the power of both is indivisible so intermixt that when the Court of Parliament the end of whose Councels is to establish Justice Peace industriously intends the same when we desert our duty unto them we are wanting to our selves unthankful unto them The Government of England as in these latter times it stands since Laws and a setled Forme established since Religion and Laws have met together flourished like couples in a building each supporting other and God honoured in both is not simply a Subordinative but a Co-ordinative and mixt Monarchy yea the highest supremacy it self is compounded of three estates Co-ordinate King Lords and Commons now it is true Subordinata non pugnant but Co-ordinata invicem supplent Fundamentals are equal and all Principals alike Rex est universis minor Bracton the great Lawyer saith Rex habet superiorem sc Deum Legem per quam factus est Rex Curiam sc Comites Barones The agitating this and the like Questions incident hereunto hath disturbed the mindes of men and cost much blood as which hath the Preheminence which ought to bear the greater sway the King or the whole number of the people in their collective Body which the Court of Parliament doth represent Another Question is which is the certain and proper Parliament as the case now stands that summoned by his Majesties Writ to Westminster or that by a latter command to Oxford whither the Principles of the Subjects Peace Religion justice have been of late and before this Quarrel in danger of being born down And whither the conflict in the Quarrel undertaken by those who have endeavoured to provide against that danger be Rebellion The King and His Party whither in their own defence See His Majesties Declarations and Messages since Ianuary 1641. The Oxford Mercury moves the jealousie making the Kings sincerity questionable for whilest the Mercury knowing the Dyet and full digest of the Kings party there cals the Parliament whensoever he names them The Rebels at Westminster notwithstanding the King cals them The Parliament and words of professing Friendship and Complacency being more uncertain then words of Hatred and Defiance although His Majesty terms them now a Parliament a Phrase of Truth and Credit he mâ—y reserve unto himself more bitter thoughts of Anger and future Accusation according to what the Mercury expresseth towards them or not hereafter have sought against them as being Rebels The King not alwayes and constantly calling them so as his Party doth for sometimes he calleth them the Parliament sometimes Rebels whether in sincerity or reservednesse of heart He varieth the phrase His own heart can witnesse It is the note of the wisest of Kings on Earth that the Heavens for height the Earth in depth and the Kings heart no man can finde out not that a King is therefore more transcendently wise or perfect above and beyond all other men nor that his heart is more Divinely inspired or illuminated from above more incomprehensible or His ways like Gods past finding out the Text bears no such construction the frailty and uncertainty of all Kings Actions do evidence the contrary although their Flatterers may peradventure vainly infuse such Doctrine into their ears and from this place of Scripture instruct a King with the necessity and excellency of dissembling the meanest and worst part of wisdom although resembling it Amidst the many Doubts and Jealousies the Suggestions and Machinations at home and abroad against the Peace and well-being of the Kingdom it concerns the Court of Parliament to look unto and prevent in as much as in them lyes the growth of approaching Danger which are then Dangers only when near and in sight when they are instant and befallen they and the opportunity of preventing them is past and become above the name of Dangers Calamity Seeing therefore the Parliament are by Gods special providence met together entrusted in their Countries welfare their courage and unanimity is requisite in perfecting that work for which they were assembled viz. the Maintenance of Gods worship the Kings honour the Subjects Liberty these two the Kings Honour and the Subjects Liberty propagating each other when as it is a larger accesse of dignity to be a King of a free people then of Slaves unlesse He shall in the pursuit of this War reckon to purge the Kingdom of the worst and most enslaved of His people which as the case now stands will otherwise fall out and prove as in letting blood the natural body the best the most free and spirituous to be wasted and spilt as well as that which His Majestie doth in His own sence call the worst Where by the way Gods immediate hand of Providence manifested to his people in the preservation of his glory is especially to be taken notice of that whereas his chiefest End in the creation of Mankinde hath been his own true Worship and the salvation of his people of which he hath a peculiar care seen even in the disposing and ordering of humane affairs as a second and subservient means to his own Decrees That at the same time the Subjects Liberty should be invaded when the Protestant Religion the subversion of which was probably first and principally aimed at howbeit in the managery thereof the Enemies to Both Religion Liberty were ill advised in that the Power and Priviledge of Parliament the Fabrick of all Laws the Subjects Right should be overthrown and fall together with the Protestant Religion Arist Polit cited in the like case by Sir Walter Raughleigh in his Dialogue between a Councellour of state and a Iustice of Peace The Philosopher observes that Homines minus timent injustum pati à Principe quem cultorem Dei putant had they singled out either Religion the Subjects Liberty or the Priviledge of Parliament to be destroyed apart many it is like especially among the common sort of men might have failed in their zeal to the one yet have endeavoured the preservation of the other so the Enemies Design might have better thrived in the successe if Religion singly or the Subjects Liberty alone had been left unshaken without a complication of both to fall together at the same time and by the same power The Parliaments next endeavour is to maintain entire and against all opposition the Power Priviledge and Dignity of their Court no so sure a way as by their constant accord and unity which if overthrown by an advers Power all Parliaments are in danger of languishing in their esteem and must either comply or submit to the Arbitrary will of the Prince who conventeth them at His pleasure and so lose their Freedom What then follows a discontinuance of enacting Laws a dull carelesse and obsolete use for want of due execution of such Laws as are in Being thence an Arbitrary and unlimitted way of Government that Force or the Sword must be the Umpire besides a certain although a remoter consequence a failer of that well-breeding the
Act of offering a Treaty for Peace to invent new charges of high Treason of capital Misdemeanors of Injustice is no right way to Peace unlesse the persons charged are guilty of the same as namely they charge the Parliament or their Committees to have imprisoned two Lords for their Loyalty to the King as if their Loyalty were the unquestionable and certain cause of their Imprisonment These Lords might happily shew themselves active against and disobedient to the Parliaments Authority for in these unsetled and distracted times few men do others will not know their proper duty and so come within the compasse of some fault to deserve Imprisonment The High Treason whereof they accuse their fellow-Members is their counterfeiting the Great Seal Page 22. against the Statute of 25. Edw. 3. which whether in this case be to be understood High Treason the Sword must decide the Question The Parliament think themselves not guilty of that Crime by the Verdict of most men nor every thing made to the Mould by which it is made is not simply Counterfeiting the quality of the offence is much discerned in the maner of the offending and every Law-making commonly relates to some preterite fraud and wickednesse Now whether a King and a Parliament since the first constitution of either have heretofore made use of the Great Seal to crosse one anothers Acts be to be found in any Record whereon to ground a Law the Reader is to seek Amongst all the capital Misdemeanors amounting to High Treason recited in that Statute the Parliament making a new Seal being not done against the knowledge of the King and State seems not within the compasse of that Law which in that clause doth questionlesse intend the privy and surreptitious counterfeiting to the private Use and Benefit of the Counterfeiter And whereas in that Statute there may be divers doubtful cases of Treason determinable it is then and there accorded That if any other case supposed Treason which is not specified in See the Statute that Statute shall come before any Justices they shall tarry without giving Judgement of the Treason until the cause shall be shewed and declared before the King and Parliament whether it ought to be so adjudged or not In which determination the King and Parliament are presumed joyntly to Act if dividedly then who to judge the King seclusively without the Parliament or the Parliament without the King which if divided most likely to give a clear and dexterous judgement the King or the Parliament Those words The King Parliament cannot be understood of the Kings Councel and the Parliament it must be of the King himself in which as Treason is here objected to the Parliament the Parliament is excluded from any decisive power of being Judge what is Treason and pronounced guilty themselves of Treason The marginal Note if in that as in other places of See the marginal Note the Statute it sums up the sense of the Statute disputeth many Questions touching Treason to be first decided in Parliament leaving out the word King or presuming as is before observed that He is always there in person or in vertue Take the Accusers the Assembly at OXFORD Page 24 25. their own acknowledgement That the Parliament is His Majesties Answer to a Declaration from both Houses May 19. 