the Kings Freedome Honour and Safety Giving out that what he granted in restraint he might lawfully break at liberty In the next place page 4. are severall Scriptures cited which are all true in a Scripture sense but misapplyed like that in the frontise-peece Prov. 24.11 If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to bee slain Such wrestings of Scripture from Innocents to nocents will make Ministers in as bad a name as Lawyers After the naming of which Scriptures they say they are afraid of medling with those who without any colour of legall Authority shall attempt such changes We have had too much colourable authority under the cloake whereof hath been acted so much wrong and injustice to the publike and infinite particulars so that its high time to see it native and naked With what colourable Authority did the Divines in Scotland take part with the Minor against the Major part of the Parliament there and protest against the Acts of Parliament but because they saw them fraudulent and destructive notwithstanding all the specious Declarations of the Parliament to the contrary and wherein doe the proceedings of the Army towards our Parliament differ from theirs whose service in protecting the Minor and inabling them against the Major was in Scotland counted a vertue and commendable and the self-same thing in England to the self-same purpose counted a vice and damnable How Doctors differ Put case his Excellency the Lord Fairfax having power in his hands should have attempted to have set up the King in freedome honour and safety and a considerable part of his Army should have opposed it knowing they were raised to a quite other end I doubt not these Divines would have thought well of and commended this their opposition to such a design though acted by those under Authority against their chief Commander without colour of Authority only upon the equity of their intentions and justness of their cause Such is the case of the Army towards the Parliament who not contrary to their trust as is after asserted but in discharge of their trust and ingagements have against their wills taken these courses for though they were raised by the Parliament yet for the Kingdome and its safety His Excellencies Commission is the Card and Compasse that he must sail by and not be turned out of his course by every wind of Parliamentary Doctrine for so he should not have been the servant of the Parliament but of this or that Faction and wrought about at last by turning round to fight for those he was Commissioned to fight against and against those he was commissioned to fight for well knowing that those of the Parliament which were against the Armies raising were for its destroying though with the ruine of the Kingdom and restoring of the King which was therefore laboured as the aptest means for it In the next place these Ministers compare the Act of the King in relation to the five Members and this of the Army in relation to the Secluded Members together page 5. A comparison ill beseeming the candor of such and so many worthy Divines knowing the different Actors and their different ends they may as well compare the Execution Phinehas did with the Murthers Joab committed or Moses his zeale in slaying those of the family of Ahab for his own ends Next they say p. 6. both Houses of Parliament who are joyntly together with the King intrusted with the supream Authority of the Kingdome an observable Parenthesis at the latter end of a seven yeers war betwixt the King and Parliament though they saw cause to take up Arms against the King yet that does not justifie the Armie to usurpe an authority over King and Parliament If either the defence of themselves or the preservation of the Kingdome or both justified the Parliament then doe they also justifie the Army in what they do for they have both those apparently on their side the Plots and practices of the King and secluded Members being above all things to level this Army and so to make way for the Kings restoration or the Kings restoration to ruine the army The consequence of which two is undisputably the Kingdoms I mean all the well-affected destruction and if defence be allowed to a private man in behalfe of himselfe it is much more allowable to a considerable community of men lawfully put into arms in behalf of the whole whereof they themselves are a part In the next place they say page 7. the Parliament when they took up armes did not intend to divest the King of his authority as appears by their Declarations much lesse to overthrow the frame of Government The Parliaments chief intention was according to their trust to preserve the Lives and Liberties of the people and that in an orderly and unaltered course if it were possible and therefore did they make so many supplications to the King to return to them and rule by their advice according as he ought to doe and accompanied them the more to move him with those Declarations all which hardned in stead of softned him towards them and thereby thinking them to doubt their cause and himselfe to be unresponsible sets up his standard and commences first one War proclaims them Traitors the insolentest and treasonablest act that ever was committed by a King of England yet they offer again and again to be friends upon conditions of peace and safety tendred he refuses