destructive it is and hath been not only to the privileges and freedom but being of Parliaments for Soldiers and those who are no Members without hearing or accusation to pull the Major part of the Members out of the House only for voting according to their consciences after free and full debates against the votes or designs of the lesser inconsiderabler part confederating with the Army let all wise men and the sad effects thereof ever since determin 6ly These Army-Officers never impeached any of the then secluded Members for breach of their trusts to those few sitting Members they left behind of their own party by way of Charge or Article to which they might give a legal answer and be brought to a publike trial and when they were pressed to charge some of them they secured as the greatest Delinquents in this kind with particular breaches of their trusts they answered They had yet no charge at all ready against any of them but hoped to provide one in due time which they never did to this day As for their scandalous Answer Jan 3. being no legal Charge against the Members but a pittiful false excuse of their own breach of trust faith duty in seising and secluding them Mr. Prynne in particular in his Epistle to his Speech and the other Members in their Vindication gave such a satisfactory Answer to all the Calumnies in it as they never yet replyed to And therefore must stand clear from this Scandalum Magnum Magnatum in the sight of God and Man 7ly Sundry of the Members sitting since our seclusion and now again have confessed to me that our seclusion was most unjust and that their forcible seclusions since April 20. 1659. and in 1654. was but a just retaliation and punishment of God upon them for consenting to our unjust seclusion in December 1648. yea a means to deprive us from all future hopes of a free Parliament so long as we had any standing Army in England And yet must we be guilty of breach of trust 8ly Major Packer himself an Anabaptist then and now again a Member of the Army in the last Convention at Westminster publikely acknowledged in the House in a long Speech that he and others of the Army who had a hand in securing and secluding us were seduced and instigated thereunto by Cromwels and Iretons suggestions that wee were dishonest men who pursued our own private interests and the Kings to the prejudice of the publike But afterwards he clearly discerned That we were very honest Gentlemen pursuing nothing but the publike Interest acting according to our consciences and that he had often cryed God mercy in private and did there again and again cry them mercy in publike and hoped they would all forgive him for having a hand in secluding us which he oft repeated And others have acknowledged they were knaved and fooled into this Action by slanderous Misinformations Wherefore malice it self must needs acquit us from this forged Calumny 9ly Those principal Officers of the Army who accused and secluded us as Trust-breakers in Dec. 1648. both accused those who sate from 1648. till April 20. 1653. turned them all out of doors and declared them actually dissolved for sundry years as farr greater Infringers of their Parliamentary trusts than we stiling them in a two printed Declarations A Corrupt party carrying on their own Designs to perpetuate themselves in the Parliamentary and Supreme Authority never answering the ends which God his People and the whole Nation expected from them c. Therefore if their single accusation of us alone by way of Answer which we refuted in print disabled us for ever to sit in the House since 1648. and now again since May 7 1659. by Nedhams and Rogers resolutions and the Army-Officers who secluded us Then much more this their doubled and trebled Accusation against all sitting after our seclusion and now resitting by way of Declaration which they never yet answered must much more disable them now to sit and act again as a House especially without us as Members of that Parliament if continuing still in being 10ly The trust reposed in all Members of the Commons House secluded or unsecluded in the last Parliament of King Charles is punctually expressed comprised in the Writs and Indentures by which they were chosen returned empowred trusted to sit and act as Members by the Commonalties who elected them and in the Oathes of Supremacy and Allegiance which they all took and ought to take by the Statutes of 5 Eliz. c. 1. 7 Jac. c. 6. before they could sit or vote as Members Now this trust was wholly and solely to do and consent to those things which should happen to be ordained by Common Consent of the King Lords and Commons by Common counsel of the Realm concerning certain arduous and urgent affairs touching the Defence State Crowns of the King and his Kingdom and of the Church of England to bear faith and true Allegiance to the King his heirs and successors and him and them to defend with all rights jurisdictions annexed and belonging to the Imperial Crown of England against all attempts and conspiracies whatsoever As the Writs and Returns themselves with all a