1642. not Dissolved that they are far from Dissolving or attempting to Dissolve it Take His Majesties own confessing and allowing to the Parliament a power in a particular doubtful case regularly brought before them to declare what Law consequently what Treason is and the making a new Great Seal the old being contrary to Trust vafrously carried away from them the Representative Body of the State which the Seal is always to attend will not be adjudged a case of High Treason In the controverting this particular case as of the other Crimes charged on the Parliament and the Subjects of this Kingdom adhering thereunto the people may well be to seek when as the learned Sages and other Students of the * The Innes of Court Phrontisteries of Law and Justice seem to be divided in opinion some very active as being peradventure engaged for the King against the Parliament contending with all their might to make good the charge of Treason laid upon that Court and the Friends assisting them Others in the Parliaments account and questionless their Friends as earnest although more moderatly expressing it for the King and Parliament believe it to be no way Treason Which are greater numbers of them on the one side or the other or which the more able Lawyers is not here determined But to the Objection if any such That a greater number of them are within the Jurisdiction of the Parliament in LONDON and other places elswhere wherefore they may seem rather to side with that power The Answer is easily had That their hopes and possibility of being prefer'd by His Majesty were not Conscience Judgement valued by them above Reward or Honor were a more weighty motive then fear can be of displeasing that side in whose Quarters they are which cannot always protect much lesse gratifie them save only with the testimony of what they deserve answerable to their Breeding Knowledge and liberal Faculty One of the learnedst of that Tribe in those days wherein he lived and much Honored for his parts and industry wrote a whole Tractate for the Dignity and Priviledge of that Court in general How this in particular hath demeaned themselves to forfeit their Credit any other way then in maintenance of their power against oppression violence offered to themselves and the Subjects for whom they are entrusted future Ages can Record But to proceed In the same Declaration full of suspition and fraught with quarrelling the Assembly at OXFORD except against the words of a Message sent from the Lords and Commons to His Majesty Dated in the same year March 1643. viz. That His Majesty would not be the least or last Sufferer These words they throughly scanned and presented them to the world as terms of an See the Message of the Lords and Commons sent unto His Majesty upon occasion of a Letter sent from the Earl of Forth to the Earl of Essex high Affront as that Subjects or Rebels 't is all one in their Dialect in arms against their King should dare to send unto Him such a daring and presumptuous Message The words admit a two-fold sense the one of the Parliaments meaning as the Assembly at OXFORD seem to construe it the other more probably of their lamenting and foreseeing in their sadnesse and grief of heart the inevitable and universal ruine which must attend this War For that His Majesty cannot be the least Sufferer 't is too probable whose sufferings can be compared to His in the destruction of many thousands of His people as well in the greatest and dearest to Him as in the meaner sort in all whom consists His Safety This exception
THE REASON OF THE WAR WITH The Progress and Accidents thereof Written by an English Subject VVherein also the most material Passages of the Two Books printed at Oxford in which His MAJESTIES party do undertake to justifie their Proceedings are briefly examined VIZ. The Declaration entituled Tending to Peace The Relation of The Passages at the meeting at UXBRIDGE Imprimatur July 1. 1646. NA BRENT LONDON Printed for Iohn Field and are to be sold by Stationers 1646. READER THere were some parts of this Book published the last year but passing from the Author in much imperfection and some baste it is revised and augmented according to the Progresse and Occurrences of the War Many of the Passages therein are his own Collections observed at single hand the rest produced through the Arguing and Discourse betwixt some opposite in opinion to him and himself a lover of Learning although of ordinary and too mean parts to Discourse it as an able Schollar for he cannot but acknowledge that the subject of this Treatise might have been managed by a more learned and elaborate hand The greater part thereof was begun about a twelvemoneth since in the turbulent and divided times by way of an Animadversary of the War of the Occasions and Accidents thereof and had been printed a good while since had not an unexpected chance crossed in the very instant of putting it to the Presse Now if in these more quiet and composed times the Beams of Peace seeming to shine out again it should give offence or in the least way interrupt the happy and hoped for Reconcilement which it doth not in the Authors sence and to his best understanding his heart is against the publishing the Discourse relating rather to what is past and may serve for future times It is probable that in these times of Conflict this Discourse as milde and plain as it is may meet with rough harsh answers and unkinde censurings as that the Author is an Ambidexter Neutral that he cunningly carries himself betwixt both parts sometimes and in some things for the King at other times and in other things for the Parliament Whereunto he replyes and ingenuously declares himself both for whom and against whom he is For whom For the King and Parliament Against whom Against the Disturbers of the happy Peace having long since been the authors and now the promoters consequently of this horrid War and that there are and have been such a woful and sad Experience doth manifest A favorable and upright interpretation is all the Reward the Author either looks or wishes for next unto That His Majestie and His Subjects may reciprocally enjoy and hold firmly and entirely their several Rights The Reason of the VVar with the Progresse and Accidents thereof TO describe the Power and Dignity of a King the quality and several formes of a Parliament is not the purpose of this discourse Or what Esteem a Parliament in other Kingdoms carrieth That is left unto the curious Pen of a more learned Antiquary In this Kingdom breifly In the ancient and usual acception it is an Assembly of the Nobility and Gentry chosen by their Country and solemnly called together by the King his writ to such a place at such a time to debate the affairs of the King and Kingdom The manner of being called is by * See the form of the Writ in the Crown Office Writ directed to the high Sheriff of every County as to the chief Magistrate of Burrough Towns to return Knights and Burgesses for that service so Habited viz. with swords girt on their sides c. Which habit a Note and Embleme of the valour in them required the Object to do and go on with Courage and Magnanimity in discharging their trust which their Country hath repoâ—ed in them against all Forces opposing And no Question if former Kings have deputed none to place of Justice but menltz valianntz as King Edw. 3. expresseth them none but such are to defend and serve their Country in the high Court of Parliament which controules and is to give Laws to Justice The end of their Assembling is to determine Ordain and provide for the peace Justice and safety the supreamest Law of the Kingdom called thereunto by his Majesty Entrusted by their Country Whose Councels and Ordinances become Laws Or in case of variance in Judgement that so many as are there met cannot all agree in the same opinion that passeth for a Law which the major part concludes on so it fares in every body Politique and Aggregative And those the Parliament Orders and Ordinances are binding to the Subject as Orders in Inferiour Courts of Chancery Common Pleas c. untill decrees and Judgements passe to confirm the same which decrees and Judgements in those lower Courts hold Analogy with Acts and Laws in the higher Court of Parliament The work and end of the Parliament being consummate the Laws enacted the Parliament then determining the King governes onely and supreame binding himself to observe those Laws by a double Oath Tacitely as being a King and so bound to Rule and govern according to the Laws Expresly by his Oath taken at his Coronation To speak in a plain grammatical and obvious