CONSIDERATIONS Concerning the present ENGAGEMENT WHETHER It may lawfully be entered into YEA or NO Written at the desire of a friend by J. D. JOHN 3.21 He that doth the Truth comes to the light November 27. 1649. Imprimatur JOSEPH CARYL LONDON Printed by John Clowes for Richard Wodenoth at the Starre under St. Peters Church in Cornhill 1649. CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING The present Engagement SIR YOu have obliged me many wayes to serve in all that I can for your good but the matter of your speciall concernment wherewith you have acquainted me of late doth lead me of mine own accord by mine own inclination beyond all obligations to endeavour your satisfaction Seeing then your conscience is scrupled about the engagement which by the Parliament is offered to be taken and you say you cannot subscribe thereunto till three main doubts concerning the same be cleared I shall take them into serious consideration to shew you what I think of the weight thereof which indeed is of exceeding great moment For you say 1. That the Oath of Allegiance and the Nationall Covenant are still binding and contradictory to this present engagement 2. That the present Power by which the engagement is tendered is very doubtfull as a power unlawfully usurped to which usurpation you think you will be accessary if you take the Engagement 3. That the consequence of the Engagement seems to tend to an opposition against the lawfull Heir of the Crowne and the right constitution of the Parliaments whereunto you are pre-engaged and from which you cannot recede To satisfie your desire I shall lay before you as briefly as may be my sence thereof that you who have been alwaies wel-affected to the common cause of Liberty against the designs of Tyrany may be helped somewhat to discerne how lawfull or unlawfull how expedient or unexpedient it will be for you to take or not to take this Engagement for the publick good and the discharge of your duty towards the same First then concerning the Oath of Allegiance and the Nationall Covenant represent unto your self the true meaning thereof and so order your thoughts to do that which is answerable thereunto The Oath of Allegiance as you know did bind all men as Subjects in Law to be true and faithfull to the Kings Person to his Heirs and Successors as they were invested with the Authority which the Law did give them nor was it ever meant by the Parliament which Enacted the Oath of Allegiance that any should be absolutely bound to the King his Heirs as they were men to be true and faithful to their personal wils but only to them their wils as they had a Legall standing that is to the Authority conferred upon them by the consent of the People which was testified in under a Law whereunto the King and his Heirs were bound for the Kingdoms good by Oath So that the obligations of King and subjects are mutuall and must needs stand and fall together according as the condition by which they are begotten is kept or broken which is nothing else but the Law according to which he and his Subjects agree that he shall be their King and they shall be his Subjects For as you were sworn to the King so he was sworne to you as you were bound to be faithfull to him so he was bound to be faithfull to his trust nor is he your Liege further then he is faithfull thereunto If then he be found unfaithfull to his trust you are ipso facto absolved from your Allegiance unto him and if according to Law he receives not his Authority you are not in Law his Subject at all Now the just and naturall foundation of all Lawes is the reason of the Body of every Nation in their Parl. which hath the sole Right to propose chuse the Lawes by which they will be Ruled Whence it hath been as I suppose a perpetual custome in this Nation for the Commons at all times to aske and propose the making of Laws and for the Lords and King to give their consent thereunto the Lords as the Judges in cases of transgression and the King as the executer and publick Trustee for the administration of the common good and wealth thereby for in a Kingdom there is a Common-wealth as the intrinsicall substance of the Being thereof for which all things are to be done by King and Lords as the publick servants thereof and Ministers not Masters of State therein If the King then should set himselfe wilfully to be above this Reason of the Nation which is the onely Originall of the Law and refuse obstinatly the Lawes which they shall chuse to be setled he puts himself ipso facto out of the capacity of being a King any more unto them and if this can be made out to have been the way wherein the late King set himself and that it was the designe of the House of Lords to uphold and enable him to follow that way it is evident that so far as he did by that means actually un-King himself as to this Nation so far also they that assisted him in that design did un-Lord themselves in the State thereof and if this was the guilt of the house of Lords by other practises and proceedings more than by an indifferency and complyance with the Hamiltonian in vasion to help the King to such a Power I know not what to answer for them But as to the meaning of the oath of Allegiance as by the perpetuall consent of all ages it never was otherwise understood and by the third Article of the Nationall Covenant which is another branch of this doubt may be made manifest It is then undeniable that the third Article of that Nationall Covenant was never meant by those that made it or that took it to be opposite to the sence of the Oath of Allegiance but altogether agreeable thereunto What then the meaning of that Article is must needs also be the true sence of the Oath of Allegiance That Article then doth oblige you to preserve the Right and Priviledges of the Parliament and the Liberties of the Kingdom in your Calling absolutely and without any limitation but as for the Kings Person and Authority it doth oblige you onely thereunto conditionally and with a limitation Namely in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of this Kingdom If then the King did not give to the Representatives of the Nation that assurance which was satisfactory and necessary that their Religion and Liberties should be preserved none but his Subjects were bound either by their Allegiance or Covenant to defend his Person and the Authority which was conferred upon him The Oath of Allegiance therefore was bottomed upon the Laws which the Representatives of the Nation in Parl. had chosen to be observed concerning their Religion and the Liberties of the Kingdom which he refractorily either casting off or seeming to yield unto in such a way that no trust