Religion the best profession of which I have ever estéemed that of the Church of England in which you have béen educated Yet I would have your own Judgement and Reason now seal to that sacred Bond which education hath written that it may be judiciously your own Religion and not other mens Custome or Tradition which you profess In this I charge you to persevere as coming nearest to Gods word for Doctrine and to the Primitive examples for Government with some little amendment c. Your fixation in matters of Religion will not be more necessary for your Souls than your Kingdoms peace when God shall bring you to them c. If you never see my face again I do require and intreat you as your Father and your King that you never suffer your heart to receive the least check against or disaffection from the Religion established in the Church of England I tell you I have tried it and after much search and many disputes have concluded it to be the best in the world not only in the community as Christian but also in the sperial notion as Reformed keeping the middle way between the Pomp of superstitious Tyranny and the meanness of fantastique Anarchy The scandal of the late Troubles which some may object and urge to you against the Protestant Religion established in England is easily answered to them and to your own thoughts Kéep you to true principles of Piety Vertue and Honour you shall never want a Kingdom For those who repent of any defects in their duty towards me as I fréely forgive them in the word of a Christian King so I believe you will find them truly zealous to repay with Interest that Loyalty and Love to you which was due to me In summe What good I intended do you perform when God shall give you power Next in urging how long he was under the wing of his Mothers instructions in France but a few Moneths space at most and what a Nursery Flanders hath been for him since which is the most Jesuited place in the world as his principal reason to perswade both Papists and Protestants to believe him sufficiently affected if not sworn to Popery as if he had been there educated by his own voluntary election and not necessitated yea forced thither by the Army-Officers and those in late and present power professing themselves the most zealous Protestants and eminentest Saints full sore against his will The General Council of Army-Officers in their Remonstrance of Novemb. 20. 1648. presented to the Commons House as they demanded the King to be brought to speedy Justice so they propounded That the Prince and Duke of York might be declared uncapable of any trust or government in this Kingdom or any Dominions thereunto belonging and thence to stand Exiled for ever as Enemies and Traytors and to die without mercy if ever taken or found within the same After his Fathers beheading when he was called in and crowned King by his Protestant Subjects in Scotland where he took the Solemn League and Covenant according to their Oaths Covenant Duty Laws and principles of the reformed Religion our Republican Grandees and their Gen. Cromwel by a bloudy unchristian unbrotherly invasive war expelled and kept him out thence and out of England too and all his other Dominions by force of arms after the battel of Worcester Septemb. 3. 1651. From whence he was forced to fly disguised to save his life into France where he landed at Newhaven Octob. 2. and some weeks after departed into Holland to the Princess of Orange his Sister a Protestant residing with her and other Protestants there remote from the company and seducements of his Mother and all Jesuites Papists that might any wayes seduce him in his religion living wholly upon the charity of forein Protestants his own Protestant Subjects then and since swaying being so stupendiously unjust uncharitable as not to allow him or his Brothers one farthing out of all the Lands and Revenues of his 3. Kingdoms for their necessary support in forein parts and making it High Treason for any of his Protestant Subjects to contribute any thing towards their support in this their distressed condition so conscientiously did they practise these Gospel precepts Mat. 5. 44 45. c. 22. 21. Rom. 12. 13 19 20 21. c. 13. 1 to 12. c. 15. 26 27. 1 Cor. 16. 1. Matt. 25. 34 35 36 37. for which they may justly expect that fatal sentence v. 40 to 46. Yet not content herewith to deprive Him his Brethren and followers both of the relief company comfort of all their Protestant Friends and Allies in the Netherlands and force them thence into Popish Quarters to the hazard of their Souls as well as Lives exasperate them all against the Protestant Religion and enforce them if possible unto Popery they engaged themselves and the English Nation not only in a most unchristian bloudy costly destructive warr with our antient Protestant Brethren of Scotland til they had totally subdued them but also with our old Protestant allies of the Netherlands which war continued from Jan. 1651. til April 1654. almost to the ruin of both Nations then O. Cromwel concluded a Peace with the Dutch on these terms sufficiently evidencing the true ground end of that bloudy war That Charls Stuart with his Brothers followers adherents should be forthwith banished out of the Low Countries and none of them permitted to reside there or return thither again Upon which by command from the States these distressed Exiles were forced to remove into France much against their wills having no other place of safety to retire themselves to where they enjoyed the company of their Mother and relief of their Popish allies as likewise the comfortable Christian Society Charity assistance of their French Protestant Friends Churches Ministers Ministry to confirm edifie them in the Reformed Religion which Cromwell and their English inveterate Enemies maligning endeavoured to expell them thence and by quarrelling with the French and entring into an intimate League with Cardinal Mazarine by the agency of Sir Kenelm Digby a Jesuited Papist concluded a Peace with France in Novemb. 