way the Latine Etimon directs the duty of a King Rex is so called à Regendo Government is dispenced in wisdom and justice * From which text the Kings Party do contend that Kings are immediatly from God no more then as follows in the subsequent verse Nobles do Rule and judges of c. By me Kings rule saith the wisest of Kings and Justice exalts a Nation insomuch as when commands shall prove irregular either wanting the one or exceeding the Limits of either of these they provoke the people free borne Subjects to a loose obedience and the consequence commonly becomes dangerous The Peers and Gentry thus assembled and the Parliament now in being the Kings power is not so compleat and total having imparted it self to that Assembly if it be what then is the Parliaments power If they have no power they are assembled to no purpose if a minc'd and diminish'd power in whom doth it ly to lessen or to greaten it if in the King He then may by the same reason rule Arbitrarily and by his own will as well as over-rule a Parliament so whilst the King imparts the power which he hath by communicating it to that His Court of Councel He lesseneth it in Himself or retracts His Grace in assembling them which were a blemish to His Princely wisdom unsuitable also to that common presumption The King cannot do amisse The King as the Head of His People and Father of His Country is by the common opinion of all dutiful and sober Subjects to be obeyed simply in all things Lawful and Honest when there is no Court of Parliament in Being when there is a Parliament the Heart of that Body whereof the King is the Head betwixt whom an unity of Coalition is presumed
exhortatory command of subjection to the higher Powers Powers they are without doubt high also and eminent otherwise the Countreys made an ill choyce out of eminent persons to elect inferior and mean men to enact Laws The Apostles text forecited intendeth not a King simply in His person only but all powers of governing nor them as governors in whatsoever they do but for the reason there subjoyned Their just demeanors as being the Ministers of God for the Subjects good to take vengeance of evil doers otherwise Saint Peter his peremptory text It is better to obey God then man were of lesse value and might seem to contradict Saint Pauls exhortatory Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers But to the difference in the object of obedience obedience is in common judgement most due to that power which is freest from the possibility of Error A King may sooner erre then a Parliament may no man can simply accuse that Court of permanent Actions of injustice for whatsoever they do Establish or Ordain is made just and lawful unto us in that they do it whilest we live and are born under laws They may by some latter Act repeal or moderate the rigour of an ancient or former Law without Error or injustice doing The managing their course of enforcing of imposing upon the Subjects Liberty and Right of requiring him to contribute to the maintenance of this War may not altogether unfitly be resembled to the course of a skilful Chirurgion who when a Patient's leg being broke is ill set he breaks the leg anew although with torture to the Patient his reason of breaking the same again is to set that right which by ill setting was displaced The Parliament findes the Laws broken justice turned out of it's propper channel they in the prosecution of a War necessarily to be maintained for the recovery and restauration of the Laws to their former state break those Laws again they enforce the subjects to pay the charge of Souldiers raised therefore not with an intent to continue such exactions but only during this time of War which by the peoples free submitting to the Parliaments impositions will the sooner end the one not laying heavier loads then the Subjects can bear nor the Subjects repining at what the Parliament shal impose and all upon a serious and just debate of what may fall out but necessary for a War being to be waged in defence of the Laws Government and Protestant Religion which by subtil and secret practises hath been long since oppugned who is to bear the charges of the War but they for whose sake and safety it is raised Qui sentit commodum sentire etiam debet onus money is the sinews of War War the end of Peace Peace the Subjects Blessing if he voluntarily contribute not and be enforced it is no impeachment of his Liberty and whither a War be to be waged is the result of this Discourse If the Subject by reason of such Tax and Impositions be lessened in or brought beneath his ordinary port of living his hope of enjoying his former Peace and Safety is his relief a litle enjoyed with quiet better contenteth the Subject then a great deal with travel and contention of Spirit whereupon the wise mans saying doth reflect in the comparison betwixt a dinner of hearbs with Peace then a stalled Ox with contention better to live on a morsel for the present with Peace and Right to what a man liveth on then to fare plenteously in fear of strife without the Justice of the Law measuring out each mans portion Again in that some of the * To indure for a time only transient actions of the Parliament may seem harsh and rigid yea intrenching deeply on the private Estates of men as matters now are in these loose and confused times when Law and Justice fail in most parts of the Kingdom yet relating to the publique good and common end of Peace not altogether unjust in the determinate acts of Justice no more then when houses in a street on fire the contiguous house pull'd down to save the whole street can be thought a determinate wrong or any wrong at all except to the private person whose house it is The distinction between Injusta facere Injuste facere is old this commonly and purposely to do unjustly that sparingly and accidentally to do things unjust wherefore the condemning of the Kentish men to dye for the late insurrection 1645. in that County instanced in as an act of cruelty might seem unjust and beyond the letter of the law in that all Rowts and unlawful Assemblies are by the Statute in that case provided construed as Misdeameanors only and punishable by Fine and Imprisonment Ans The Insurrection there was of a different nature in a more seditious and turbulent time the unlawful Assemblies at the time of enacting that Statute were as of a lighter kinde so to be punished by a lighter penalty This when the Subjects Liberty invaded the supreamest Court of Indicature oppugned and a Kingdom hereby divided within it self when for the mutual defence of each other some Counties thereof shall associate without any farther aim then by their joynt strength to repulse an Enemy in case he shall invade Such an Insurrection as was then made to disturb the Unity of such Association is more then an ordinary Rout intended by that Statute and to be tried and punished by the Justice of a Parliament To examine His Majesties demeanour suits not not with the tenour of this discourse whither He be considered in His Absolute quality of Wise Valiant Temperate or in his Relative towards his people as what His manner of Government hath been since His first comming to the Crown God and the Kings own heart can best judge and determine To repeat invectives here neither becomes the Author nor avails the Cause preventives of future evils are a better Antidote then Accusations are a cure for what is past Many passages now extant and in print from LONDON and OXFORD being fully set forth by the one excused and answered by the other side have made known His Government But to what happened since this War was waged which party the lesse unjust which more to be obeyed That which actually did offer wrong or that which being necessitated to raise Arms for their own defence and consequently prove the passive Authors of a Civil War might offer injury The Declarations and Remonstrances published of late with the Answers and Replications thereunto have set forth the matters of Fact and both parties challenging now yea enforcing obedience from the people the Reader is to Judge unto whom it is most due If in His Majesties demanding ship-money He hath lost any of His Subjects affections He may thank them who perswaded Him to the Justice and Legality thereof which whether it were lawful or not is learnedly argued by His * In the case of Ship-money Solicitor General The affections of
