crime to be an honest man as it was heretofore when the King was King and would have been so had he been so againe Next they tell the Army Pag. 10. What threatnings are in Scripture against contemners of Magistrates and judgements denounced on the opposers of this Ordinance of God But they should distinguish betwixt Magistrates and Magistracie the one may be disobeyed and the other not contemned nor opposed the first being the Ordinance of man the other of God and who are meerely men and not Magistrates in those things wherein they prevaricate I question whether they did greater contempt in secluding the Members or they that owne not the remainder out of a sullen humour for the House of Commons which the Army doe with all respect which shewes them not to bee against Magistracie though against corrupted and seduced Magistrates that by falsifying their trust have justly forfeited it But for to strike the greater stroke they afterwards vouch the terrible examples of Corah Dathan and Abiram upon their mutiny against Moses and Aaron comparing the act of these rake-hells who in ambition and envy against Gods faithfull Ministers and Servants meerly for their horour and preferment sake into those offices wherein God himselfe had set them and miraculously confirmed them mutinied against them not for any miscarriages of injustice or impiety in the execution of those their places who no doubt might lawfully have opposed Aaron when at Horeb hee made the golden Calfe this act I say they compare to the Armies secluding the noxious members as will shortly appeare to those without and which hath long been known to them within the walls of the House of Commons and the bringing the King to tryall in order to the Kingdomes settlement It is wonderfull to see so loose and unweighed a passage drop from the pen of so many learned Divines But nothing is strange in this age but an Orthodox Independent and a Presbyterian Patriot Afterwards they protest against pag. 11. these practises of the Army in opposing Magistrates and murthering the King so they call their bringing him to justice as concurrent with Jesuiticall Principles it is strange that Jesuites should bee of the plot against the King and Queen they have deserved better from them and no doubt would have done had they been in power or against the secluded Members the best friends to Bishops next to Cavaliers in armes Iesuits are not wont to be so good English men as to go against the interest of Rome nor to forsake their adherents a Son and Daughter of his holinesse to strike hands with another party But doubtlesse there is great difference betwixt murtherous massacring of Protestant Princes eo nomine and just araignment of Delinquent Kings before the Senate and people Had the Army killed the King in fight would you have abhorred it as a murtherous act under a specious pretence and is it more lawfull to kill him violently then judicially Then in the same page they advise the Army to consult themselves and so do you your selves of the affirmative if some other party whose principles had not been concurrent with theirs should have attempted the seizeing of the Kings person how they would have construed it and so for securing and prohibiting the Members If the party ment by non concurence of principles be Cavalerish Londoners doubtlesse the Army would have thought very ill of it or for any to have done it that had done it to those publicke ends they doe it for fearing whioh therefore they did it knowing what desire there was to set him at liberty to begin the warres againe but if any confiding men would have eased them of this work for publick purposes I dare answer for them it would have been thankfully taken as you saw it was when they so chearfully and humbly seconded the votes of setling peace without him seeing it could not bee done with him For securing and inhibiting Members others have done that as well as they I meane the Citizens when they drive the Speaker c. from the Parliament to the Army who indeed restored him without damnifying the City the worth of one gold chaine Afterwards they compare againe the King and his wicked Instruments subversion of Lawes and dissolving Parliaments with the Armies laudable indeavours of the peacefull settlement of the Kingdome in its liberties and the people in their Rights extorted from them by the King and his Creatures as ecclesiasticall rights had of long time been by Bishops What the meaning is of those words in the 12. Page If through Gods permission for reasons best knowne to himselfe you have had or may have successe in an evill way c. I understand not I hope it neither meanes their Victories against the King or Soots and therefore they inferre Gods Provide nce is no safe Rule to walke by and to confirme it bring the example of Davids sparing Saul when he was in his hands Providence is no Rule to justifie any thing that is against the Rule rightly understood for there may be a misunderstanding of right Rules according to that of Christ in behalfe of his Apostles accused of Sabbath breaking Have yee not heard what David did when he was an hungry to wit lawfully which yet was unlawfull by the Rule So when these Divines quote Davids Example towards Saul they should state the case aright not of David a private person taking up Armes for his owne defence against Saul marke that by the way whom he was not to kill that he might succeed him upon which motive they incited him to doe it but to stay Gods time not to snatch the blessing like Jacob before it was ripe I say they should not put the case of such a David but they should suppose him in Armes by Authority of the Magistracy or people against Saul declared a Violator of his Trust and Israels just Liberties as the King hath been by Parliament to suppresse his exorbitancies and defend them against him this is the David that runnes patallell with our Army and the case thus put the question is what David would have done against Saul towards bringing him to justice it providence had favoured him Who it seemes though a private person would forceably have defended himselfe as by taking Armes appeares if he had beene put to it by Providence for all the promise which notwithstanding he relied upon to the uttermost extremity but in extremity would not have tempted God by a faith without meanes But as I say David was not to come by the Kingdome by King-killing that would have cut God short of abundance of Glory and therefore he saith The Lord forbid that I to wit a private person and Sauls Successor should do this thing unto my Master the Lords Anoynted that I a servant and subject should for mine own ends and ambition take away the life of the King who is anoynted and appoynted by God to Reigne out his time notwithstanding the promise made to