1655. upon this condition That Ch. Stuart with all his brothers followers adberents should be forthwith removed out of France and all the French Kings Dominions and not permitted to return or reside therein Being thus driven out of Holland and France from the Society of all Protestants they were necessitated sore against their wills to cast themselves upon the protection and charity of the Spaniard and fly into Flanders having no place else to rest their heads and there to sojourn among Papists and Jesuites in great danger and extreme necessity where to their immortal Honour the Admiration of all true Protestants and Papists too and the Envy of their Protestant malicious persecutors who forced them thither they constantly adhere to and publikely professe the Protestant Religion and will not be seduced from it to Popery notwithstanding the
manifold affronts injuries provocations reproaches persecutions of some of their own Protestant Subjects their exile from their Protestant Kingdoms their Protestant Friends in France Holland their extreme pressing necessities and the frequent sollicitations arguments perswasions promises temptatious of Priests Jesuites Papists and Popish Princes a to turn Papists as the only means to regain their rights and restore Ch. Stuart to his Crowns and Kingdoms Now that this his forced Exile into France and Flanders by a prevailing party of his own Protestant Subjects against all their Oathes Protestations Vowes Covenants Remonstrances Declarations Allegiances Duties our Known Laws the practice of all the primitive Christian and other Protestant Churches the principle of Christian Religion and of our own Protestant Church both in our Articles Homilies Canons Writers Liturgies and his forced sojourning there amongst Jesuites Papists with his grand necessities of which they have been the only Authors to their own eternal infamy and intollerable scandal dishonour shame reproach of our Protestant Kingdoms Churches Religion enforcing him to cry out with holy King David when forced by Saul and his rebellious Son Absolom out of his Kingdom from Gods Ordinances among Pagan Idolaters Ps. 120. 5. Wo is me that I sojourn in Mesech that I dwell in the tents of Kedar My soul hath long dwelt with them that hate peace c. should be thus objected against him by this rayling Shimei and the Authors of it over and over as a convincing evidence that he is sufficiently affected if not sworn to Popery notwithstanding his open constant avowed profession of the Protestant Religion to the admiration of the world the joy of all true Protestants and Gods great glory as well as his own and made now a motive to excite his Protestant Subjects in this juncture of time and revolution of affairs to take up arms afresh against him to keep him still in exile amidst Jesuits Papists and hinder his restitution to his hereditary Kingdoms and the benefit of Gods Ordinances among his own Protestant Subjects for his and their preservation and of the reformed Religion now much endangered by intestin wars the policies of Jesuits and combination of the Pope and Popish Princes to be totally extirpated throughout the world is not only a most unparalleld piece of malice and calumny but the very quintessence of Jesuitism and Jesuitical policy The rather because all our Protestant Bishops Ministers Martyrs in Queen Maries daies when imprisoned by her for their Religion though restored to her Crown against the usurpations of Queen Jane a Protestant by their assistance and the a Suffolk Protestants quorum propter Religionis causam propensissimus favor Janae adfuturum inde sperabatur by their joynt Letter to all their Protestant Brethren recorded in b Mr. Fox not only declared Queen Maries open obstinate profession of Popery to be no just cause in Law or Conscience to keep her from her hereditary Right to the Crown but likewise humbly required and in the bowels of our Lord Jesus Christ beseeched all that feared God to behave themselves as obedient Subjects to Her Highness and the Supreme powers ordained under Her and rather after their example to give their Heads to the block than in any wise to rebell against the Lords Anointed Quéen MARY in no point consenting to any Rebellion or Sedition against Her Highness Much lesse then ought his slight suggestions of Ch. Stuarts secret inclination to Popery against his constant avowed profession of Protestantism in the very midst of the most Jesuited Papists to be any argument at all for his Protestant Subjects not to assist but to rise up and rebell against him to keep him from the Crown 3ly The extraordinary sottishnesse and infatuation of those Protestants who will be cheated seduced by such Jesuitical suggestions calumnies as Nedham and others have published of him touching his inclination to Popery to withdraw their affections assistance from him either to supply his necessities or restore him if not to his hereditary Civil Rights yet at least to the comfortable fruition of Gods Ordinances and Christian Society in our Protestant Churches and Kingdom for his spiritual Consolation and Salvation 4ly The most barbarous infernal matchlesse malice of those degenerated Republican and Army-Saints professing themselves Stars of the greatest Magnitude in the Protestant