Birth-right of the English Gentry a supine and carelesse Ignorance let in in stead of the vertuous Emulation which they have alwayes studyed Seeing then Peace and Justice are the Blessings which the Subject lives by both Issues of Religion when to expect a blessing on a Kingdom The Kingdom of Heaven must first be sought Gods Worship especially provided for to be built on firm unshaken Pillars when the care thereof principally resides in those chosen men set apart for Gods and their Countreys service Their endeavor is to be fully ascertained of their Princes inclination thereunto that by His Countenance and Authority the love of Gods Honor may like the pretious Oyntment on his head run down to the skirts of his lower garments and so seated in his heart as all Jealousies to be abandoned all Evil and appearance thereof to be abstained from and the Parliament not to leave that in suspence or doubt which they would have provided to make more sure for it is not a transitory matter of Arbitrary Event or Chance to be or not to be performed but most weighty of great concernment and whereon the prosperity and welfare of the Common-wealth depends whether the Laws shall be kept entire and God certainly and constantly honored or whether the Laws shall be in danger to be broken his Name to be prophaned The main Jealousie grows by reason of an Army under the Conduct of Papists which no man will imagine is raised for the defence of the Protestant Religion for howbeit that there may be peradventure Papists in the Parliaments Army when as the number of them hath been great their Presumption increasing more and more the chief and eminent Commanders Papists are in the King 's And which is to be observed few of them miscarry in the Quarrel as not exposing themselves to the danger and hardship of the War as if they did hope through the effusion of Protestant blood and lessening their number under the name of Rebels to make unto themselves a Province yet both parties the Kings the Parliaments do professe the maintenance of the Protestant Religion And the Kings recriminatorily chargeth the Parliament with a Design to subvert the same The reason given is because Schismaticks or other the preciser sort relishing not the book of Common-Prayer are adhering to the Parliament Answ That Prayer is but a Form and humane Constitution although anciently received and of use directing us to pray blesse give Thanks c. And alterable by Authority upon devising a better Form But the difference betwixt Protestant and Papist is in Fundamentals as in Doctrine and Points of Faith so opposite as no man will judge that the parties on the one side will fight to maintain the others Cause Popery and Schism opposite in themselves agree in this that they both do undermine and seek the rooting out of the true Protestant Religion This participatively and by secret wiles That privatively and by open Enmity the one may be an aberration from the other is Idolatry and opposition to the true Protestant Religion What upon an upright discussion that is whether we take it in point of Manners or of Doctrine the one enjoyned by and comprehended in the Decalogue the other set down and fenced in by a moderne and learned * Mr. Rogers his 39. Articles Writer against the force and wiles of Popery and Schisme both parties the King and Parliament do contest for and protest to maintain the Protestant Religion so whilst there is no equivocation in the word Protestant Religion a divers acception may be in the extended sence the aforenamed Writer hath by his industry composed the difference in determining what it is and that agreed upon the contention as to that particular may cease Truth and Uniformity in Religion which cannot be without Accord without a distinct and certain knowledge what it is is the foundation and corner stone of Peace If in this Contention the Kings Army shall prevail many Papists engaged and Commanders in it what is like to be the sequel Those Papists and their followers will hope and challenge it as a condign Reward to have an especial interest in His favour because they say it was their Sword their Arme that got the victory so the King must tread a slippery and narrow path either to desert His friends who have assisted Him in this War or disabling Himself to make good His often Protestations for the maintenance of the Protestant Religion And if in this Quarrel Popery shall be let in when Justice and Law shall fail when every one given up to his own heart's Lust the Papists and other the Parliaments Enemies will in an exprobratory way thank the Parliament as the cause thereof It is true it may be said so accidentally and very remotely but neither the Impulsive Formal or Efficient cause rather if Logick will bear such a member in the division of causes a deficient cause as the absence or rather the Ecclipse of the Sun the cause of Darknesse their endeavours having failed of successe being interrupted by a strong and countermanding Power opposing them In a more fit resemblance if a Band of Souldiers should be sent out to guard a Town and a stronger Power then theirs to be imployed to oppose and master them in whom lies the fault in case the Town be lost in the watchmens deficiency or in the stronger Power opposing them so Popery and Treason the Parliament are guilty of alike and what other contumelies the wit and restlesse malice of their Enemies accuse them of And unlesse to every objection this opposite observation be applyed that in the whole course of this Quarrel there be a distinguishing between what hath been Intentionally and Principally aimed at and what hath accidentally and through necessity fallen out there can no clear judgement be given in deciding the Question How the War began who have been the Cause and Authors of these Miseries It may be as well objected by malitious and cruel Enemies that His Majesties Clemency and goodnesse have been the cause of so much blood already spilt for that he hath not put those whom His party call Rebels to the sword or hanged them to teach others their duty of Submission such Doctrines are spread abroad to foment the War when the Doctors themselves are the incendiary and impulsive means together with those Soldiers now in Arms which incites the surviving suffering people to make resistance least if they submit also as in many places they have done they are undone by it No marvel if Subjects be called Traytors and Rebels if resistance against opposition and violence be Rebellion the often Robbing and Spoiling used in the Kings name and for the King which were wont to be conservative and saving terms tending to peace and security but now grown destructive as the Souldiers use them to the Subject are able to turn him out of his natural and accustomed Frame Oppression saith the wise man makes wise men
likelihood be his own to starve up that place where some of his Royal Issue are when as the detriment befalls not the City only 't is more extensive to all parts of this Kingdom with which the City tradeth For they being denied an intercourse cannot vent their wares So in case the City were guilty of what the Proclamation doth accuse it the Justice and proceeding is not adequate where many suffer besides the offendors There be divers other Messages and Declarations printed in his Name which were want of duty in his Subjects to think them his or with his assent As to those subordinate Edicts set forth heretofore when his party had gained some Western Towns published under some of his chief Commanders hands and read in Parish Churches restraining his Soldiers from Robbing Spoiling and the like violence and as in case of Felony the Countrey to rise and pursue them according to the Law in that case provided as Thieves and Murtherers Such Messages and Edicts might carry a fair flourish of Justice and be plausible to the Subject but when as he is disarmed and disabled every way and hath no weapon to defend himself what courage or strength hath he to repulse such violence A few armed Soldiers dare to Rob on the High ways yea and to venture into Towns and do what they list without resistance How many have lost their lives of late striving to rescue and defend their goods When Commanders shall promise to secure the Subject he notwithstanding robbed when in the Kings Name and under his Authority as the Subject is made believe things shall be promised improbable in the act of promising untrue in the Event a Subjects duty may make him facile but if his understanding of what he sees gives him not sufficient light but that he will submit against his Reason and thereby miscarry in being over-credulous he may thank himself It is not speculation or matter of doubt or jealousie which disturbs and divides the thoughts of man making some of one some of another mind or any mans affections to the one or the other side which governs in the apprehension of matters as now they are it is matter of Fact the eyes are more faithful witnesses then the ears what hath been done what hath been attempted what hath been promised not performed which doth clear the doubt To believe is required from Subjects to obey their Duty but when to believe and obey against Fact and Reason on whom lies the fault if they miscarry in their obedience and belief which is not therefore written to absolve or release a Subject from his immediate duty to his Prince who is to be obeyed in all things Lawful and Honest as before exprest but the Pests and Vipers about him as King * James termeth them are to be oppugned as the His Speech in Parliament 1609. exactors and commanders of that unlimited and undefined tribute of obedience Whose course and practices have much ecclipsed his Majesties just Power and Greatnesse and have embroyled two Kingdoms at the least in an unnatural and destructive War the Third in danger with the rest all so wasted or in an imminent danger to be so wasted as to become a prey to a Forraign Enemy the greater part of the Subjects of this Kingdom being fought against as * See the Letter from the Assembly at Oxford implying this to the Earl of Essex dated Ianuary 1643. Rebels the King himself several ways disadvantaged and weakned amongst his people which he may perceive in feeling Gods hand of anger against his People poured upon them in this War in failing to assist him without being