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A56186
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Part of the famous speech of William Prynn esq, Decemb. 48, touching K. Charles I
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Prynne, William, 1600-1669.
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1648
(1648)
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Wing P4027; ESTC R8192
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7,202
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8
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soon as they shall be discovered Now for Us after all these multiplyed reiterated Protestations Promises Engagements Declarations Remonstrances to all the World from the beginning of the Differences and Wars till now to think or talk of Deposing and Destroying the King and altering the Government as the only safe and speedy way to Peace and Settlement as the Army-Remonstrants prescribe would be such a most detestable breach of publick Faith such a most Perfidious Treacherous Unrighteous wicked Act as not only Gods Angels and good Men but the very worst of Turks and Devils would abhor And therefore its a Miracle to me that these pretious SAINTS should thus impudently before all the World propose to the House and force you to pursue it to stain your Reputation and make you execrable to God and Men 5thly The very Oath of Allegiance which every one of us hath taken upon our first admission to be Members engageth us in positive terms Not to offer any hurt or violence to His Majesties Royal Person State or Government to bear Faith and true Allegiance to His Majesty His Heirs and Successors and Him and Them to defend to the uttermost of Our power against all Conspiracies and Attempts whatsoever which shall be made against His or Their Persons Crown or Dignity And from our hearts to abhor detest and abjure as Impious and Heretical this Heathnish and Turkish Doctrine That Princes Excommunicated or deprived by the People as it seems the King is now for extirpating Episcopacy Popery Mass and Prelacy out of his Dominions by his present Concessions without any possibility or hopes of replanting may be Deposed or Murthered by their Subjects or any other whatsoever Which Hellish contrivance and practice as our whole State and Parliament in the State of 3 Jac. cap. 1 4 5. 35 Eliz. cap. 1. and other Acts resolve is the only way to unsettle ruine and subvert not to settle and establish the Peace and Government of our Realm And both Houses since this Parliament have by a solemn Protestation first and by a solemn League and Covenant since with Hands lifted up to the most high God engaged both themselves and the three Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland by a most sacred and serious Vow and Protestation purposely made and prescribed by them For the Honour and Happiness of the King and His Posterity and the true publick Liberty Safety and Peace of the three Kingdoms as the Title and Preface declare Sincerely Really and Constantly to endeavour with their Estates and Lives TO PRESERVE AND DEFEND THE KINGS MAJESTIES PERSON AND AUTHORITY in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom which he hath now fully and actually performed by his Concessions in this Treaty That the World may bear witness with our Consciences OF OUR LOYALTY and that WE HAVE NO THOUGHTS OR INTENTIONS TO DIMINISH HIS MAJESTIES JUST POWER AND GREATNESS And shall also with all Faithfulness endeavour the discovery of all such as shall be Incendiaries or evil Instruments by DIVIDING THE KING FROM HIS PEOPLE That they may be brought to speedy Tryal and receive condign Punishment And shall not suffer themselves directly or indirectly by whatsoever combination or terror to be withdrawn or make defection from this Covenant but shall all the days of their Lives really and constantly continue therein against all Opposition and promote the same against all lets impediments whatsoever And this Covenant we all made in the presence of Almighty God the searcher of all Hearts WITH A REAL INTENTION TO PERFORM THE SAME as we shall answer at that great day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed Now how we who are Members of this House or any who are Subjects of our Three Kingdoms or Officers and Souldiers in the Army who have taken this Oath of Allegiance Protestation League or Covenant or any of them as some of them have done all or two of them at least sundry times over can without the highest Perjury to God Treachery to the King Perfidiousness to the Kingdom Infamy to the World Scandal to the Protestant Religion and Eternal dishonour to the Parliament and Themselves Athiestically break through or elude all those most Sacred aod Religious tyes upon our Souls by a speedy publick Dethroning and Decolling of the King and Dis-inheriting His Posterity as the Army Remonstants advise and that in the open view of the World and that All-seeing God to whom we have thus Appealed and Sworn by any Equivocations or Distinctions of which the Armies Remonstrance is full or Professions of our damnable Hypocrisie in the breaking of them transcends my understanding And for those who Style themselves SAINTS and charge this as one of the Highest Crimes against the King His frequent breach of Oaths and Promises to transcend him and Traytors in this very sin is such a Monster of Impiety as I concelve could never have entred into the hearts of Infidels or the worst of Men or Devils And to act this under a pretext to Preserve and Settle the Peace of the Kingdom is such a Solecism as militates point-blank against the very words and scope both of this Oath Protestation League and Covenant which crosseth not the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance but more strongly engageth Men to preserve and defend the Kings Person and Autohority in the Preservation and Defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom as the Assembly of Divines and both Houses affirm in their Exbortation to take the Covenant which prescribes this as the only means of securing and preserving Peace in all the Three Kingdoms to preserve the Person and Honour of the King His Crown and Dignity from any such Violence and Invasion as is now suggested by the Army which all three of them ingage us and all Three Kingdoms with our Lives and Fortunes really and constantly to oppose against all Lets and Impediments c. and to bring those to condign punishment as Incendiaries and evil Instruments who suggest it So as if the Army will proceed in this Diabolical destructive way of Treason and Ruine We and all Three Kingdoms are solemnly engaged with our Estates and Lives unanimously to oppose and bring them to Justice And is this then the way to publick Peace and Settlement to raise another new War to murder one another in this new Quarrel wherein the Army and their adherents must be the sole Malignants and Enemies we must Fight with c No verily but the high-way to the Kingdoms and Armies ruine whose Commissions we are obliged to revoke whose Contributions we must in Conscience withdraw and whose Power we must with our own lives resist unless we will be Perjured and guilty of breach of Covenant in the highest degree if they persist in these Anti-Covenant Demands 7. The King having granting us whatever we have or can demand for the safety and preservation of our Religion Laws and Liberties and both Houses engaged
