THE ARMIES Vindication of this last CHANGE WHEREIN Is plainly Demonstrated the Equity Power and Right of the Army to settle these Nations upon the Foundations of Righteousnesse and Freedome TOGETHER With Answers to the most material Objections made against them I will also make thy Officers Peace and thy Exactors Righteousnesse Esa 60. v. 17. Published by special Command LONDON Printed by T. M. and are to be sold at the Grey-hound in Paul's Church-yard 1659. The Armies Vindication of this last Change THe late King by his Writ called the long Parliament and that not by any voluntary act of his own but as forced thereunto by the coming of the Scots with an Army into England This Representative thus Convened were the Body of the People of whom he was Head But afterward the King instead of joyning himself with this great Counsell through pretended fears and jealousies did most unnaturally separate and estrange himself from it withdrawing Protection from the People forfeited all obedience due to him as King For as much as he betook himself to force and acts of open Hostility by setting up his Standard by which he put himself into the condition of a private Person laying claim to no more than he could purchase to himself by force and Military Power Thus wholly laying aside his Civill Government turning it into a Military at length he as Saul perished by his own sword by sheathing it in the bowels of his own body politick By this means the Parliament became possessors of the Soveraignty Greatness Honour and riches of the King whereby there was a plain transmitting or translating of power from the King to the Parliament the peoples Representatives who at that time was as a nursing Mother to succour and tenderly embrace the well-affected and good people of the Nation by which means the hearts and affections of all the people of God in the land were gathered up to and went along with them because they were a Bulwark to keep Tyranny and Oppression from all that did adhear unto them and gave encouragement and Protection in the external Exercise of Religion and the service of God These things not being forgotten we cannot but mention the long Parliament with Honour The Parliament not being able to go on in their work without the assistance of an Army were forced to make several Appeals to the people whose Representatives they were and those of them that were well-affected to the cause of Religion and Liberty willingly accepted of the Parliaments Call and did joyn a helping hand by concurrance of their good affections and prayers also by their purses and persons to carry on the great work that was on foot The Parliament being thus constrained to constitute a Military body different from their own and to make a Power of much greater force and strength than that which was Civill The power and greatness of the Parliament did hereby necessarily descend into the Army and the good people thus called to their assistance and adhearing to them and they themselves became a lesser and more inferiour power by pouring out and devolving their greatness and strength into another Society of men more formidable than themselves and their acting as it were in away of subserviency to them for what considerable thing did the Parliament else but to raise money for the Army and supply it with such necessaries that were sutable to their work and designe The Army being thus taken out of the good people of the land and united in such a formidable body obtained great Victories and successe and through the rich mercy and blessing of God overcame all their Enemies in the three Nations the King and his party together with the Irish and Scots were wholly subdued This being done there was no legall form of civill Government left the King being taken away both in Person and Office the House of Lords dissolved the Soveraignty must needs fall into the hands of the People from whence it first sprange The Kings party and such as were Neuters having lost their Right and Priviledge the good people imbodied in an Army together with those that adheared to them must of undoubted right be receptable of all Power and Soveraignty For all greatnesse and Authority that takes its rise from the people when its shattered and broken must necessarily return thither again as retyring to its true Centre As the Sap of a Tree after it hath put forth it self into the Branches and comes to be nipt by Winter storms its course is to sink down again into the root so it fares with all Governments Honours and greatnesse in the world when they are broken and ruined they dissolve into their first principle and beginnings The principal thing to be cleared is that the Soveraignty should resolve it self more into the people imbodied in an Army than into the peoples Representatives in Parliament To evince this consider that the Parliament had no legall Constitution or Right to Government by any law of this Nation that 's most evident the Office and Person of the King being taken away the House of Lords being dissolved as I said before It was not in the power of the Commons being but a third State in the Government to Constitute themselves a Commonwealth without some new act of the people to make them so unlesse they had a Power of themselves inherent that they might doe