Impressed and violently forced to serve him which if it were truly Rebellion they would cheerfully have assisted him their King wherein now they fail as knowing the state of the Quarrel betwixt his party and his Subjects and that their fellow Subjects under the name of his Soldiers committing Murthers and Rapines do render his Name terrible Next in what God is displeased withall and will certainly avenge in his just jealousie the presumptious Impiety of some his Flatterers ascribing In a Book Intituled The Loyal Subjects belief penned by one Mr. Simmons p. 16. more unto the King then any man without blasphemy can avow or the King himself shall like in making it all one to offend him as to offend God himself The King of Sweden was angry with the Author who writing the History of his Successe against his Enemies flatters and attributes that to the King which was mystically spoken of Christ Psal 45. Gird thee with thy Sword upon thy thigh O thou most mighty according to thy Honor and Renown Such flattery in his Subjects was displeasing to his Majesty The Parliament are by their Adversaries among other Crimes accused of endeavoring to bring in a Parity into the Church and State This Preacher hath actually and already framed and set forth the like betwixt the Creator and the Creature He no way proves his flattering Blasphemy which had it deserved to have been seen by his Majesty and should have passed from his Eyes into his Heart it might have proved Mortal The Doctrine besides the Blasphemy is of dangerous consequence and immencely criminal if we remember what God says of himself that he is a jealous God not suffering any Peer or Rival in his Imensitude of glory This Author is too prodigal of his Conscience and Wit to any mans Judgment who shall reade his Works if there be no more of his to restore him to the good name of a Minister of Gods Word In whose Lips no Iniquity should be found as being the Messenger of the Lord of Hosts Then this here cited and one of his Sermons preached before the Kings party at SHREWSBURY in Lent was two years where to delight his Auditory he breaks a Jest in the Pulpit and widely misapplies it to a Gentleman of the Parliaments party which but that the emptinesse and petulancy of the Jest redounds to the Honor of him at whom he Jested or were his words worth reciting might have been here omitted To passe it by only with this note That there is a more severe censure in the opinion of the * Ierem. Prophet due to whomsoever shall by such wanton floutings Pollute Gods Sanctuary or put no difference betwixt the Holy and Prophane then the * Martial Poet doth allow unto Ludit qui stolidâ procacitate non est Sextius ille sed Caballus To leave this Author and to return to the present subject the sense and imminence of these miseries occasioned by this War hath reached even to most Forraign parts wherein our Neighboring and fellow * The Scots Nation understand themselves so much concerned as with a seasonable prudence to foresee have accordingly framed their purposes to provide for their own Peace involved now in ours two ways engaged thereto First through a necessity of timely endeavoring to prevent their own Thraldom and
Subjects of both Kingdoms then the present War betwixt the King and Parliament The League betwixt them the more strict and Solemn the more irreconcileable the discord when it happens and nothing to compose the Quarrel when once began besides the Sword Nothing to prevent the beginning of the Quarrel save only the forbearing and bearing each with other The self-denying quality so much assumed and protested is then exercised and best proved in so prudent a patience as is practised by a continued entire Union betwixt them both and neither of them to arrogate wholly unto themselves the successe of so much Conquest as hath been obtained But if the * The English one shall think that their opulency and wealth shall wear and drive out the other notwithstanding their approved valor or that the * The Scots other shall hope that their valor shall suppresse and conquer the English mens not inferior to theirs These unhappy thoughts and attempts if any such upon destructive hopes must turn into misery unto their Friends Reproach and Obloquy to themselves a pleasure and fulfilling their Enemies expected hopes who will be ready to upbraid them with the common and old Proverb as in the like case the contesting between the Presbyterial and Independent to let in Episcopal again When Robbers fall out true men come by their goods meaning that a party of English and Scots having complotted to divest the King of his Soveraignty and to take away his Regal Dignities and now by variance within themselves his Majesty hath regained his former Being If any infinuate means of dividing the two Nations privily and with excellency of Art carried on by their seeming Friends shall unhappily inure closely and insensibly to work this Mischief as for one Nation to upbraid and cast Aspersions on the other of Inconstancy Ingratitude Falshood and the like What a new intestine War may happen hence when either Nation shall have partakers at home and abroad in Forraign parts The English shall have Friends to credit what they say against the Scots and they reciprocally against the English and no time or season amidst these Commotions the Enemy being vigilant and active to foment the Quarrel to Examine or Dispute the Truth to set right the Misapprehensions of the particulars of such Aspersions when the very fear entertained of late of a disagreeing between the two Nations hath appalled the hearts of their common Friends and more set back and retarded the hopes of Successe and Peace then the News of Victories can forward them As for other Differences which might arise betwixt the Nations touching some Punctilio's of Pre-eminence or the like King James therefore of happy Memory in his Star-Chamber Speech in See the speech the sixteenth year of his Raign hath wisely and peaceably composed and setled deducing his Reasons from the Policy of his most wise * Henry 7. Ancestor But to the Known Objections now in being and published by the Common * Incendiaries and Fomentors of this War Enemy as of an Invasion made of the Scots as of Rebellion in the English when both Nations have been sufferers the Rights and Liberties of both violated are strange Objections in the judgement of standers by and to determine the truth of those Objections or on which side the Offensive on which the Defensive is there is not like to be any Umpire in the Question To expect a Forraigner to interecede or moderate most of whom admit a sensible and compassionate affection in them towards these our Nations their own and their nearer Friends Engagements are enough to take up their own thoughts besides a wise considerate and Politique State doth evidence their wisdom in not intermedling with the Affairs of others rather when Troubles and Commotions are abroad to look the more closely to their own especially in a Case of so nice a difference as betwixt a King and a Parliament the Representative Body of the whole Kingdom and each of them contending to make good the Justice of their Quarrel Nor is it probable that any Prince of another Kingdom will in relation to himself as making this difference betwixt the King and his Subjects here his own case send over his Forces hither to assist a Vanquished party All Kingdoms have their several Forms of Government peculiar to every Nation some of a more absolute and free some of a more mixt kinde The People know their Boundaries of Obedience the Princes theirs of Power and because Rebellion is charged on the Subjects here those Princes of other Countreys some think will take part with the King of this least it should prove a leading case to animate their Subjects also to Rebel 'T is two ways answered The several Forms of Government in this and other Countreys do diversifie the case Secondly This is denyed and no ways proved to be Rebellion An exact and serene Judgement is hardly to be given by strangers not Natives who dive not into the depth and state of this present Quarrel withall the Conflict is seldom so equally carried but that one side hath the better of it then it is against the Rule of common Policy to * Noli in Caducum parietem inclinare Lip Polit. incline to the falling and weaker part least the stronger by their inclining be provoked to become their Enemies Briefly then the extreme terms and contesting parties in this War are a Delinquent party on the one and a Parliament a Court of Judicature on the other side the first being conscious to themselves of several offences against the Common-wealth and welfare of the Subject contrive a course how to evade the hand of Justice as by sheltring themselves under a strong and supreme Power The King suggesting ill offices betwixt him and that Court of Judicature gaining thereby the better credit with the Adversaries thereof then by advising him the most likely ways of encountering it namely in betaking himself to some remoter place of strength which Advice was accordingly followed and thereby his Majesty better enabled to command the parts next adjacent to his residence as at YORK the Northern Then to require and Summon in such other Countreys near unto him as complyed not at the present with him in such design as he purposed as also to be displeased with other of his Subjects who took any averse course to his proceedings next to set up his Royal Standard at NOTTINGHAM that whosoever dwelled near and came not in to his party were in danger of his displeasure By this means his Forces might soon increase whether Love or Fear the Motive for when a Prince shall tell his Subjects near him of a Rebellion nothing then more noised by his party then Rebellion Disloyalty and preparations by him made to subdue the Rebels if he shall then require their Ayd who dare refuse These were the first parties in the Quarrel by these means the Kings strength might increase the Parliaments abate Hence grows the name of a Rebel