Orb in expelling their undoubted natural hereditary Protestant King not only out of all his own Protestant Realms Dominions but likewise out of Holland and France where he lived in exile and had the relief and society of Protestants into Flanders the most Jesuited place in the world as Nedham prints where are none but Papists enforcing him there to live upon their alms alone and keep him there in Exile on purpose to necessitate him with his Brothers followers adherents to renounce the Protestant Religion and party and become professed Papists to destroy murder his and their souls and bodies at once and deprive him of his eternal Crown in heaven as well as of his temporal Crowns on earth a Be astonished ô heavens and be ye horribly afraid at this unpresidented Tyranny and Treachery the highest Malignity of Jesuitism and express revived Image of the Jesuites design against his Grandfather King Henry the 4. of France who shifting his religion by the Jesuites perswasion to secure his Crown and Life against their malicious designs was soon after b by their instigation deprived of both if not of his eternal Crown by a stab through his heart by one of their disciples though he had bequeathed his heart to them by will and built them a magnificent College richly indowed by him with lands and plate If then c the tree as Christ himself resolves may be certainly known by its fruits we may easily judge from whence these rotten bitter fruits of Jesuitism originally sprung and who were the planters of those trees which bear them But if they cannot effect this infernal design to destroy his Soul and body together yet they will make use of it to murder his reputation and render him a suspected if not a devoted proselyte to Popery to debarr his return to his Protestant Kingdoms d And shall not God visit for these sins Shall not his Soul be avenged on such a Nation as this I shall add a 4th Evidence I only pointed at e before worthy special observation which will fully answer the late printed Sheet intituled A clear Vindication of Roman Catholicks from a foul aspersion cast on them by Mr. Prynne and Mr. Baxster as if they made and headed Sects had a powerful influence upon the Army in relation to their proceedings against the late King and Changes to reduce us under the power of ROME which the namelesse Author saith the chiefest of their Clergy and Laity with whom he hath spoken protest to be a black Calumny Mr. P. and Mr. B. do neither of them charge the Roman Catholicks in general but only the Jesuites
All of them kissing the Kings left cheek The Homage being ended they all touch the Crown with their hands by way of Ceremony as promising to support it with all their power Which done they All holding up their hands together in token of their Fidelity with one voyce on their knees say We offer to sustein and defend you and your Crown with our Lives lands and goods against all the world and with one voyce cry God save King CHARLES Which all the people follow with reiterated shouts and acclamations After the Coronation of every King and of our last King Charles in all Churches Chapels and religious Families throughout his Dominions and in both Houses of Parliament every day they sate as well after as before the wars constant publique and private prayers were continually made to like effect for Him and His royal posterity as the Liturgy Collects in the Book of Common Prayer the Directory it self the Practice of Piety and other Prayer-books prescribing forms of Prayer for private persons and Families morning and evening and every mans experience attest yea such was our zeal and devotion in this kinde that most persons concluded all their Graces before and after meat with this prayer or the like in effect God save his Church our King Prince the Royal issue and Realms God send us peace in Christ our Lord Amen As being Englands true Interest both as Men and Christians How can how dare we then unpray renounce abjure engage subscribe vote fight against all those publike private prayers Graces we thus constantly fervently made to God for sundry years together and the Oathes Homage Fealty Protestation Solemn League and Covenant we successively swore in the name presence of Almighty God with hands and hearts lifted up to him by praying engaging subscribing voting fighting against the Kings right Heir Successor and Royal Issue and banishing dishinheriting renouncing abjuring secluding them out of all our Churches Prayers Realms for ever to set up an Vtopian Republike without * mocking God himself to his very face willfully violating this Evangelical precept contradicting the practice of all the Churches Saints of God in all ages places yea disclaiming Englands publike with our own private Interest and forfeiting our own eternal Interest in heaven as we are Saints and Christians I beseech all Christian Englishmen in the name and fear of God most seriously to consider and lay it close to their consciences without delay and examin how they can justifie excuse it either to God or man 3ly By the extraordinary inundation growth increase of all sorts of Blasphemies Heresies Errors Religions Sects Atheism Irreligion prophanesse contempt rejection denial of Gods word Sacraments Ministers Ordinances Prayer singing of Psalms Catechising repetition of Sermons Apostacy Lukewarmnesse Hypocrisie Perjury Spiritual and outward pride effeminacy luxury whoredom incest hypocrisie formality envy hatred