and will have no friendship but upon his own terms so ended the first war by a defeat of his purposes and restraint of his Person and then began a second after which never issued out any more of those Declarations spoken of but seeing him incorrigible they resolve in pursuance of their trust and discharge of their Consciences to the Publique weale to settle the Peace of the Kingdome without him which they saw could never be setled with him In order whereunto they vote no more addresses as a necessary expedient thereunto which upon a recruit of Lords and secluded Members was unvoted again and all new to seek the King as bad as he was and had been must be trusted and his own tearms granted against Covenant and Publick-Faith to ground a Peace upon in order to his restoration as the onely probable means to ruine the Army by putting him into a capacity to raise another against them an attempt of that nature having been put in practice at London but not effected for want of the King and thus is necessity brought home to our doors of doing what is done both to the King and present government by Lords and secluded Members These things considered it shews how well they by this their Representation doe appear for maintenance of Liberties as they say they doe against malignant designes of an arbitrary tyrannicall power in the King and introduction of Anarchy by private persons but it is not enough to say so it is not wise mens parts
no necessity can justifie perjury or dispence with lawfull Oathes and for example instanceth the judgement which befell Saul and Israell for breach of Covenant with the Gibeonites But the question is if the Gibeonites had raised a first and second war or taken parts and shared in Councels with the Cavalerish Canaanites their enemies what then Saul and Israell would have done or might have done for all their Covenant But to spenke a little to the Position it selfe That no necessity can dispence with Lawfull Oathes not to insist upon the forementioned Act of the Israelites in saving Jonathan I answer two things 1. That no Oath binds when through want of foresight by time or accident it come to crosse a morrall duty as if that I am sworne to prove be against my owne or the publicks preservation and so a violation of the Lawes of nature nor if it prove an impediment to the proceed of justice and so prove a violation of the Lawes of Righteousnesse Nor if it prove though Lawfull in itselfe a wrong to another as that of Saul to Jonathan for so it is against the Law of Charity 2. That when the Oath becomes disputable then the intent of its giving and the occasion of its taking is to give light in the solution Now what was our intent in protesting and covenanting the preservation of the King Why to testifie to the World that it was for no sinister end nor to drive no designe that the Wars were undertaken no lack of Loyalty but meere necessity to preserve the people and their Liberties and therefore was the Wars prosecuted against the King notwithstanding the Protestation and Covenant for him which loyalty may be and is still the same in giving him up to justice the Impulse of necessity In regard of publike safety being the same wofull experience having made it manifest that he cannot be and the Kingdome safe nor the Covenant kept in the maine if not broken in the Branches and so of Parliament Privilidges and Authority as wee sweare not the Kings safety to their wrong so not their preservation to the peoples ruine and destruction but the intent of our swearing to defend them was that being joyntly asserted by the two Houses wee would maintaine them against the King that then was in Armes against them but when they come to be contested betwixt the two Houses and the question be to which wee are to adhere whether to the Commons affirmative or the Lords negative 1. Wee are not tyed to impossibilities wee cannot make good contradictions 2. Wee are to consider in our judgements and consciences which is most conducing to the ends for which those Priviledges were granted to wit the promotion of publique good and accordingly to cast the scales But 3. Caeteris paribus the judgement of the Commons is to be adhered to and preferred above the Lords they being more more concerned in the Kingdomes Liberties the peoples creature and not the Kings a Representative of Trustees and to be reduced againe into a private condition for though in the formality of Authority the Lords be above the Commons yet in the materiall and substantiall parts they are above the Lords The next thing insisted upon in this 15 Page after an exhortation to the Army to recede is some threats from Mr. Peters not unlike his discretion in case they persisted to stirre up the people to sedition For so it seemes say they our bewailing your sinnes before the Lord is interpreted It 's well you bewaile their sinnes I hope it is not with a spitefull but a spirituall sorrow for too many of your Parishioners bewaile their successes I hope in the Lord you doe not so and yet I perceive not a like spirit of jealousie in you over the sinnes of your owne people as over the Army for I call them sinnes because you doe so If your cause were good your resolution were commendable in that which followes when you say that if you must suffer yet in the discharge of your duties you will commit