be high minded in their own conceits their ruin come suddenly without remedy if they all or any of them wil as Israel once did say to the seers see not to the Prophets prophecy not right things unto us prophecy deceits cause the holy one of Israell his law to cease from before us if when they begin to despise his word as some of them otherwise very active instrumental in outward changes seem to do they trust then in oppression and perverseneses lean upon their word and stay thereod they must take notice they shal be taught to know with dear experience if they alter not their course Esa 50.11.12.13 that this iniquity shall be to them as a breach ready to fall swelling out in a high wall whose breaking commeth suddenly and at an instant for if the tallest Cedars are not spared but cut down when they exalt themselves above the Trees of the Forrest how shall the smaller shrubs be borne withall when they are guilty of the same misdemeanor they therefore that stand before the Lord of the whole earth let them be wise and feare he standeth among the Gods and judgeth even he who being the King of Kings came to serve all men through love and doth teach all men to deny themselves and deceive his Disciples learne of him that he is meeke and humble of heart If they seeke themselves and not the Common-wealth whereunto they pretend to engage others they shall be found out by those whom they engage to the Interest of the Common-wealth who mind it sincerely and being discovered they shall be cast out of their greatness in it We have seene severall â—â—â—ties up and their severall Interests set a foot and their changes came because the true Interest of Christianity wherein all Common-wealths alone can prosper hath not been so much minded by them as their own Interests we should therefore pray for those that are over us now that though they may have had and have stil their failings yet that they 〈◊〉 not be split upon this Rock and we should watch also over our 〈◊〉 â—â—les least we be made a cause of their own splitting and of the 〈◊〉 â—f all by being intised to be wilfully scrupulous in these matters 〈◊〉 â—erhaps some are for ends of their own to make the way of Government difficult and the standing of those that are in places of power unsafe If any be such of which number I know you are none they shall eat of the fruits of their own doings assuredly For if they acknowledg the jurisdiction deceitfully to betray it God will find them out if they will not acknowledg it nor any thing though never so good offered to the publick interest by it onely because they will keep mens spirits at a distance from it they shall not escape to be consumed by the fire which they do maliciously kindle to destroy the Common-wealth if the common interest which I am perswaded is in simplicity to be aimed 〈◊〉 by the engagement according to their sense that offer it were withâ—â—â— scrupulosity and contradiction taken up and intended by all what 〈…〉 matter would it be in a short time to bring at last about a reall 〈…〉 â—â—â—mation of all our grievances but if those that complain of pressures 〈…〉 â—â—â—evances and of the charge of an Army by their own disaffection 〈…〉 â—ublick and unruliness under Government make an Army absoâ—â—â—◠〈…〉 â—â—cessary and occasion the grievances themselves whereof they make complaints onely to cast an odium upon the Government they will be found to be the Children of their Father the Devill and receive with him their reward for he obstructs all that is good in every one and tempts all unto distempers and disorderly Carriages and then layes them to their Charge to make them odious thereby Besides the scruples which you have made in this business I have met with some that labour to make strange interpretations and inferences upon every word of the Engagement as if it were in the meaning of those that offer it a bundle of snares but trouble not your self with that for in all promises of this kind the Rule is that you must take the sense which is most obvious to express an undeniable duty and by following this you shall not be intangled into scruples and suspitions what others may strain the words unto Another told me and if I understand by him that many are thus scrupled that although he could take the Engagement in a lawfull sense and approve the obvious sense of it yet that he ought not to do it by reason of the offences which many godly people would take at him for it who cannot but think it a breach of Covenant To this I answered that in a necessary matter of duty an offence wrongfully taken at it ought not to be regarded by those that perform it but they ought rather to follow their own Conscience and give to those that are offended at them in their way a satisfactory reason of the justice thereof to instruct them but in things of an indifferent nature which are free to be done or left undone there we are bound to suspend the action which may be taken offensively as for this matter I say that on both hands there will be offences given or taken and that by the Godly For as some godly will be offended at the taking of the Engagement so some others will be offended at the not taking thereof the case then will be which of these two offences I am most to avoid whether that which is wrongfully or that which is justly taken both by the godly and also by those that are in superiority whom I offend so as to give them just cause to deny unto me for my offence their protection and my necessary safety and us here of the same act the offence on the one hand is sinfully given and on the other wrongfully taken it is easie to judge which of the two is to be avoided I shall leave these things to your conscionable and unprejudicat consideration to be weighed in the feare of God by you as in his presence without humane respects they are offered to you by From my Chamber Novemb. 27. 1649. Your faithfull and affectionate Friend in Christ I. D. FINIS