such things as was never intrusted them by those that chose them The Kings Writ calling them and the Peoples election waxed old and antiquated as out of date And hence their standing as a Government after the death of the King was onely as they were upheld by the power and necessity of the Army and when they were of no farther use to the Nation they were by the Army gently laid aside and the great approbation the people gave to their dissolution did clearly recall their former elections and all further trust reposed in them The next thing is to prove that the Army is the principall body of the People in whom the Soveraignty doth at present reside That such a power should naturally descend into the Army and much superiour to that of the Parliament that raised them will appear by all humane and divine reason I. The Members of the Army for the most part of them were raised out of the ordinary and common bulk of the people which are the greatnesse and strength of the Nation in whom lies the greatest and the most common Interest of the whole with all its concernments II. The Army were such as did answer the call of the Parliament when they made their appeal to the people for to judge of their Cause Now to whom I make an appeal I make him superiour to my self I set him as a Judge and Lord over me thus did the Parliament by their Declarations to the people calling upon them to be Judge of their own Rights and Liberties These of the Army being more valiant than others in
the great concernments of the Nation they have the just title of the people of England having interposed between the peoples Rights and Liberties and that slavish Tyranny that was breaking in upon them III. The Army are a constitution of more vigor and strength than any other the Parliament of it self could act but in a low weak inconsiderable way their greatest Authority lying in the Camp The Military Sword being alwayes more sharp than that of the Civill more able to do justice and to give protection than any Civil Sword or instituted power could The Parliament had the form but the Army had the power of the highest administration of justice as having more intrinsical and fundamental strength in it than any other The Malignants felt the power and by experience know that this is true Could the Parliament overcome the King beat him out of the field bring him to tryall and execution but by the power of an Army by this its undeniable that the power of the people thus formed into an Army are the strongest power IV. A Fourth consideration proper for this is that the Army are the people in an active body not in a bulky heavy sluggish heap but the people gathered up into heart and union filled with spirit and life for work of their generation very usefull and active men of publique spirits carrying the interest of the people of God and the good of the Nation in their aim and eye To this may be added the concurrence of the hearts and affections prayers and good desires of the honest party of the Nation going along with them these have contributed their best assistance to help them in their progress Although of late many partly through weaknesse and passion or divisions and factions amongst them and partly from the Armies miscarriages and apostacies have been offended with them but when the Lord shall blow away these mists and lead forth the Army in the ways of righteousness he will lead his people back to their former hearty concurrence of their affections to and their prayers for them As being such in whom the Lord hath treasured up their great interest with their Lives and Liberties V. There is a peculiar right of Government or power due to them in the Army in that they have ventured their bloud and have with the Jeopards of their lives rescued themselves and the honest party of this Nation from Tyrany and have purchased Liberty both civill and spiritual with the price of bloud so that God and Nature have put Authority into their Hands The former slavish Government that denied Liberty to men as men and to Christians as Christians being thrown down by them the priviledg of Rule belongs therefore to honest men as such and to the Army as such by the most undoubted Right that can be imaginable VI. I shall add one thing more and that is the designation of providence which first brought forth the honest people of this Nation into a Military body and that distinct from the Civill power and these accompanied with many signal Deliverances Victories and successes the produce and issue whereof doth entitle the Army and honest People to the most unquestionable Right of Power Government in these Nations I would not by all this draw men to adore an Army or arme of flesh but the Lord in the midst of his People whether in the Army or without all the Saints in the Land are the Army of God they are publique persons that minde a publick good and have all one Common interest These are the men God hath designed for Government Thus we may plainly see where the Power and Right of Government is seated in the good People and especially to those in the Army who was pleased to recall the Members of Parliament to a further exercising of their Trust formerly reposed in them this the Army did at least tolerate or condescend unto though this act of theirs did not