themselves by Vote in answer to the Kings Propositions to restore him to a condition of Freedom Honour and Safety according to the Laws of the Realm which was the Armies own Proposals in his behalf in August 1647. We can neither in Honesty Honour Justice nor Conscience were He ten thousand times worse than the Army would render Him Depose and bring Him to Execution It being against all the rules of Justice and Honour between two professed Enemies who had no relations one to another much more between King and Subjects in a Civil War a thing without President in any Ages To this the Army Remonstrance answers That this would be thought an unreasonable and unbeseeming demand in a Personal Treaty between Persons standing both free and in equal ballance of Power but not when one Party is wholly subdued captivated imprisoned and in the others Power But this certainly is a difference spun with an Athiestical thred For to Treat with any King in our Power or out of it on Articles of Peace upon these terms That if He consent to them We will restore Him to the Throne with Honour Freedom Safety and when He hath yielded us our Demands then to Depose and cut of His Head is the highest breach of Faith Truth Honour and Justice that can be imagined and those who dare justifie such Perfidious and Unchristian dealing deserve rather the Style of Turks and Athiests than Pious Saints 8. There is no president in Scripture that the General Assembly or Sanhedrin of the Jews or Israelites did ever Judically Imprison Depose or Execute any one of the Kings of Judah or Israel tho' many of them were the grossest Idolaters and wickedst Princes under Heaven who shed much innocent blood and oppressed the People sundry ways We know that David himself committed Adultery with Uriah his Wife a faithful Servant and Souldier while he was with his General Joab in the Field And then afterwards caused him to be Treacherously slain Yet neither the Assembly the Elders nor Joab and the Army under him did impeach or crave Justice against him for these sins tho' he lived impenitently in them And when he numbered the People afterwards for which sin seventy thousand of his Subjects lost their lives yet was he not Arraigned nor Deposed for it and God who is Sovereignly just tho' David was the principal Malefactor in this case if not the sole and thereupon when he saw the Angel that smote the People cried out Lo I have sinned and done wickedly but these Sheep what have they done Let thy hand be against me and my Fathers House Yet God spared him and his Houshold tho' the Principals and punished the People only with death for this sin of his After him Solomon his Son a Man Eminent for Wisdom and Piety at first Apostatiz'd to most gross Idolatry of all sorts to please his Idolatrous Wives and became a great oppressor of his People making their burdens very heavy yet the Subjects or Souldiers did neither Impeach nor Depose him for it and tho' he were the principal Offendor yet God spared him for Davids sake in not taking the ten Tribes from him for these sins during his life though he rent them from his Son Rehoboam who was at most but accessary for his Fathers sins not his True it is some of the Idolatrous Kings of Israel by the just avenging Hand of God were slain by private Conspiracies and popular Tumults in an Illegal way but not Deposed nor Arraigned by their Sanhedrins or General Congregations and those who slew them were sometimes slain by others who aspired to the Crown or by the People of the Land or by their Children who Succeded them and came to untimely Tragical ends 9. Tho there be some presidents of Popisb States and Parliaments Deposing their Popish Kings and Emperours at home and in Foreign parts in an extraordinary way by power of an armed Party Yet there is no president of any one Protestant Kingdom or State that did ever yet Judically Depose or bring to Execution any of their Kings and Princes though never so bad whether Protestants or Papists and the Protestants in France though some of their Kings when they had invested them in their Thrones became Apostates to Popery and Persecutors of Their People albeit they resisted them by force of arms in the Field to preserve their lives did never once attempt to pull Them from Their Thrones or bring Their Persons unto Justice And I hope our Protestant Parliament will never make the first president in this kind nor stain Their Honour or Religion with the blood of a Protestant King against so many Oaths Protestations Covenants Declarations and Remonstrances made and published by Them to the contrary 10. For the presidents of Eeward II. and Richard II. in times of Popery they were rather forcible resignations by Power of an Army then judical deprivations neither of them being ever legally arraigned and brought to Tryal in Parliament And Mortimer who had the chief hand in Deposing King Edward II. in the Parliament of 1 E. 3. was in the Parliament of 4 E. 3. Impeached Condemned and Executed as a Traytor and guilty of High Treason for Murdering Edw. II. after he was Deposed at Berkley-Castle and Sir Simon Bereford together with Thomas Gurney and Will. Ocle were adjudged Traytors for assisting him therein one of them Executed and great Rewards promised to the apprehenders of the other two And as for Richard II. though he was Deposed after Henry IV. was Crowned by pretence in Parliament yet this Deposition was after his resignation only not before it and without any Formal tryal or arraignment or any Capital Judgment of Death against him for which I find no president in any Parliament of England Scotland France nor yet in Denmark it self though an Elective Kingdom who though They justly Deposed Christiern II. for his most abominable Tyranies and Cruelties yet they never adjudged or put him to Death but only restrained him as a Prisoner I shall only add this That though the Elective Kindoms of Hungary Bohemia Poland Denmark and Sweden have in their Parliaments and Diets Deposed sundry of their Kings for their Wickednesses and Tyrany yet they never judically condemned any one of them to death though Papists And for a Protestant Parliament to please an army only acted by Traytors in this particular to render both Parliament army and our Religion too for ever execrable throughout the World and set all Mens Pens and Hands against them to their ruine to begin such a bloody president as this upon a most false pretext of settling Peace contrary to the express Command of God himself who Commands Christians To Pray for Kings and all in authority that they may live a quiet and peaceable life under them in all Godliness and Honesty not to Depose or cut off their Heads as the only way to Peace and Settlement will not only be Scandalous but Monstrous FINIS