Kings * pitching on his knees and their so lifting up their heads in Scotland since the last Bang not a whit inferiour if not over-topping us there also why then no question when our old friends are destroyed our old Enemy and we must go to it again and I hope we have little hopes that the Catholick will take our parts unless as he promises he will the weakest side till we have totally ruined and confounded each other And now Sir I will leave his happy digression to your self to read in his 9. pag. and come back with him to his place of imployment which he sayes was Oxford which being surrendred he with his fellow-Iesuites have not it seems been idle to stir up sad contentions betwixt the Brethren and people of God Pag. 10. And now they have altered their outward Guize and appear almost in all manner of species in hopes to work more good upon us for the Catholick cause and what do they now but down to Newcastle hye they to the King where Pag. 11. they then it seems had hopes so long since to exasperate our Brethren against England which had they noâ— feared the Kings fickleness they would then have put in action but also that they over much doted on the great summ Page 12. But mark Sir Here he says they found even in our Brethrens army unpardonable Cavaleers and Delinquents more then a good many yea known Priests and Jesuits which truly afflicts my soul to consider it should so be in those times of zealous profession to the contrary to have more then private admittance yea publike acception amongst them not onely to the number of two Regiments of Catholikes Page 13. but one whole Regiment of them reduced under the Lord Synclare who shrouded a Papist under a Presbyterian walking which verily is able to grieve any godly Professor to think it could be possible Nay more Montross who since I doubt is executed rather out of a Royal Politie then a zealous Piety and O monstrous Irish Rebels then to be joyned with as we cannot deny now they are for a war then against England as now But alas our Brethren then feared the imputation of Covenant-breakers which all moderate men would have accused them of had they then begun and whether they have fairly cast it upon England by a two or three years procrastination let the Lord judge I fear but am silent But methinks in good sooth Polemo does a little excuse our Brethrens selling the King when he says their surrendring of him was to no other intent but to furnish them with matter for a new falling out with England being so cunning as to consider that our English Parliament Page 14. being thus necessitated could do no less in Justice upon the great head of their evils then what might furnish them with new pretences for an Invasion and bear them out in the opinion of seduced Englishmen for their endeavouring to raise up new distempers amidst us Of two evils verily this is their greatest if they had taken money for their King all moderate men would in part have excused them Page 15. if it had not been upon such unrighteous grounds and evil designs as are these so that it seems an hard Problem to me whether they are more glad they had so much for him or less sorry they were so conveniently rid of him Page 16. And now Sir our Novice like a mad Rambler flies out into many several odd passages and stories nay he descends to several particulars of persons and places running on in a pretty wilde Discourse but very strongly confirming his Relation by indubitate circumstances which hoping you have wel weighed I shall pass over many pages together for indeed my design at first was no other but to touch upon that which most touches those of our party and where it is possible to wipe off that dirt which is thrown in the face of us that have not yet stooped to bow our knee unto Baal nor gone back from the Covenant of God Page 17. But the next place he leads us to is to that Mother of Reformation that Metropolis of Scotland Edenburgh for to the anguish of my soul he speaks it Page 18. A Catholike delights in no air besides his own so well as in a Presbyterian where belike Montril was at that time egging on our Brethren to fall out with England though there were indeed mature deliberations had upon his Proposals because they savoured too much of a French-English-King and no English-Scotch-King Page 19. nor were our Brethren so valiantly foolish to fall on when the Independent stood so prepared for them they onely made some flourishes as I profess verily I fear they now do meerly to enhance the price of a second bargain Page 20 Page 21. Page 22. Page 23. Besides this great skip many pages more do I now willingly run over as particularly the horrible cunning actings of Hambleton Montril and the Jesuits it s indeed a fitter Lecture for the Cavaleer then us though most horribly have we both of us been deluded by Royal tricks the gratious God be pleased to open their and our eyes that we may see and understand his ways and the evil of our misleadings Ay but Sir I beseech you in the name of Jesus Christ let the words of that cunning Merchant Montril never depart out of your breast O how prophetick are they truly it s a very great discovery and worthy our perpetual consideration Page 24. I mean that additional good news which he spake to the