proceed so much from judgement and wisdome as from urgency and necessity being tossed to and fro by the vicissitudes and changes of things and being in some darkness having at that time no better thing in their eye they chose this as the next expedient hoping some good might have been done by them but sinding that instead of going forward to settle the Nation they were carried on to many precipitate actings to throw down many things done in point of Reformation and not onely so but they went about to destroy and alter the whole Conduct of the Army though they were the very legs that bore them up and the Power that called them together And when the greatest part of the Nation was ready to rise up against them the Army onely did interpose by their power to uphold them Now if the Army had power to gather them they had also power to scatter them for the same power that sets up may pull down it was no breach of law to dissolve them that sat by no law Especially when their proceedings were Diametrically opposite to those ends for which they were called The Army a Military body so owned of God united in strength and courage carried forth with just and honest intentions standing upon their own feet being a distinct power raised by God by his immediate power for it was not the King that called the Parliament but his necessity neither was it the Parliament that raised the Army but their streights and both these as the product of providence and not the intentions of either the one or the other of them If then this Army being the ordinance and appointment of God to secure our Liberties and Lives should have given back their power to the Parliament as once the Parliament would have given theirs to the King it had been the highest breach of trust that could be imaginable both to God and his people And surely the Lord would have brought deliverance some other way and would have left them their houses to have been trodden under foot at the lusts and wills of men the foot of pride should have trampled on them like mire in the streets I shall now come to Answer all the materiall Objections that I can think of that are made against the past and present proceedings of the Army Object 1. The first is this The Army owned the Parliament as the Supream Authority received Commissions from them and called themselves their Servants Answ The Parliament were the Supream Authority of the Nation only as the Army did own them so but as the Army did set them up tollerate and condescend to their Authority for a time yet by no act did confirm or perpetuate them nor I believe never intended it The Army having so much of Power and Government devolved upon them as we have already shewen having the life the spirit the vertue of all the good People gathered up into a military body and being of publique spirits for the good of the honest interest in the Nation It
s beyond question to ask by what law or Authority the Army could dissolve the Parliament they were obedient while they set them in Power over them but when they thought of changing their Masters they might do it without breach of any law where there is no law there is no transgression And had the good People known the bottom of the Parliaments proceedings and how they were about to espouse a National Interest intending to have thrown the Government upon the spirit of the Nation no question but all unbyassed good men in the Nation would have concurred as much with the Army in this last breach as in the former but here one precipitant action draws on another and many mens judgments were surprised in this last action of dissolving the Parliament more than in the former But when good men have their eyes open to see that their Lives and Liberty their safety and security is wrapt up with the Armies Interest as ever the peoples did in King and Parliaments No question but as one piece as one body as one soule and spirit they will agree to such a Government as may best secure their own safety and the good of the whole Nation That which causes men of carnall and earthly minds to rage and fret and to strive like a Bull in a net because we setle not upon a worldly foundation a Constitution that may take in the spirit of the Nation in all its filth and corruption in all its malignity and enmity that we may not make up a Heterogeneall body a mixture of Iron and Clay What were this but to return to Aegypt to the Oynions and Garlick a going back to the house of bondage to be intangled with the customes and manners of Aegypt this were but to be brought to the place where we first begun and so to suffer loss yea all the price of Blood and Treasure the fruit of all the Prayers and Teares that have been spent but the way is to go forward we must to Canaan the Land of peace and truth of righteousness and justice and short of this we must not sit down Object 2. In the second place Some charge the Army of a second Apostacy and back sliding which they seemed of late to repent off and that they confessed they lost the presence of God ever since they first interrupted the Parliament Answ That the Presence of God went a long time with the Actions of the Parliament this is acknowledged by all good people as well as by the Army and this was one of the grounds of the Armies inviting it to sit this