the keeping of your soules to the Lord as to a faithfull Creatour But I hope the Army will be as they have been as eminent for their meekenesse as their valour and convince their gainesayers by their owne long suffering and not your suffering and yet take heed of being the cause of other mens sufferings though you are carelesse of your owne either by your advice to the Army to recede who I hope will be twice advised before they take your counsell or by your instigations which if it should happen may more afflict you then any personall sufferings of your owne But I hope God will open your eyes and restraine the Armies hands I will end with a saying of Queene Elizabeth to her Secretary Walsingham when in a conspiracy against her but in part discovered he advised her for further evidence to delay the seizing on the Conspirators and to let the businesse lengthen out it selfe But she refused lest as she sayd in not taking heed of a danger when she might she should seeme more to tempt God then to hope in him Febr. 7. 1648. Imprimatur Gilbert Mabbot FINIS
An ANSVVER TO THE Cities Representation Set forth by some Ministers of the Gospel within the Province of London Concerning The Proceedings of the ARMY BY A Presbyterian Patriot that hath Covenanted TO Preserve the Rights and Priviledges of Parliaments and the Kings Majesties person and Authority In the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms and not otherwise Acts 5.38 If this councell or this work bee of men it will come to nought Ver. 39. But if it bee of God yee cannot overthrow it lest happily yee bee found even to fight against God February 7. 1648. Imprimatur Gilbert Mabbott LONDON Printed by Robert Ibbitson in Smithfield neer the Queenes-head Tavern 1649. AN ANSWER To the late REPRESENTATION OF THE Ministers of LONDON I Desire not to make the breach wider betwixt the ministry and the Army it s an ill time to have the word and the sword of the Lord to differ when both should helpe him against the mighty That which is subtilly fastned upon the Army and their Councells to wit that they are Jesuited I wish it were not applicable to all sorts of opposers in this age who have too little of Jesus and too much of the Jesuite in their transactions savouring too much of calumny and policy Not to take up every thing but to touch upon those that are of most weight and concernment in this Representative which comming from a Colledge of Divines may therefore carry credite to the discrediting the good work in hand of settling the Kingdome in safety and peace hitherto so vainly promised and contrarily indeavoured that the hearts and hands of those concerned in it and by it may be upheld and the Kingdome no more rendered miserable with vaine hopes nor peace impossible which were a work worthy of a Jesuite indeed These London Ministers first relate upon what termes they would have consented to a conference and tell us what opinions they would have delivered on the case it seems what reasons soever might appeare to the contrary for a conference supposed the result is conclusive that the Armies courses are unwarrantable pag. 2. against the direct rule of the word and as they conceive out of their sphere p. 3. wherein they speak as if never any thing had been or could be spoken in the Armies justification where as such reasons have been already given and such authorities shown both humane and divin in treatises to that purpose that are not satisfyingly refelled with bare affections though from never so many nor never so worthy men whose disjunctions from the Army are not of yesterday procured indeed by the Armies unadvised encroachments upon their calling and some disparagements cast thereupon which were just provocations but not to be had in everlasting remembrance 2 Cor. 14.20 specially when the publicke peace is concerned in their love and union Then they reckon up the severall late proceedings of the Army against as they say lawfull authority especially by their Remonstrance a sober rationall and convincing peece not answerable by abrationall man for I count Mr. William Sedgwicke none imprisoning the King without consent of Parliament meaning the secluded Members and the late unparaleld violence offered to the Members Had these Divines condemned the Londoners for imprisoning the Parliament not some Members making a prison of the Parliament House and driving the Speaker c. thence they might then with much more candor have blamed the Army now but some may better steal a horse then others looke over the hedge if that was not a crime as I never heard it laid to their charge then this is no errour Many of which Members they say are known to be men of eminent worth and integrity and have given ample testimony of their reall affections to the good of this Kingdome It had been well they had always continued of that mind then had they been neither imprisoned nor hindred but if they be so good and beare so good affection to the publicke they will take it the lesse ill to be hindred from doing so ill offices as to hazzard the Kingdome in the hands of the King in freedome honour and safety whose hands they could not bind by restraint Next thing is the Armies contriving of a new moddell of Lawes and Government and the Representative It s much such men should stumble at Reformation onely for