comfort of the Jesuite which came unto him about carrying on their plots in Scotland I doubt not quoth he by what I have already brought to pass with the Scots and English but to see our three enemies beaten by themselves and his Banner of Christ and Standard of his Master to be in time erected amongst us Heretiques for so you see they account us Never a Barrell the better Herring O then good Sir should not this induce us to be all one in one as it becometh the Saints and servants of Jesus Christ shall we rather desire to be governed by a forraign French Foe then a Native-English friend Fie on this carnall mindedness this selfishness and desire of rule and government which thus rules and rages even in the breasts of holy professors truly this becometh not the dear Saints of God Pag. 25. But that which is the most intolerable burthen upon my spirit is when I consider they say they had great hopes by the King and his party but more now then ever if but we of the honest party and those old Reprobate Malignants could be ever brought so to shake hands though but with the teeth outward as to be both willing to accept of aid from the French King which truly I doubt is now past bringing to pass in Scotland and by our Country Club-meetings of both parties too neer wrought
Sir in this scruple of conscience I am also much dissatisfied why we should keep such a spudder in the Pulpit in matters meerly civil and politick alas Sir let us preach Jesus Christ and desire to know nothing else Ah me how do some of our brethren especially amongst ye at London make us shrewdly suspect them whom otherwise the world must have in great reverence and estimation for their eminent worthiness in Gospel-pains-takings when the whole scope of their exercises is to set the people a madding and to spawle so so much in the face of Authority enough to make that ununreasonable Hydra rise up and tear in pieces our fellow-Saints whom 't is true the Lord hath set over us and yet to be our servant Governours Pag. 5. But on next he tells us the Good Catholike is quite turn'd Presbyter and doth now clearly relinquish the Royall Cause so much as that he is resolv'd to assist us with some grand pieces of his Treachery not doubting but that we shall serve to add vigour to their cause as more able and apt Instruments then were the hare-brain'd Cavaleers Verily Sir if his reasons hold water to prove this we shall be with some reluctancy and grief of spirit enforced to acknowledge the pernicious evill of our Presbyterian Discipline what a Papist be able to cloud himself under the holy walkings of a Presbyter O lamentable let us hear his reasons I pray Sir and the great Jehovah be pleased to work an information upon all our spirits He urges you see in the Book that they have more hopes by us then they had by the Bishops and here a Dominican Father shews us how to wit That if the points of our Religion where I conceive he hints at Auricular Confession and Penance with their Discipline and Policie no doubt he means our owning a Kirk-Chair-Infallibility were seriously considered that there is no form of Religion in the world does so neerly adhere to and consent with the true Catholick Faith though he denyes it to be super veritate fundatum as theirs is because perchance we so much stand upon our Kirk and they upon their Church He proceeds on with his Reasons because we of the Ministery are so mutable and given to change so that he concludes a probable hope of our conversion to them in the end O Sir that our unmoveableness in the wayes of worship godliness and walkings with God could supply us with an Argument to repell this undenyable objection of theirs Oh dear God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ we do confess and acknowledge the instabilities and waverings of our opinions in many fundamentals and sound points Ah Sir help me to deny that Marginall witness he there inserts against us A Common-Prayer-Directory-Covenanting-Royall-Assembly-Engaging Ministers of England Let me tell you Sir though we seem out of some humane carnall concernments so much to boggle at the engaging to the present Government yet I professe it was indeed an odder change in us to run point-blank against all those former oaths we had so often taken at our severall Degrees and taking Orders then now but to make a promise by subscription of being obedient to that Government which the Lord himself doth indubitately own to be over us by his perspicuously appearing manifold providences and bringings about it doth not trouble me though indeed it was contrary to our many oaths that we have laid aside the Bishops but it grieves my spirit when I consider we could heretofore so easily swallow a Camel and that we should now so nicely strein at a Gnat. Pag. 6. Next for that which he calls Volaticum jus jurandum our Covenant how can we deny but that our Brethren make the main use of it now for a pick-quarrel with England which as we have grounds to suspect if the French have put them upon then assuredly some body hath given an assurance of his firm conversion to the Faith Catholick and we of the Presbytery the onely staffe He intends to lean upon which truths of his assertion that he may the more clearly hold forth you see he