Conscience still bound to preserve it to this very thing also the Engagement which is now offered doth clearly bind you as I conceive to nothing else directly for the obvious sense of the express words can be none other but this That so far as the Association of this people is setled in a course of Government and in the administration of Justice you shall not overthrow but preserve the same although the administration of this Government and justice is not now carried on by a King and House of Lords but onely by the Parl. that now is which certainly is your duty at this time And if this is cleerly your duty for the publick good then you cannot understand the words of the Covenant to be binding in any other sense but in this for the words must be taken in the sense which they can directly bear and which do impart the main end for which the Covenant was taken for the maine end of this very Article whereof you make a scruple was evidently to preserve the Parliament and Common-wealth for it self and if need so required also without the King Now this is that which the Engagement doth directly also require for which cause I say that by vertue of this very promise you are bound to take the present Engagement and if you take it not that you make your self a transgressor of that very Article which you pretend to keepe for if you refuse to be true and faithfull to the Common-wealth as it is now Established you do what in you lyeth to make the remaining Rights of Parliament and the beginnings of our settlement void which though at first it was not intended to be without a King yet it was clearly presupposed in the Article it selfe as possible to be without him and consequently that although he should not be yet that the Common-Wealth by the Rights of Parliament and the Liberties of the Nation should be preserved which is all that now is sought for by the Engagement I hope then that you shall find no cause to scruple any further at this but that such as under the pretence of such scruples take a course to overthrow this Parliament will be made conscionably awake to see their error and that they Diametrically by such a purpose crosse the main intention of their Covenant and become guilty of dissolving the whole tye of this Common-wealth And this shall suffice concerning your first scruple at this time As concerning the present power by which the Engagement is tendered your Doubt is what you ought to think of it whether you should count it a lawfull or an unlawfull and usurped Power and if such whether you will not be accessary to their usurpation by taking the Engagement To these Questions I shall answer distinctly and let you see the Rules by which I order my conversation in these cases that if you have nothing to except against them you may take them up and walk in the righteousnes thereof For mine own part then I have taken this to be a Rule whereby all privat men such as I am as Christians ought to walk unblameably under the superiour powers of this world Namely That it doth not be long to us to judge definitively of the rights which the Supreame powers over us in the world pretend to have unto their places And the Reason is this because I finde it no part of the profession of Christianity to meddle with this matter nor can I see that God doth allow privat men to take so much upon them over their Superiors nor ought Superiors to suffer it in their Subjects nor will sound reason or a good Conscience allow it in any It is no part of our Christian profession to become Judges of the great ones of this world in respect of their rights and pretentions to power For we are to behave our selves as spirituall men in this world by the Rule of our profession and as strangers and pilgrims therein taking it as our passage to a Kingdome that cannot be shaken and using it as the subject wherein our Faith Patience our mortification to things present and our hope for things to come are to be exercised A stranger passenger pilgrim takes things as he finds them on his way makes the best of them that he can and meddles only with his own matters how to advance prosperously and easily towards his journeys end that is how to behave himself without blame and offence towards God and men in all things with a good Conscience holding forth the Word of life which is the Rule by which he doth walke in the feare of God towards others This is all that a Christian as a Christian that is by vertue of his Profession is to meddle withall about the affairs of this world which in so doing he doth judge in the spirit of righteousnes but if he doth make himself a judge in another kind of particular rights pretentions of the great ones in this world he takes upon him that which doth not belong unto him in his Profession of Christianity for he doth more then Christ would do on earth for Christ our Master in this profession would not become a Iudge of the least matters between man man in the world and how shall we that ought to be his followers and Disciples take upon us to judge of the greatest of all How shall we Answer this to him Is not this one of the great Characters of the spirit of Antichrist that he exalts himself above all that is called God and wherein hath he done this more remarkably towards Magistrates who are called Gods amongst men then by exalting himself over them to become a Judge of all their Rights and pretentions to power in this world We must therefore beware of entertaining the motions and practises of his Spirit whereof this is a very eminent one to judge of the Right of power to Rule in the world Nor doth God allow in the Word those whom he hath made Subjects to Superior Powers to take upon them to judge of the Rights titles of those that are over them The Rule of Subjects behaviour as Subjects is clearly determined in Rom. 13.1 till 8. 1 Pet 2.13 14. Tit. 3.1 Where we find nothing but a command of submission subjection of not resisting and of paying taxes dues and of giving honour fear and respect for Conscience sake unto Superiour powers because they are Gods Ordinance over privat men and they bear not the sword which God hath put in their hand in vain Now the Commandements thus delivered without any limitation or restriction of their Rights to rule or of our obedience further then that we are bound to obey God rather than man I suppose do oblige all Subjects that are under them either to obey or to suffer patiently if they find cause to refuse obedience but that privat men in ourward and humane concernments and for worldly considerations of their