alteration sake as if old things because old were faultlesse whereas our Lawes are as they are made our greatest burdens insomuch as a man had as good take wrong as seeke right and our Government serving for little other then to furnish the times with newes by doing and undoing tossing the poore people between hopes and feares Why may not alterations of Government bee as necessary in State as Church Bishops were too old to bee good and so may many things else and therefore not for that reason to be insisted on All which practises they judge to be against Authority so are Pulpits too when they are disposed Oathes and Covenants though they are sworn absolutely to the safety and liberties of Religion and the Kingdom and to the Parliam and King but relatively and in order to these So that these Divines should either have forborne to cite those words of the Covenant as the Scots were wont to doe or have demonstrated how Religion and Liberty could have been preserved without taking these courses If they think the Treaty sufficient let them speak out and shew how a man of that perfidie and policy the King is off could with safety to either have been restored to freedome honour and safety that notwithstanding all bonds of Morality and duty hath from time to time thrust at them and hazzarded them as he hath done If we must have yeelded our selves to slavery and ruine better have done it at first then at last we should have had more mercy then now we can look for To let a Bear loose from the stake with his chaine hanging on him such loose restraint is the way to make him the more fierce If the Army should surcease as they advise the Members be restored and peace setled as was voted and the King restored neither Episcopacy abolished nor Delinquents punished were the Covenant kept and the Kingdome secured These Divines would then be unsatisfied with themselves when by their means such horrid effects would follow as would make both their ears to tingle I would gladly know how the Army into whose hands God hath put the power of prevention could without breach of Covenant have suffered all to goe to ruine which they are sworn to preserve by preserving those things King and Priviledges which inavoydably conduced thereunto and were become inconsistent therewith Besides their owne safeties who else must alwayes have been fighting or sure of hanging Besides infinite honest men who probably ere this had been crying woe worth the Parliament if not these Divines themselves considering the party in the Kingdome that waited for
to cry up the ends and decry the means how to suppresse tyranny and not Tyrants is a hard lesson The most excellent Mathematicians are to seeke when they goe to Sea Theory and Practise are two things one may better make a Vtopia then manage a Commonwealth Book learned men are apt to thinke it as easie for others to do as for them to think But Statesmen and Souldiers know better then Students what belongs to settlement and finde it not so easie to bring both ends together as these Divines imagine and therefore are forced to doe like Alexander cut the knot when they cannot unlose it for the peace and safety of the Kingdome must not alwayes hang in the briars It is to be hoped that though the House be pulled downe there will be provision made we shall not lye out of doors but a mean be found out betwixt Tyranny and Anarchy and more then meer private persons to bear rule The next thing insisted on is the obligation that lyes upon us by Oath and Covenant Pag. 8. To preserve the Rights and priviledges of Parliaments the Kings Majesties person and authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and liberties of the Kingdome This last conditionall clause In preservation of Religion and Liberties is made to serve but as a cypher in the Covenant the Scots Commissioners were wont to leave it out the better to blinde the people and cite the preceding part without it These Divines do tant ' amount for though they cite them joyntly yet they urge the other abstractly and as superiour to this never telling us how these may be provided for in case the other should not be granted notwithstanding the apparent inconsistency of them both For the King in whom the present Government of Lords and secluded Members are involved they voting a settlement upon his non-concessions and refusing that of non-addresses and bringing him to justice thereby to put a period to delayes both in liberty and restraint hath twice put Religion and Liberties to such an hazard as had not God miraculously preserved them they had perished irrecoverably and we with them in lives and estates and no better can be expected from him justifying his wayes now at his Triall at last as at first labouring to confront and not to relent which is a mercy of God that he retains his nature without dissembling it lest the hypocrite should reigne and so the people be insnared These Oaths were never intended by maker or taker against the Laws and duty of God and Nature which indeed no oaths can violate The reason is rendred why we swore the preservation of his person to wit to expresse our Loyalty that those wars were not undertaken upon any rebellious or personall purposes but of necessity in respect of Religion and Liberty upon the point to be utterly subverted and that we were ready to lay