malice back-biting slandering sacrilege libertinism covetousness oppression cruelty all sorts of sins and wickednesses whatsoever The strange decay decrease of true real Christian zeal piety devotion saith love charity brotherly kindnesse heavenly-mindednesse contempt of the world fear of Gods threatnings judgements and all other Christian graces virtues substractions of Ministers Tithes Dues Glebes Rewards Pensions Benefices Augmentations scorned reviled railed against disturbed persecuted by Sectaries Quakers sequestred suspended ejected silenced by Arbitrary Committees as meer Tenants at will of their Ministry and Freeholds ever since the abolishing of Kings their Nursing-Fathers by those various Step-Fathers and Plunderers of the Church and Ministers who have hitherto succeeded them and given publike toleration protection to all Religions Sects Seducers almost to the total extirpation of the true Orthodox Reformed Religion throughout our Dominions To this I shall adde that as there neither is nor can be any possible ease or cure of dislocated fractured joints bones limbs in the natural body nor restitution of health and soundnesse to it by any unguents cerots balms bolsters or artifices whatsoever but only by the timely speedy restitution of every bone joynt member to its proper place and keeping them therein by strong astringent medicaments and ligaments So all our new State-physicians Chirurgions a Politicians Councils at Westminster Whitehall or in the Army with all their art skill for near 12. years space together by all their New-projected models of Republikes Parliaments Governments since the abolishing Kings and Kingship could not hitherto ease cure or restore to health the inverted broken bodies of our Church State which have grown every year more and more consumptive convulsive decrepit incurable disquieted tormented and lie now at the very point of death under all their several applications as we feel by sad experience because they have not endeavoured to restore the fractured dislocated chief Members bones joynts thereof to their proper places but laboured all they could to keep and put them further out When as there neither is nor can be any probable or possible way of restoring ease health soundnesse safety prosperity to them but by a speedy restauration of their lawfull hereditary Head and Noblest Members to their due places offices in them This consideration not only the secured and secluded Members made the ground-work of their premised Vote Decemb. 5. 1648. upon the long Debate but likewise both Houses Kingdoms and those now sitting together with them the basis of their Protestation League Covenant Petitions to and Treaties with the late King and of these two Memorable Protestations Passages in their b Declarations of October 22. and Novemb. 2. 1642. worthy consideration We the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled do in the presence of Almighty God for the satisfaction of our Consciences and the Discharge of that great trust which lies upon us make this Protestation and Declaration to the Kingdom and Nation and the whole World That no private passion or respect no evil intention to his Majesties person no design to the prejudice of his Just Honor and Authority engaged us to raise forces or take take up Arms against the Authors of this war wherewith the Kingdom is now enflamed and We have alwaies destred from our hearts and souls manifested in our astions and proceedings and in several humble Petitions and Remonstrances to his Majesty professed our Loyalty and obedience to his Crown readiness and resolution to defend his Person and support his Estate with our lives and fortunes to the uttermost of our power And by our loyal affections actions and advice lay a sure and lasting foundation of the greatness and prosperity of his Majesty and his royal posterity in future time Mark their reason For though the happiness of this and all other Kingdoms dependeth chiefly upon God Yet we acknowledge that it doth so mainly depend upon His Majesty and the Royal Branches of that Root that as we have heretofore so we shall hereafter esteem no hazard too great no reproach too vile but that we shall willingly go through the one and undergo
the other that we and the whole Kingdom may enjoy that happiness which we cannot in an ordinary way of providence expect from any other Fountain or Streams than those from whence were the poyson of evil Counsels once removed from about them we doubt not but we and the whole Kingdom should be satisfied most abundantly The Philosopher * Seneca asserts That all Nations are most ready not only to guard and defend their King though old or decrepit but to preserve his life with the hazard of thousands of their own not out of any basenesse or frenzie but because it is their own interest and safety Ille est enim vinculum per quod Respublica cohaeret ille spiritus vitalis quem haec tot millia trahunt nihil ipsa per se futura nisi onus praeda si mens illa imperii subtrahatur * Rege incolumi mens omnibus una Amisso rupêre fidem Hic casus Romanae I may add Anglicae pacis exitium erit hic tanti fortunam populi in ruinas aget Tamdiu ab illo periculo aberit hic populus quamdiu sciat ferre fraenos quos si aliquando abruperit vel aliquo casu discussos reponi sibi passus non erit haec unitas et hic maximi Imperii contextus in partes multas dissiliet idemque huic urbi Dominandi finis erit qui parendi fuerit which we have found true by sad experience Ideo Principes Regésque non est mirum amari ultra privatas etiam necessitudines Nam si sanis hominibus publica privatis potiora sunt sequitur ut is quoque carior sit in quem se Respublica convertit Olim enim ita se induit Reip Caesar ut diduci alterum non possit sine utriusque pernicie nam ut illi viribus opus est ita et huic capite Therefore let Nedham Rogers or other Pseudo-politicians scrible what they please to flatter any prevalent ambitious covetous faction or Grandees whatsoever yet if all our antient Parliaments Lords Commons Seneca our own experience God himself or Solomon the wisest of men of Kings may be credited Prov. 24. 