other Acts in several Counties for raising money c. or otherwise for discharging some Trust to them committed when as themselves the more eminent the more aimed at by the Enemy and the nearer to danger cannot appear with safety to execute the same Let any man suppose it to be his own case then he will not blame them for absenting themselves and substituting others in their room Many are the objections in this kinde which beget Disputes many accusations had against either part What the Parliament findes and complains to be practiced in opposition to them by their Enemies they observe most sensible presumptions for no one thing in bar to such presumptions to make up one tittle of compensation in lieu of the dangers which might happen or to give any the least satisfaction for removing the imminency of the same The vulgar and common salve used by His Majesties party of His passing bills since the Parliament began for the relief and ease of His Subjects as a pledge of His Princely goodnesse and care of His peoples welfare His often and deep Protestations for the maintenance of the Protestant Religion and the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom yet as matters now are these Acts of His not compensatory to those hostile Acts practiced by His party against His Parliament and people Besides those Acts of Parliament passed by His Majesty are in His and a new Parliaments power to retract or repeal them at pleasure For let it be granted that they were Acts of Parliament which His Majesty hath thus passed in that the Members of both Houses at WESTMINSTER are by His party denied to be a Parliament yet sometimes called a Parliament sometimes Rebels there is like to be little stability in what they have enacted neither is that which is contingent and possible to be altered to be adjudged compensatory to what is certain and actual The difference of times that they were reputed a Parliament when those Acts passed but since reputed Rebels or the distinction into persons that some are reserved to be a Parliament others Rebels will breed a greater confusion then help to frame an Answer by those of His Majesties party who object this favour of His Majesties passing divers Bills for the welfare of His Subjects c. That they may be repealed altered in part or all dissolved or want their vigour in execution it is probable when the persons who have and are the chief assistants in this War are the greatest Losers by those Acts recited Next as touching His Protestations His frequent Declarations of manifesting His intentions His late actions of Clemency and Pardon shewed to those whom he calls Rebels when they were taken prisoners at a late Seige by His Majesty His releasing and setting them free when He might have detained and proceeded against them as Traytors and Rebels in the judgement of His party These are to be acknowledged indulgent and merciful Acts becoming a just and Christian Prince yet they may be two wayes understood First in relation to the good of His own party prisoners in the Parliaments power and in danger to have suffered the like in case the King should have punished theirs Secondly those His Acts of releasing of His milde using of those His prisoners it is possible might be construed as present Acts of Clemency to endure only for a time and that He may be perswaded afterwards to punish them as Rebels These are times of wit and jealousie and the same Reasons which have occsioned this War even His peoples Jealousies may continue them without abatement there is no lesse cause of fears and dangers His party having tried every way by traducing the Parliament at home by attempting to set them at varience with Forraigners abroad having moved every stone as the Proverb is to subdue those whom they term Rebels no way left untried to take away their power and shadow of power no means left unassayed either milde of Inviting or violent in Affrighting and those plausible and gratious Acts used possibly to encrease yet the number of his party may cease from a total pardoning only remitting for a time until a full Conquest be obtained And when the Crown is repossest the Conquest fully had the French Proverb tells us Que la Coronne unifois prinse oste toute sorte de defaults i. e. that when the King shall be reinvested to His former full Power and Regal Dignity the Parliament and the power thereof then laid aside and become void the possessing of the Crown doth as well quit all quarrels and acceptions and cancels all disputes as it clears and purifies all manner of defaults imperfections or exceptions to be made concerning the means whether fair or foul of gaining the Conquest As Jealousies have been the cause of this Contention so what the cause of Jealousies The principal and most certain one hath been in matter of fact namely the infringing the Subjects Liberty soon after the Petition of Right was granted in full Parliament to be omitted here because set forth in several Declarations and Remonstrances One and more universal was that in the case of Ship-money which had it not been withstood by a Gentleman of repute let his Ghost be railed at and a Parliament soon after summoned what had become of the Subjects Liberty If a Writ comes down directed to a Sheriff of a County he bound by Oath or fearful of incurring displeasure in case he refuse to execute the Kings Writ and having the Posse Comitatus within his Office what remedy shall the poor Countrey man have dwelling one hundred or two hundred miles from the Court if he refuse or hath it not to pay against Imprisonment or his Goods taken from him by Distresse Justice hath its boundary and is circumscribed by Law Injury and Injustice like the violent Torrent of an Inundation over-flowing the Banks and Metes overwhelms and drowns as Decency and Order when bound up by good and wholsom Laws if disturbed and broken down falls into Uncertainty Indiscretion and becomes Confused Let men talk of fears and jealousies and in an Ironical way smile at those whose peculiar care is to prevent and remove the same no man knows what the Progresse of that wrong had been had it not been withstood The mention whereof seeing so often inculcated in other Writings can be no pleasing Theme to any Subject And whereas His Majesty hath confessed and retracted that His Error being now condemned to an utter abolition ought to be buried in Oblivion neither doth it become every ordinary Subject to traduce and accuse His Soveraign of Injustice doing it comes too near to what the wise man expresly forbids of Cursing the King in their thoughts as of what the Statute Law provides against Only to satisfie one Objection used by some of His Majesties party in His behalf touching the same Better say they the payment thereof should have continued then so much blood spilt such vast Sums of Money spent in
power the passage is short and not unfitly quoted of the Earl of Warwick his contest with King Hen. 6. who directing his Privy-Seal for discharging the Earl of his Captain-ship of CALLIS the Earl refusing continued his office his reason was that it was granted him by a Parliament Whereto it may be objected that might be a personal contumacy in the Earl which proves not the Authority of that Court therefore not binding other Subjects yet this objection may be replyed unto that the Earl knew on what ground and by what judgement his refusing it was granted The Court of Parliament is not hereby so adored or prized nor are they so fond of their own Acts and Ordinances as to think them absolutely pure and unchangeably perfect or to derive the blessing of successe on their designs for the merit of their actions inuring for the present either in abrogating ancient or constituting new Acts and Ordinances which they may retract as occasion shall serve but to the Justice of their endeavourings which were they able to make good their proper and total power they would ere this have terminated and reduced their Acts into established Laws It is probable that many of those ancient usuages and Constitutions which they for reasons best known to themselves have for the present altered will revert and turn them to their former being without utterly abrogating the same To conclude and settle the doubtful and wavering Judgements had touching the power and Authority of this Court the aforecited * Sir Ed. Cook Oracle of Law hath delivered at large in his fourth Book of Institutes who wrote it in a calm and quiet time when there was no need to defend the Authority thereof Besides the preamble to the Statute concerning Parliaments sets forth and confirms the Power See the statute Authority and by necessary consequence the Priviledge of that Court as the