downe Armes and receive him with those respects belonged to him whensoever it did appear that those might be secured which never did yet since those oaths were taken and therefore notwithstanding them the Parliament went on to fight him to the just hazard of his person and now judicially to proceed against him as not otherwise able to discharge that great trust that lyes upon them touching the wellfare of this and succeeding generations Page 9. They say They dare not by the violation of this oath provoke the wrath of God But put case your advice should be followed as to the King and Parliament priviledges dare you thereupon affirme the oath to be kept if Religion and Liberties should suffer and the Kingdome be undone thereby our Oath is not categoricall but hypotheticall so that if the keeping of the one part be the breaking of the other for so is our case then the question is which must be kept and which must be broken whether to satisfie you we should keep it on the Kings part or to satisfie our own reason and conscience we should keep it on the Commonwealths part and if in your sense it doe binde so strictly for the Kings preservation why did you suffer war to be made upon him without like advice wherein his person might have perished nay did perish as to the oath he running the like hazard with other men without difference or distinction so that rationally in the use of means though not actually his person was destroyed notwithstanding the Parliament it selfe had sworne to preserve him and no fault found In the same Page they dehort the Army from proceeding any further I will not say a Jesuit is in it and tell them they were once Honourable with them and others whilst they kept in Gods way and within their sphere there lay their fault indeed but they have eclipsed their own glory brought a cloud over all their excellencies It seems these Divine thinks the Country to be spirited towards the Army like the City Indeed the Malignants and Newters thinke as hardly of them for this as they can wish but the godly and sincere I meane those of no faction and without byasse who in conscience to God and with publicke spirits undertooke this cause for Religion Liberty and to bring Delinquents to condigne punishment doe blesse them in the Name of the Lord in this and for this as a deliverance equall to the first or second Warre and are not a little afflicted in spirit to see you to bee become the rejoycing of the Cavaliers and the lifter up of the heads of those prophane wretches in the day that God hath humbled them and glorified himself upon them God keep your own glory and the Gospell engaged in you from being eclipsed and your excellency from being beclouded in the wayes of contradiction that you are in neither helping the Lord nor strengthning them that doe Be more sensible of the City sins over-looke not their faults that are under you their defection and backsliding from publicke principles setting up the worst men in the best places pressing the Parliament with clamorous and menacing Petitions to destructive purposes imprisoning the whole House in the House till they had voted the King to London and threatning worse things if they came againe forcing away the Speaker and the faithfullest Members refusing to aid their honest Major Generall against the common Enemy though as it were at Townes end and scoffing those few that did barely looking on and worse at the siege of Colchester Why then beholdest thou the more that is in thy brothers eye but considerest not the beame that is in thine owne eye Are these and such like veniall in your owne Parishioners and mortall in the Army judge with righteous judgement The Ministers goe on in the same Paragraph and say We feare you are opening a doore to desperate and damnable Errours and Heresies Truely I doubt so too but never the more for suppressing the King and secluding the Members one thing I am confident of that it will not be a
me of the Kingdome after him Soe I may come to lose it which if I waite Gods leisure I shall be sure of in Gods good time But where doe these Divines finde that when a wicked King of Israel was by the Magistrates or people for his owne wickednesse and publique good taken away though they also were the Lords Anoynted that ever they were blamed for it I am sure neither for Athaliah nor Amaziah nor I doe not remember any else though I know many private persons are condemned for doing so for base and unwarrantable ends And as not by Providence so nor is it safe they say to be guided by impulses of spirit against the Rule to wit rightly understood and they desire the Army to consider whether if there be upon Record any example of an impulse of spirit upon multitudes of persons putting them to act against morall Precepts When the Israelites saved Jonathan against their owne Vow and the Authority of Saul this seemes something like one but whether it will be allowed I know not when the Londoners told the Parliament they must take such courses as God and Nature put into their hands What call you this and were they blamed for it Then by the way upon occasion Page 14. They tell the Army they themselves confesse their wayes to be irregular and not justifiable wherein the Armies ingenuity is commendable and their Cause never the worse for a thing may be irregular and not justifiable