sticks not to tell us the particular services and good turns they did us for the advancement of and twisting together the Catholick-Covenant-Cause Pag. 7. Certainly we cannot chuse but see day all abroad at this great hole and through these crannies we cannot but espy the Jesuiticall closings with us I pray God it be not ours with them as in the business of France and Ireland For as he goes on it should seem when he ruled the roast the Jesuits were better able in any notion to disguise themselves under our Discipline then any other because alas we were so credulously formall that whosoever would but turn Covenanter we were eftsoon confident he must be an honest man if he had been the highest Cavaleer Iesuit or King himself which if the last had as his son now has done with his whole fry of Iesuites and Malignants about him I am subject to beleeve with the Novice they would and these will if the Lord avert it not in short time reduce England to a more sad condition then all we have hitherto sustain'd for let us speak soberly Sir if the late ungodly King had but come in by that cobled Treaty of the Isle of Wight there would I am confident hardly a moneth have commenc'd before we should have had some of our now best standing heads lopt off and I professe I have often feared with my self that such as you and I should scarce have been seated in those affluent Benefices and creaturely full enjoyments which we undisturbedly may if we will now enjoy under these our gracious Governors Pag. 8. Ah Sir what can we imagine but that when we three you know whom I mean are but once joyn'd but the effects will be most sad To us especially for whosoever stands we must fall I will not touch upon the sound reasons which in his 8. pag. he urgeth for this passage they indeed make me silent to give a Response to him or them for truly I cannot deny that the bloody intentions of the Cavaleers to us-wards and so consequently our just provocations against them must needs render us both one with another impossibly reconcilable Pag. 9. But let us us suppose now that if our brethren with the assistance we could wish them and the Cavaleers will bring them should prevaile against our present Government and lay England flat on their backs what benefit can we of all men propound or imagine to our selves for surely the Cavaleer would flye high and stand on tip-toe outvying us both for service and desert when at the most we do but wish well and are said to bawle a little in the Pulpit when in the mean while they are now suffered and let in to act in the field whose number also and considerableness every man knows much surmounts us in England and t is thought by the young
already here in England the Jesuit did not doubt but to see this done and verily without doubt it is for so much have they wrought upon the nice dissatisfactions even of some of the godly party that I think many of us the more our madness is to be pittied if not punished would be now very glad to accept of aid Pag. 26. not onely from a Foraigner the French but ah me the Irish any body yea the prophane common enemy to boot being for ought I see most of us very ready to joyn with any enemies that we may but ruin and overthrow our fellow-Saints and friends Pag. 27. Alack Sir it should seem our stirring forraign enemy is not wanting of some shrewd Agents of theirs even in the very Counsels and Armies of our State who are now stirring up of Feuds Divisions Rebellions amongst our selves against those whom the Lord hath appointed over us the truth on 't is the Jesuites are strange spirits and when I read a touch of the Novices that the Levelling party was a plot of theirs to put us in a cumbustion Pag. 28. O Sir how did it grieve me that it brake off so abruply that there was no more of that weighty secret discovered Pag. 29. questionless he hath revealed more of that to those who think it convenient in their deep judgements not as yet to have it vulgarly made known Pag. 30. To conclude Sir I must now pass over many most considerable Pages and passages being resolved as before said to meddle with nothing of of the Historical part of Polemo but what concerns our Party though I also confess it is impossible by way of Letter to touch upon one quarter of that which too too neerly relates to us But the Novice makes a great leap now and in a trice has us over to France and tells us many rare intervening Occurrences during his abode there indeed wonderfully as to delight and information worth a mans reading Amongst all that which must grieve us to consider was that when he came to the English Court at Germains then was there great good hopes that something might be done that yeer for the obtaining of that pretty prey of England but speedily it was annihilated I pray Sir mark the reason because our discontented Party had not wholly faln off and deserted our Parliament but that it is reserved even for this yeers work having now so gotten the start of us and such a power over our judgments by reason of our young Kings seeming penitence and compliance Pag. 31. and again the death of the old King which they so much hoped for that are now so great pretending friends to the young one they did not doubt but would very sufficiently exasperate