only and proper cure of Grievances and remedy of Mischiefs in a Common-wealth The three first Conclusions are evident by what hath been observed before the latter of the three is Discoursed at large by a learned Author in his Book Intituled A more full Answer to Doctor Fern. But to answer one objection concerning the taking up of Arms and that the People take up Arms against their King which the objectors say is unlawful under what pretence soever If the Question be rightly weighed and stated it will evidently appear that this is no taking up Arms against the King no more then a Chyrurgion doth offend or wrong his Patient when to recover and preserve the whole body he cuts and takes away the proud and putrified flesh encircling and infecting the more eminent and sounder part And if in this Quarrel the King shall unnecessarily and with hazard to himself against the advice supplication and importunity of His Subjects expose Himself to danger Gods protection being more immediately seen over his Anointed is herein crossed if not tempted and if it happen otherwise to Him then His Subjects would His miscarrying is of Himself or rather from those who perswade Him to it The Question which hath cost this blood is not now betwixt a King governing according to the strict and precise Rules of Law the measure of each mans Right and Subjects rebelliously rising up in arms against their King and those Laws as some men in their gall of bitternes have given out but betwixt a King transgressing the known Laws as Himself confesseth and retracts His Fault and a Court of Parliament the Supreme Councel of the Kingdom endeavoring in a just and legal way to punish and represse Offendors as former Parliaments have done no other power or force to dispute or emulate a King's and the matter whereon they quarrel an actual invasion made on the Fundamental Laws and a party engaged to imbrace and abet the same whither under the notion of Loyalty or from Humor Ambition and Levity on the one side and the Parliament with a party adhering unto them contending to preserve those Laws with the Subjects Right and Liberty on the other side For the controversie is not immediately and principally in the new-sprung Differences about Church or State-Government as which the more perfect Form in State Monarchical Oligarchical or Aristocratical which in Church-Government an Independent Presbyterial or Episcopal which latter two are not much differing in themselves in their Primitive Institution as anon will be shewed in its proper place All these Controversies are emergent only and resulting out of the occasion of this War which gives occasion and liberty to all dissentions and makes every one a fierce combatant in maintenance of his own opinion But the principal parties are as before observed a party who hath actually violated the Laws by which we are governed and have their partakers and a party who contend and would preserve the same The first abetted under the stile of being good Subjects the latter traduced and inveighed against as Rebels What the Laws of this Kingdom conveyed unto us in these latter times are under which we are born and governed is by an ordinary light of study so figured in all mens knowledge as no man can but consent unto and confesse That to be the Law which the Court of Parliament doth Enact which Court hath power also to Repeal Dissolve Alter or make Perpetual as they please and that to be a Parliament certainly and definitively which is the assembling together of the Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdom lawfully summoned by the King in the prudent and deliberate Counsel of his heart at such a Time to such a Place for Reasons expressed in that His Writ What the Power and Priviledge of that Court in general is is learnedly and industriously set down by the forenamed Author of what power and stability this is whither to continue until their work for which they were assembled be finished or Arbitrarily to be dissolved the King hath by His own Act defined in binding Himself not to dissolve without their consent Wherefore if He shall alter such Act made and consented unto by Himself during the Session of that Court in His * Ira inimica Concilio Cicer. anger an Enemy to Counsel because He may not conform and rule them call and divide any part of them from the place where they were first summoned whither those which stay behinde in the first named place or those which come away to the last without respect had to which is the major part shall be reputed the true Parliament Object And whither that dividing be a dissolving without consent or not 't is no dissolving but a local removing in nature of Adjournment which is peculiar to a Kings power both to Summon and Adjourn Answ The King it is confess'd hath power to Summon and to Adjourn as former Kings have done to other places of the Kingdom as NORTHAMPTON OXFORD WINCHESTER c. but such Adjournments have been on special and extraordinary occasions of Plague
Predecessors were Neither can any man reasonably think that there is so strict an Unity so near a co-incidency betwixt His Majesty and those His Councel whom the Parliament suspects betwixt His thoughts and inclinations to a Peace to be concluded on fit and just terms and that His Councels Desires and Resolutions for such a Peace as may best serve their own and their parties turn but that His Subjects may most truly with much Loyalty and without wounding Him through His Councels sides believe and say The King having been seduced by Evil Councel hath done that which otherwise he would not 2. To assist the Parliament to resist in a mans own defence and to adhere to such a power as can protect him is Rebellion For Neighboring Towns or Countreys to joyn in a mutual Defence and League against any Force which may infest howbeit Nature and Necessity do allow defensive and provisionary Acts for safety 't is wrested otherwise now and termed Disaffectionate Disloyal and adjudged offensive 3. To distinguish betwixt the King His Kingly Office and His person Trayterous A man in Office is distinguished from what he is in person yet no fault or misterming in the distinguisher If A. B. High Constable of an Hundred set an Affrayer by the heels he doth it as High Constable not as he is A. B. If the Lord Chief Justice E. F. being Judge of Assize and Condemn a Fellon he doth it not in his personal capacity as he is E. F. but as he is Judge of Assize And although there may seem to be a nearer Unity between a King who is Natus Rex His Office and His person then there is betwixt a Judge who is Datus or factus Judex his Office and his person yet the distinction may be admitted to the King without being Treason 4. Amongst other Misdemeanors to be exhibited against the Subject the very * See the Articles to be presented to the high Constables in the Westerne Circuit 1643. abode in or repairing to any Town or City after His Majesty had made known His Displeasure against the same is reckoned Disaffection howbeit many being threatned from their Duty and driven from their homes by the rudenesse and violence of Souldiers had no other place of succour for their Protection then in those places excepted against by His Majesties Proclamations So the place and persons resorting to the place lie under the penalty of Displeasure In which the chief City of the Kingdom seems in the accusers eye to be most disloyal Enjoying yet by Gods mercy to his Glory and their happinesse be it spoken notwithstanding the place populous the times contagious and miserable elsewhere a deliverance from the ficknesse besides the Blessing of Peace vouchsafed thereto for their Humanity in harboring the stranger and oppressed in that amidst the Calamities of Plague and War they are free from the Pestilence that walks in darkness and from the sickness that destroyeth in the noon day that a thousand fall beside them and ten thousand at their right hand but it comes not nigh them Summarily if all matters else of Jealousie and Debate were fitted for a Treaty the very Argument concerning what is Treason what Disloyalty were enough to renew the Contention some so pretendingly fond of the Kings Honor as to make his power swell immencely above the Laws and beyond all other Kings some amongst the people so advers to the King as to deny Him the just power and Soveraignty of a Prince There are no question zealous and good desires in many of either party for the maintenance of Justice and the Laws Howbeit the execution of their desires be respited until the prevailing part have gained power to make good the same so there may be also a mistaking and a fault in either part In some well wishing to the Parliament who frame and finde out causelesse Jealousies on purpose to divide the King from His friends as that common and slightest among the rest of Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice ayming at the Crown of England When His Majesty hath a numerous Issue of His own in possibility of more the two Princes an elder an Illustrious Brother Others wishing well to the Kings party of the like dividing spirit contending to have the Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdom think that the Yeomanry and Commonalty frame hopes to themselves of mateing the Gentry in an equal ranke These sinister contemplations of some disaffected and discontented persons are