by the Letter of the Law and formallity of Rule that yet is lawfull enough Have yee not read in the Law how on the Sabbath dayes the Priests in the Temple prophane the Sabbath and are blamelesse Politicks and Judicialls must yeeld to moralls municipall Lawes to Religion and safety Order is good till it become disorderly and then corruptio optimi est pessima no such oppression as Authority corrupted and abused when Government is poynted at the Governours and not at the governed driving sinister interests by vertue of their Offices neither fearing God nor hating covetousnesse In matters of reall publique concernment as to Politicks God will have mercy and not sacrifice safety preferred above Formes and Lawes of Nature above those of Art and Pollicy But then it followes that no necessity can oblige a man to sinne but when by vertue of necessity it becomes lawfull then it is no sinne as in the foregoing instances of Davids eating the shewbread and the Priests prophaning the Sabbath necessity justified our partaking with the minor against the major in Scotland which yet was breach of priviledge Further Pag. 15. they say that if a Precept of God may be dispenced upon a necessity yet it must be absolute present and cleare not doubtfull uncertaine and conjecturall as that which is aledged in your case must needs be it being discerned only by your selves and your owne party it being apparent to us that there was no necessity the Parliament till forced by you being full and free acting what was covenanted for Doe they meane by absolute necessity that the Scots must be come as far as Lancashire before we ought to beleeve they will invade us or that Wales Kent with the adjacent parts and the ships at sea must Rebell actually and revolt declaratively before we ought to beleeve that the King when in restraint can do us any harme when they say it must be present mean they it must be Acted before it be prevented in matters of war and businesse of State if they stay for present and absolute necessity it is the way to be deprived of remedy Though David was hungry and the Apostles when the one eate the shewbread and the other rubbed the eares of corne yet neither of them probably was upon the point of famishing their necessity was not absolute Shall the Army never be allowed to be wise onely valiant still put to play after games and God to worke miracles by our imprudence know wee not yet what manner of men we deale with hath not the King and his Parliamentary complices yet made necessity cleare There are none but you and your party as you say by the Army that thinks otherwise but what they meane by the Army and their Party is as little intelligable as are these three foresaid properties of necessity do they meane by party the Parliament now sitting of whom this Representation takes no notice or doe they meane the unbiassed godly and true hearted Patriots in the Land for I thinke their party goes no further The King and his Members the Cavaliers and Londoners being indeed no Partizans of the Army nor competent Judges of the Kingdomes necessity which is absolute enough if thereby bee meant important These Divines themselves looking with London spectacles say they saw none it s well for you you did not and it s as well that others did since you l admit of no necessity to be cleere but what 's absolute and present that 's as much as to say you will never see till your eyes be out I am confident had our State or Army seazed on Barwicke and Carlile and pleaded necessity for it before the Cavaleers and Scots were possessed of them you would have condemned it as neither absolute nor present and so a cleere breach of agreement notwithstanding the overtures of invasion made in Scotland by preparations thereunto Nor doubtlesse did you see any prevaricating in the Scotch Commissioners when they were in England but thought it a meere Artifice to suspect them in so much as I have seene a booke licensed by that saies their memory was sweet for their keeping Covenant when to others they stunke above ground for breaking it Nor did you see a need of the Armies refusing to disband it may be that 's it you meane when you say this necessity pleaded is contracted by their owne miscarriages if you do meane so there are not many out of London of your minde except some that came from thence and thereabouts for it is absolutely uncleare to others that are not of the Kings party that the disbanding of the Army is the securing of the Kingdome In a word it seemes you will allow no Eye of Reason onely that of Sense They say there was no necessity the Parliament being free till forced by the Army and not by the Londoners and Acting what was Covenanted for to wit a settlement of the Kingdomes Peace upon his Majesties noncon-cessions of abolition of Bishops and bringing Delinquents to condigne punishment Then they tell the Army they engaged themselves by Oath to preserve His Majestios person and the Priviledges of Parliament yea and the liberties of the people too but that 's not here and it seemes is not worth regarding compared with the other two for its apparent their advice tends to break this by keeping those severall interests at such a distance and contrariety being impossible to be preserved the very preservation of the one being the destruction of the other Now say they