and provoke us Pag. 32. and make us eager out of our mad malice to take in him who hath not onely followed such profane ungodly and lascivious ways as to have begot a Bastard in France Pag. 33. but his Brother also to be made a Cardinal and he himself turned downright Papist and declares that he will turn Turk or any thing to be revenged of the English not saying which of us he means Pag. 34. Pag. 35. Pag. 36. without doubt we shall be served all alike how confident soever our hitherto indiscreet resolutions have rendred him and the Pope that we will be their main aiders which in truth Sir would be a great infatuation in us if we should when we so clearly perceive such daily discoveries of horrid practises against us which are more abundantly evident in this Relation of the Novices then I have time or patience to discuss upon I have here written a letter to you but methinks it swels into a thing like a Pamphlet truly it is not so intended therefore I beseech you let none if any but old friends peruse it for it may be dangerous in these times for men of your and my profession to be known but to have been what notwithstanding they now really profess to be convinced in Liberavi animam meam I have unburthened my spirit under God to you and earnestly desire your answer to this with as much moderation as the Spirit will give you utterance and without fail good Sir be pleased to send me down the second part of Mutatus Polemo whatsoever it cost I must indeed ascribe the instrumental part of my convincement to the sound Reasons of that wonderful Relation and I discover also a certain Providence working me hereunto because it was I profess a fortnight and upwards before ever I chanced to come by the sight of Polemo that this Epistolary Tractate which herewithall I send you was brought unto me from Mr. C.H. a young Gentleman of a very noble Family and whom we take to be a great Wit in the Country who writ it to me in answer of some Queries and objections I had made concerning the present Ruptures between our Brethren and England Independent and Presbyter It seems now to me somewhat strange that his judgement should jump so even with future Discoveries it will be worth your reading though prolix onely perchance your gravity may not in all things approve of his sometimes harsh language I will not keep back so much as his superscription t is somewhat rugged at first view but take it thus as it follows So I rest Sir Yours c. P. C. To all our once Brethren and now Enemies of England and to all our Never-Enemies but dear friends of Scotland the Saints and honest Party there But in particular to my well-deserving Friend and Neighbour Mr. P. C. Minister of Ma in Essex Salvation in Christ SIR I Will not cease to write lest the Cause of England should seem to want Pen as well as Pike-men and thus much dare I boast of it that in my own opinion I am the weakest defender of it of all those that pretend any abilities to maintain it its true also there may be so much vanity in my conceit as that I may expect applause for daring to speak a word in the behalf of poor Truth To put this out of doubt I request you Sir to communicate it to none but such as your self wavering dissatisfied ones truly I more fear I may unhappily incurr offence if it were made publick for presuming to meddle with State-matters so high above the reach of a private Gentleman But if sometimes perchance I seem a little malapert in my State-reasonings Methinks I forthwith contemplate the Blessed change our mouthes were bung'd up in Kings and Bishops times the Liberty of speech wherewith we are now indulg'd which is indeed evermore to be found in a well-policed Commonwealth 1. And now it is mine intent Mr. C. to speak of those rascally people whom you would fain vindicate and of their design to conquer us which according to the Covenant they will change when they please into a necessity of defending themselves This argument I
family having made this Stripling see as it were in a throng such a number of affairs and vicissitudes he must needs have a certain kinde of abridg'd experience and be even rudimented in the Epitome of that which his Gransire called King-craft which in down-right terms of strict Divinity not fast-and-loose Policy is plain knavery yet to speak moderately so harsh and rigid an education hath not been unprofitable unto him his tempest hath taught him the Art of swimming Adversity hath read him such strange Lectures which he will make use of all his life and without dispute he hath not lost his time in that sad School he hath been trained up But this is the gallant Lad at whose beck ye are resolved to engage your whole State lives and fortunes alas are ye distract of your wits have your mad furies anent your selves no medium or intermission we hope it is not so though indeed the most part of ye Northern people are many times accustomed to rageings but ye have onely some raptures and sudden motions t is pretty odd to observe how quick your resolutions are ye use no discourse nor make use of reason to a war but collecting all your vigor together and casting out all your choler at first ye make an extream fierce kinde of French onset as if the Devil drave ye or a Lesly led you on after which finding