the Kings Freedome Honour and Safety Giving out that what he granted in restraint he might lawfully break at liberty In the next place page 4. are severall Scriptures cited which are all true in a Scripture sense but misapplyed like that in the frontise-peece Prov. 24.11 If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to bee slain Such wrestings of Scripture from Innocents to nocents will make Ministers in as bad a name as Lawyers After the naming of which Scriptures they say they are afraid of medling with those who without any colour of legall Authority shall attempt such changes We have had too much colourable authority under the cloake whereof hath been acted so much wrong and injustice to the publike and infinite particulars so that its high time to see it native and naked With what colourable Authority did the Divines in Scotland take part with the Minor against the Major part of the Parliament there and protest against the Acts of Parliament but because they saw them fraudulent and destructive notwithstanding all the specious Declarations of the Parliament to the contrary and wherein doe the proceedings of the Army towards our Parliament differ from theirs whose service in protecting the Minor and inabling them against the Major was in Scotland counted a vertue and commendable and the self-same thing in England to the self-same purpose counted a vice and damnable How Doctors differ Put case his Excellency the Lord Fairfax having power in his hands should have attempted to have set up the King in freedome honour and safety and a considerable part of his Army should have opposed it knowing they were raised to a quite other end I doubt not these Divines would have thought well of and commended this their opposition to such a design though acted by those under Authority against their chief Commander without colour of Authority only upon the equity of their intentions and justness of their cause Such is the case of the Army towards the Parliament who not contrary to their trust as is after asserted but in discharge of their trust and ingagements have against their wills taken these courses for though they were raised by the Parliament yet for the Kingdome and its safety His Excellencies Commission is the Card and Compasse that he must sail by and not be turned out of his course by every wind of Parliamentary Doctrine for so he should not have been the servant of the Parliament but of this or that Faction and wrought about at last by turning round to fight for those he was Commissioned to fight against and against those he was commissioned to fight for well knowing that those of the Parliament which were against the Armies raising were for its destroying though with the ruine of the Kingdom and restoring of the King which was therefore laboured as the aptest means for it In the next place these Ministers compare the Act of the King in relation to the five Members and this of the Army in relation to the Secluded Members together page 5. A comparison ill beseeming the candor of such and so many worthy Divines knowing the different Actors and their different ends they may as well compare the Execution Phinehas did with the Murthers Joab committed or Moses his zeale in slaying those of the family of Ahab for his own ends Next they say p. 6. both Houses of Parliament who are joyntly together with the King intrusted with the supream Authority of the Kingdome an observable Parenthesis at the latter end of a seven yeers war betwixt the King and Parliament though they saw cause to take up Arms against the King yet that does not justifie the Armie to usurpe an authority over King and Parliament If either the defence of themselves or the preservation of the Kingdome or both justified the Parliament then doe they also justifie the Army in what they do for they have both those apparently on their side the Plots and practices of the King and secluded Members being above all things to level this Army and so to make way for the Kings restoration or the Kings restoration to ruine the army The consequence of which two is undisputably the Kingdoms I mean all the well-affected destruction and if defence be allowed to a private man in behalfe of himselfe it is much more allowable to a considerable community of men lawfully put into arms in behalf of the whole whereof they themselves are a part In the next place they say page 7. the Parliament when they took up armes did not intend to divest the King of his authority as appears by their Declarations much lesse to overthrow the frame of Government The Parliaments chief intention was according to their trust to preserve the Lives and Liberties of the people and that in an orderly and unaltered course if it were possible and therefore did they make so many supplications to the King to return to them and rule by their advice according as he ought to doe and accompanied them the more to move him with those Declarations all which hardned in stead of softned him towards them and thereby thinking them to doubt their cause and himselfe to be unresponsible sets up his standard and commences first one War proclaims them Traitors the insolentest and treasonablest act that ever was committed by a King of England yet they offer again and again to be friends upon conditions of peace and safety tendred he refuses and will have no friendship but upon his own terms so ended the first war by a defeat of his purposes and restraint of his Person and then began a second after which never issued out any more of those Declarations spoken of