21. c. 28. 2. Eccles 8 2 3. c. 12 13. Hos. 10. 3 7. Hab. 1. 10 14 15. Ezech. 37. 19 to 28. Zach. 9. 9. Lam 4. 20. there is no other probable safe speedy way to prevent our ruine cloze up our breaches settle our Church State upon lasting foundations and recover their pristine honor wealth peace unity prosperity but by restoring our hereditary King and Kingship the real Interest of all England and of Scotland and Ireland too both as Men and Christians which we ought in prudence justice conscience dutie pietie loyaltie now zealously constantly unanimously to pursue against all contradictions oppositions of any private persons parties self-interests whatsoever who if they had any true fear of God any conscience of their former Oathes Protestations Vows Covenants Declarations Remonstrances any Loyaltie to their hereditarie King any bowels of compassion or cordial affection to their Native Countries peace safety ease settlement or zeal to the Reformed Religion would like that heroick publike spirited Pagan Roman Emperor * Otho chuse rather to make a voluntary sacrifice of themselves and all their usurped power as he did against all the dissuasions of his Army Soldiers Friends relinquishing the Empire to Vitellius his competitor than imbroil the Empire and Romans any longer in bloudy destructive wars not against Hannibal Pyrrhus or any other common Enemies of Rome but against the Romans themselves wherein both the Conquerors and conquered did but weaken ruine and destroy their own Country Nation by their contests and make themselves a derision prey to their forein Enemies as our Grandees do now For the Negative That the late revived yet unformed Commonwealth and its future establishment to prevent a Relapse to Kingly Government neither is nor can be Englands true interest as men or Christian is evident by the premises and these ensuing Reasons 1. It never was once in imagination or projection of the Parliament or Army before the year 1648. but only of the Jesuites Campanella and our Spanish French Popish adversaries purposely to ruine our Protestant Kings Kingdom Religion 2. It was professedly disclamed * voted declared against as Treasonable and destructive to the being of Parliaments and fundamental Government of the Kingdom when objected by the Kings party 1642. and propounded to the House by the Levellers and Agitators by both Houses of Parliament and the General Council of Officers in the Army in June July August November 1647. 3. The Commonwealth contested for as Englands Interest is as yet but only Ens in potentia or meer Chaos a rudis indigestaque moles b without form and void and darkness is upon the face of it the chief Sticklers for it being not yet accorded what kinde of creature it shall be and much divided both in their debates judgements affections opinions concerning it Some would have it to be an c Aristocraty others a Democraty many a Theocraty some an Oligarchy Many are for a Roman some for an Athenian others for a Lacedemonian not a few for a Venetian another partie for a Helvetian or Dutch Commonwealth Some for a vast body with two heads others for a head with two bodies a third sort for a body without any head printing against each others models with much eagerness Now that such an Individuum vagum rude Chaos and Commonwealth as this not yet agreed upon should be Englands Interest and THE GOOD OLD CAUSE as Rogers Nedham Harrington and others would make men believe is not only a Fancy but Frenzy to assirm seeing Englands Interest was ever in being since it was a Kingdom and their Vtopian Republike like the Chymists Philosophers-stone never yet in esse but in fieri or fancy at the most and a meer NEW NOTHING as their Mercuries inform us 4ly The late unshaped revived Commonwealth and pretended Free State at its first erection like a prodigious All devouring unsatiable Monster raised our monethly contributions from 30. to one hundred and sixscore thousand pounds contribution each moneth and since its new revival hath raised a whole years tax upon our exhausted purses in 3. Months space and then imposed no lesse than one hundred thousand pounds each Moneth in lieu of the former 35 thousand besides Excises Customs New intollerable Militiaes amounting to thrice as much more Besides it consumed all the Crown-lands Church-lands publike Revenues of our 3. Kingdoms with thousands of Delinquents estates all alienated dissipated being more expensive oppressive wastefull to our Nation in ten years space than all our Kings since the Norman Conquest or Saxon line only to make us greater slaves to our late Mercinary Army Servants Fellow Subjects than ever we were to our beheaded King or any of his roial predecessors whose a loyns were nothing so heavy as their little finger chastising us with