invented on purpose to sever and divide the mutual concurrency of the Gentry with the Commonalty in a proportionable aiding one another How frivolous it is all men may guesse when as the Parliament Members of both Houses are Lords and Gentlemen themselves a Bulwark strong enough to retard and provide against any such incroaching thoughts of Parity If any such there be believing these Inventions there needs no other Argument to evince such sinister suppositions Many the like Jealousies and obstacles to Peace on foot which the Court of Parliament do seasonably apprehend The Assembly at OXFORD seem the first offerers of an Accommodation for Peace But when they set forth Declarations with the fair frontispiece of Declarations tending to Peace and in those writings accuse their fellow-Members with whom they endeavor to possesse the world they contend for Peace of refusing and disturbing Page 23. Peace of being Traytors and Promoters of this horrid War and charge them in those writings or in some of His Majesties Declarations with scoffing the King in their Messages sent unto Him a Crime if they be guilty of most heynous and undutiful these Accusations of upbraiding their fellow-Members may be an outward offering but no inward or real promoteing of a Peace They have deserted their fellow-Members in Parliament and in that a chief Trust reposed in them their very departure without License from the Parliament was heretofore adjudged * 5. Hen. 8. Which Statute they would not all have broken it is presumed through the worth and Ingenuity of many of them had they either timely considered of the Statute or not in a passionate and hasty way departed or could have foreseen the ill effects of their departure penal to depart to contrive and wage War against their fellow-Members in Parliament heightens the offence as it credits the mercy of their * For notwithstanding the unhappy consequences of their deserting the Parliament refuses not to receive them to compound upon their undertaking not to do any thing prejudicial to the State Forgivers in not taking a severe and strict accompt of Inflicting a condign censure on the offendors To correct and sweeten the Malady thereof something must be published nothing more acceptable then the name of Peace but on what terms more then the name of peace in a general word they do not declare A condiscending must be had as well as a meeting for peace those ought to condiscend who are the most certain first Transgressors In the
forbear to send Aid to the Protestants there the small number yet remaining of the English and Scotish cannot possibly subsist Who such Authors and Causers of this War have been is long since manifested and resolved by the joynt advice and provision made against them in the Articles of the large Treaty betwixt the Kingdom of ENGLAND and SCOTLAND August Page 16. 1641. in their fourth Demand granted by His Majesty the Kingdoms then and there agreeing to make such lyable to the censure and sentence of the Parliaments respectively c. But to proceed If it be dishonorable to His Majesty as His Commissioners urge to make void that Cessation out of gratitude and favor to the Papists there affisting Him in this War His Commissioners His Friends and His party might have spared to object those Acts passed by His Majesty this Parliament in favor and case to His Subjects when as if this Parliament be born down or dissolved the Acts passed by His Majesty this Parliament are Repealable Alterable in part or in all by a succeeding Parliament by which Acts already passed many of His Friends and party adhering to Him against this Parliament have suffered in their Estates as is before expressed For neither the suppressing of Star Chamber or High Commission Court the granting of a Triennial Parliament which are instanced in as Acts of Grace and the Subjects charged with Ingratitude for not valuing such gracious Acts are no infallible and constant notes of such His Goodnesse and Favor to His people when as those Acts are Repealable at pleasure nor that of the Triennial Parliament unlesse a Parliament be of force to maintain their Power and Priviledges which this hath sought to defend for their own and for succeeding Parliaments As for His Majesties Commissioners to urge excusing in their way the King and His party from violating the ancient and Fundamental Laws That the Parliament and their Committees are guilty of breaking the same and they alone as if no such thing were done by His Majesties party Souldiers and Commissioners employed for raising Arms and Money to prosecute this War Such charge against the Parliament must either be understood of their abolishing for the present some ancient Constitutions or of their compulsory wayes in raising Moneys for the maintenance of this War the reason the means of the one and the other is examined If his Commissioners understood it of the particular and late Robberies committed by the Souldiers on poor Countrymen and Travellers on the road that cannot be charged on the Parliament because it is done against their will and to prevent the like they have according to the Law brought the offendors to condign punishment wherein also the Kings Souldiers are the most offendors when as the Parliament Souldiers are required for their Assistance to rescue from the Robbery and Spoylings committed by the Kings besides it hath been observed that many wishing wel to the Parliament Travellers on the ways having met with Souldiers and doubtful on which side they were being demanded for whom they were have counterfeited their tone and answered For the King as being assured that if those Souldiers were for t he Parliament they should finde lesse cruel usage then by the Souldiers for the King This Experience hath throughly taught and these and the like actions committed by His party hath made His Majesties name the more terrible In that the like hostile and cruel Acts are practised on either part and that the fear of cruelty working more strongly on the common sort hath brought many of them to yeeld and comply with the more cruel part the inequality of the cruelty hath been observed to be great between the one side who to gain or save a Town or for the like advantage sake have burned or pulled down some houses in a sudden and revengeful heat have killed and Enemy and the other side which in cool blood have killed and massacred many hundred of inoffensive Subjects burned whole Towns and laid waste the dwelling places of the Poor and Fatherless For if the one side had wasted and spoyled as the other doth the Countreys had been far more miserable then now they are and the spoyler left destitute of where withal to maintain himself and his Soldiers The Kings party give a reason for such a difference had betwixt the Souldiers on either side alleaging that the Countreys being Rebellious and Disaffected deny unto their Souldiers upon their march and in their quarterings a fit provision and supply for horse and man wherefore the Souldiers of His Majesties party are inforced to rob and spoyl c. The Answer to this Objection is had from a recourse to what is here delivered and the Reader to be satisfied in the Question what Rebellion Treason truly is what the ground and original of the Countreys Disaffection is If His Majesties Commissioners understand their charge against the Parliaments violating the Fundamental because of their abolishing old Laws 'T is answered They have power to Abrogate and Repeal what they finde offensive and exorbitant in a Common-wealth The modern and positive Laws were by Parliament established and quicquid constituitur eodem modo etiam dissolvitur No one Fundamental Law is by them dissolved or by their Acts yet violated unlesse the Constitution of Bishops be held a Fundamental one It was their Quarrel and questionless their Exception to be found both in their words and by their or their Friends Writings That the Parliament have transgressed the Ancient Laws because they have abolished Bishops they make the Law which constitutes them to be of equal time and value belike with that of Magna Charta when as most men know who have lookt into the Records that many Session of Parliament have bin held many Acts passed Excluso Clero It was a cunning Argument and Artifice in the Bishops to incense the people against the Parliament if it were they which give out the Parliament to have violated the Ancient Laws which the people were ready to defend when as upon a through examination of the matter complained of there was no other Law violated but what concern'd the Bishops partial in the Cause To conclude the Question touching the transgressing of the Laws which both sides may seem to be guilty of the matter is not whether the Ancient or New Laws be kept whether those long since made or those of a latter time be broken a War lets all Laws loose but had the Law of not Dissolving without the Parliaments consent been kept entirely and strictly the other Laws had not in the judgement of most men been broken The Parliament may plead Their undertakings and course of Justice cannot be made good by reason of their power opposed themselves confronted The great Law and Charter of the Subjects Freedom is enlarged into Statute Laws all conducing to make up one * Suprema Lex salus Populi Supreme Law The Subjects Safety The dividing of the Parliament Members if