but seeing him incorrigible they resolve in pursuance of their trust and discharge of their Consciences to the Publique weale to settle the Peace of the Kingdome without him which they saw could never be setled with him In order whereunto they vote no more addresses as a necessary expedient thereunto which upon a recruit of Lords and secluded Members was unvoted again and all new to seek the King as bad as he was and had been must be trusted and his own tearms granted against Covenant and Publick-Faith to ground a Peace upon in order to his restoration as the onely probable means to ruine the Army by putting him into a capacity to raise another against them an attempt of that nature having been put in practice at London but not effected for want of the King and thus is necessity brought home to our doors of doing what is done both to the King and present government by Lords and secluded Members These things considered it shews how well they by this their Representation doe appear for maintenance of Liberties as they say they doe against malignant designes of an arbitrary tyrannicall power in the King and introduction of Anarchy by private persons but it is not enough to say so it is not wise mens parts
no necessity can justifie perjury or dispence with lawfull Oathes and for example instanceth the judgement which befell Saul and Israell for breach of Covenant with the Gibeonites But the question is if the Gibeonites had raised a first and second war or taken parts and shared in Councels with the Cavalerish Canaanites their enemies what then Saul and Israell would have done or might have done for all their Covenant But to spenke a little to the Position it selfe That no necessity can dispence with Lawfull Oathes not to insist upon the forementioned Act of the Israelites in saving Jonathan I answer two things 1. That no Oath binds when through want of foresight by time or accident it come to crosse a morrall duty as if that I am sworne to prove be against my owne or the publicks preservation and so a violation of the Lawes of nature nor if it prove an impediment to the proceed of justice and so prove a violation of the Lawes of Righteousnesse Nor if it prove though Lawfull in itselfe a wrong to another as that of Saul to Jonathan for so it is against the Law of Charity 2. That when the Oath becomes disputable then the intent of its giving and the occasion of its taking is to give light in the solution Now what was our intent in protesting and covenanting the preservation of the King Why to testifie to the World that it was for no sinister end nor to drive no designe that the Wars were undertaken no lack of Loyalty but meere necessity to preserve the people and their Liberties and therefore was the Wars prosecuted against the King notwithstanding the Protestation and Covenant for him which loyalty may be and is still the same in giving him up to justice the Impulse of necessity In regard of publike safety being the same wofull experience having made it manifest that he cannot be and the Kingdome safe nor the Covenant kept in the maine if not broken in the Branches and so of Parliament Privilidges and Authority as wee sweare not the Kings safety to their wrong so not their preservation to the peoples ruine and destruction but the intent of our swearing to defend them was that being joyntly asserted by the two Houses wee would maintaine them against the King that then was in Armes against them but when they come to be contested betwixt the two Houses and the question be to which wee are to adhere whether to the Commons affirmative or the Lords negative 1. Wee are not tyed to impossibilities wee cannot make good contradictions 2. Wee are to consider in our judgements and consciences which is most conducing to the ends for which those Priviledges were granted to wit the promotion of publique good and accordingly to cast the scales But 3. Caeteris paribus the judgement of the Commons is to be adhered to and preferred above the Lords they being more more concerned in the Kingdomes Liberties the peoples creature and not the Kings a Representative of Trustees and to be reduced againe into a private condition for though in the formality of Authority the Lords be above the Commons yet in the materiall and substantiall parts they are above the Lords The next thing insisted upon in this 15 Page after an exhortation to the Army to recede is some threats from Mr. Peters not unlike his discretion in case they persisted to stirre up the people to sedition For so it seemes say they our bewailing your sinnes before the Lord is interpreted It 's well you bewaile their sinnes I hope it is not with a spitefull but a spirituall sorrow for too many of your Parishioners bewaile their successes I hope in the Lord you doe not so and yet I perceive not a like spirit of jealousie in you over the sinnes of your owne people as over the Army for I call them sinnes because you doe so If your cause were good your resolution were commendable in that which followes when you say that if you must suffer yet in the discharge of your duties you will commit the keeping of your soules to the Lord as to a faithfull Creatour But I hope the Army will be as they have been as eminent for their meekenesse as their valour and convince their gainesayers by their owne long suffering and not your suffering and yet take heed of being the cause of other mens sufferings though you are carelesse of your owne either by your advice to the Army to recede who I hope will be twice advised before they take your counsell or by your instigations which if it should happen may more afflict you then any personall sufferings of your owne But I hope God will open your eyes and restraine the Armies hands I will end with a saying of Queene Elizabeth to her Secretary Walsingham when in a conspiracy against her but in part discovered he advised her for further evidence to delay the seizing on the Conspirators and to let the businesse lengthen out it selfe But she refused lest as she sayd in not taking heed of a danger when she might she should seeme more to tempt God then to hope in him Febr. 7. 1648. Imprimatur Gilbert Mabbot FINIS