last time but that they lost the presence of God by breaking the Parliament or ever since they were broken this was never acknowledged by the Army they must then have been fals to their own experience for all know that the good people did as much rejoyce at the Parliaments first breaking as at any act of Providence that had been done amongst us and the presence of God appeared much more in the time of the Little Assembly than in the latter end of the long Parliament But the Apostasies and backslidings the Army did bewaile was for dancing after the pipe of a single Person and together therewith espousing a worldly Interest and so building up the broken walls of the City Jericho that they made them a Calf in the Wildernesse this was the sin of the then General and the Army though most of the Army were passive as to the setting up of such a Single Power But the last act of Apostacy in the Army was to give a new Resurrection to this Parliament which was so signally disowned of God and his people long before not but there were good things and good men found in it but what was this but to return to Aegypt for help Why doe we speak so high for a Parliament is it not a worldly Constitution a Body sitted for a King the Interest of the Nation not of the people of God and every whit as Babylonish as Kingship it self at best the most of them are men of estates under some prudent qualifications This Constitution hath been excellent in its season and while there was life and power in it we could not but honour it but that having been the hand that brought us out of Aegypt into the Wildernesse it must die at mount Nebo it cannot carry us into the land of Rest and Settlement to strive about it is to raise the body of Moses to honour a dead Carcasse to repair a broken Idoll that can no longer be the Interest of the kingdome of Christ or his people I would not be mistaken as if I had not great respects for those Members in this last Parliament that were worthy I speak not against their Persons but am only shewing the weaknesse of a worldly Constitution I do desire in my heart that those who were Members would come a little beyond that old form of Government and espouse themselves with the Cause they have heretofore managed and to act under such a Form of Government that Providence shall designe which by love and union may prove much more comfortable and safe both for them and us Object 3. Again it s commonly said that the Army is bound to subject to such as raise monies and pay them Answ For Answer hereunto It s well known that this Army for the most part of them took up Arms out of Judgment and Conscience and not as a Mercenary Army but who goeth a warfare at his own charge If the Pay of the Army should make them serve the wils and lusts of men and let go the Interest of good men they could not answer the end of their pay it is rather the end should commen surate the action and will more doe so than the means can direct to the end and it is not so considerable who pays the Army as for the Army to consider wherefore they are paid If they keep their eye to the right end the safety and Liberty of honest men this will more crowne their actions then to serve the humours of such as pay them The Malignant Neuter and malecontent cry out against Taxes excise not so much from the Burthen of them as from their enmity against the Army who are as a girdle of strength to the righteous in the Land and a bank to keep out that sea of misery that an inraged enemy would inflict upon them But when shall we hear any of these men complaine of the corruption of the Courts of Justice or of the oppression of the common Lawyers Who sell the poor for shoos and the needy for silver Little complaint is made of these though I am very confident they pick as much monies out of the pockets of poor people as would in a very great measure maintain the Armies in the three Nations this oppression men love and plead for as being most natural to them as most suitable to an old corrupt interest But I
was by an Executive Authority the Parliament took upon them while they owned themselves to be the Legislative power going about to turn out Nine Eminent Officers upon a Criminal Account without any tryal or so much as a hearing it being a high piece of Injustice so to do The old Protector would alwayes labour to satisfie any dissenting Officer before he would dismiss him from his Command If these Nine had gone off quietly they should suddenly have had more fellow-sufferers the design being to breake the whole Conduct of the Army who had as it were a natural Right to their Places being such as had hazarded their lives and the like Now for these to have suffered themselves to be thus trodden under foot and together with themselves the interest of all good people had been a greater crime then can at this time be laid to their charge 8. Object In the next place 't is said by some That if self-love particular interest and necessity had not stirr'd the general good would not so much moved them To this I answer Ans First as to self-love as 't is mentioned in 2 Tim. 3.2 is an Evil when it is either fixed on wrong object or runs after a good object inordinately But self-love in its due latitude and measure is no sin but a virtue rather because 't is made