a more gallant resistance then ye expect and the property of your violence being to endure but awhile if Straughan and your Pulpiteers be not present with their reason and arguments to keep fire to it then at last as ye seemed to be more then men at the beginning ye become less then women in the prosecution of your enterprizes and as if ye went out of the fit of a Feaver after ye have been a little rouz'd ye languish in a Lethargie keeping your selves close in holes within the bounds of a Lethee-Lake ordinarily flying though our Army put you not to flight and yielding your selves when they take you not ye never consider how ye shall overcome but how bravely you shall march up to the gude City without resistance and thus your weakness as well as necessities carries you on to desire extremes and impossibilities precipitating the course of Providence which ye would fain lead and not follow as if it were your Providence and not Gods and when it also lights upon you in a most miraculously heavy measure ye are Infidel-like ready to term it no other but a meer accidentall event Ye blind Bayards will wilfully blindfold your selves and not discern these obvious discoveries of Providence which the Lord does as it were daily make out to your terrour and the amazement of well-nigh the whole people of the Universe I am not able to speak them but admire verily the modesty of an Orators stile agrees not with actions so divine so unheard of so little credible which have been through his actuating power perform'd by his poor Instruments our Army but all that I can say more in this particular is Let him be owned who hath owned his But all this will not induce you to sit quiet at home ye would fain have one bout more with England for good and all what If the baseness of your Countrey prompts ye to find out more happy dwellings and a more favourable ayre then that of your birth If the Lord of Hosts by a strong Providence shall again and again send ye back to inhabit your own wilderness and to endure the rigour of your everlasting winter will ye yet still dare to oppose his Power by incroaching upon us Keep ye back ye sharking companions ye black patch of fair England ye fawning Peripateticks to the luxurious Courts of Princes we Freemen cannot name ye without discomposing our mouths and wounding English eares we are resolv'd not to be rather then ye shal be any thing amongst us ye have nothing to colour your Travelling Invasions of us but the revenge of an old Tyrant and the introducing of a New this pretence shall never carry thorow your silly designs Do ye know the just hatred which the generality now of us in England do immortally bear them both Certainly it must never have an end it deservedly accompanied the First the latter part of his life and followed him to his grave nor will the curses of the poor innocent Fatherless children and widdows suffer him to enjoy in safety the common Asylum of the miserable And for the Second whose future felicity must of necessity be founded upon bloud deaths ruines 't is so doleful and portentous an object to the generality of true English Spirits that we cannot so much as away with the thought of him we look not upon him as ye do as a Sol oriens by whose Rayes ye think to warm your fingers once again in England but we English Gentlemen behold him as an Ominous Comet with dis-shevel'd bloody locks which threatens the most moderate Transgressour against him of us all with a million of not to be endured miseries and mischiefs there can be no favourable aspect expected from him by any of us but his Malignant Influence must of necessity be abhorr'd by all of us He is the Serpent whose breath we see has poyson'd a whole people of ye he is that young wild Boar of the Forrest which like his Ancestor-Tyrants would fain make havock of all about the City but blessed be God we have an Heros yet left in England if he be not now in Scotland perchance you have found him there who with Gods help we doubt not will be able to cleanse our Countrey happily yours too of such a Monster and I pray you was there ever a more cruel more formidable one then that Tyranny which now menaces the smothering of our Infant Republique in the Cradle and the transmuting of our new begun Liberty into pristine slavery Yet I say if the Lord should send him upon us it is in his wrath and in the day of his fury He is the evil wherewith the Holy Prophets threaten us the effect of Gods disesteem'd Providence and the boding Executioner of Vengeance upon us The Lord may please as Psal 16. to put the Sword of the Almighty into the hands of his enemies Yet wo unto Ashur cryeth the Lord by Isaiah notwithstanding he is the Rod of the Lords fury and his staffe and his indignation is in his hand But wo wo wo be unto ye Brethren because ye have gone down into Aegypt for ayd yet we fear ye not for the Aegyptian is man and not God and their horses are flesh and not spirit nay more ye have gone even unto an Esau for ayd of whom it was said that he should live by his Sword which Paul gives for an infallible Character and example of a Reprobate Take heed good Brethren I speak to those who have not back-slidden with a perpetuall back-sliding if there be any such as we hope there are yet