the Rule whereby we must regulate our love to others Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self If then it be a duty that I love another it is also necessary I should love my self This Principle of self-love duly regulated is so necessary that the World could not subsist without it for from the same Principle that I love my self I love another and if I did not love my self I would not love mankind for that I love my own flesh my life my good name and the like from the same principle I com to love the body the life the credit of another so that take away Self-love self-preservation and you take away mercy love and tenderness out of the World No man ever so hated his own flesh as to suffer it to be trodden down by pride and injustice if it lay in his power to redeem himself Secondly the same may be said of particulor interest If any particular interest be a prejudice to the whole I must pass it by but when it is for the good of the whole I am bound to stick fast to it Now 't is evident that together with the Interest of those Nine Officers with others that share in the Conduct of the Army lyes wrapt up with it the Interest of all honest men for if such as had with the hazard of their lives rescued the people from slavery and bondage should have delivered up their place of Office which is so naturally and providentially their own have given up their own with our conquering Sword into the hands of others it had been a high breach of trust committed against the good people of this Nation Thirdly Lastly as to an Act drawn forth through Necessity it may be very acceptable to God when our Wil is brought to consent to a necessiry We come to chuse obedience being called thereunto by an Act of Providence so that when necessities meet with an obediencial frame of heart necessity become a virtue as we say and obedience thus drawn forth by an Act of Providence is as acceptable with God as Obedience grounded upon Gods Word In the last of John Christ tells Peter he should be carried whither he would not There was a necessity but his Will being drawn forth to meet the Necessity made it acceptable with God Sometimes nay often God works greatest things by mans necessities for as necessity hath no law so it needs none being a Law to its self 9. Obj. In the ninth place that which is strongly opposedly opposed is That we should be ruled by the Sword Ans The Sword its true when it is drawn forth to kil and destroy to eat flesh and dring bleod 't is a dark and most sad dispensation but as 't is onely used to keep down inraged Enemies and keep off destruction and when it 's accompanied with Wisdom and Goodness with Righteousness and Justice then it comes to be good and desirable But what do we speak of a Government by the Sword Is the Government of the world any other Have not Emperours Kings and Commonwalths their Militia's to force obedience when their Civil Sword is contemned being blunt and dul Do they not draw the Military Sword which is far sharper Did not the late King draw this Sword to force the Scots to uniformity All the Government of the Sword is but this That a convenient number of the Forces be kept under pay to keep down a turbulent Enemy and to protect honest men in their Rights and Liberties that would live in peace if they could This is all the Rule of the Sword Are not the Civil Administrations of Justice kept up and exercised amongst us Is not every man secured in his peculiar rights Since I have mentioned the Sword I shal speak a little of it First consider the Sword is the Original and beginning of all Governments in the world and is the onely Protection and Preservation of them Whither do Emperors Kings or Common-Weelths retire themselves in case of tumults and insurrections but unto a Military Power there being onely succour and defence They cannot in such cases subsist but as it were resolving into their first principles the Sword from whence they had their first rise Secondly Consider what special hand of Providence raised the Sword first It was not man but God raised up his People into an Army when they were at peace and quiet The King being great in Worldly Pomp and Glory did bend all the force of his Government to oppress a poore harmless people that could not live in the Nation unless they would defile their consciences these lived as sheep among Wolves and were as Doves and Lambs they had no horns to push or hoofs to tread under they had no sword to destroy but were willing to lye down under all their oppresions But the Lord calling forth these to war that not from a private spirit but with the stamp of publike Authority the Lord raised up their spirits and made them men of War like himself who is stiled the Lord of Host The Lord took his people as he did David from the sheepfold to make them men of War put a mighty spirit into them affording a great manifesttion of his own presence going along with them before whom all earthly Powers are fallen and broken to pieces Thus the Lord cloathed himself with Zeal as with a garment and hath indued his people with such Masculine virtue and strength that their Horns have been as Iron and their Hoofs as Brass whereby they have threshed the Mountains and the Hills as Chaff And this hath not been by Might and Power but by the spirit