not taken the second most perjuriously and performed them so impiously then we had never so rebelliously offended so Gracious a Majesty Mr. Speaker Our Adversaries do further alledge that our Obedience to His Majesty is apparently manifest many strange ways we have disburdened Him of His large Revenues we have cased Him of the charge of Royal House-Keeping we have cleared Him from repairing of it or repairing to His Stately Pallaces Magnificent Mansions and Defensive Castles and Garrisons and we have put Him out of care of repairing his Armories Arms Ammunition and Artillery we have been at the charge of the keeping of His Children and most trusty Servants from or for Him we have taken order and given ordinances that He shall not be troubled either with much money or meat and that His Queen and lawful Wife shall not so much as darken His doors and we have stroven by open Rebellion to release Him of troublesom Life and Reign by hunting Him like a Partridge over the Mountains and by shooting Bullets at His Person for His Majestie 's Preservation on purpose to make Him glorious in another World we have also eased Him of a great number of His Friends Subjects and Servants by either charitable famishing brotherly banishing liberal and free imprisoning Parliamental Plundering friendly throat-cutting and unlawful beheading and hanging or utterly ruinating as many as we could lay hold of that either loved served or honoured Him All these heavy Burthens we have eased Him of and over-loaded our selves with the usurped ponderosity of them so our Adversaries say that the weight of them will shortly either break our backs or sink us for ever And they further say that since the World's Creation never so good a King was so bardly used or so trayterously abused and dealt withal Fourthly Mr. Speaker It is questioned what we have done for the Law there are some Malignants that are not afraid to say that we have transformed and metamorphosed the Common-Law of the Land into the Lands common calamity that instead of the common benefit which the Laws in community should yield to all we have now perverted the same to the private profit of our selves and some particular Persons The Civil War is turned to uncivil War Blasphemies Atheism Sacriledge Obscenity Prophaneness Incest Adultery Fornication Leignany Polligany Bastard-bearing Cuckold-making and all sorts of beastly baudry is so far from being punished that it is greatly connived at or totally tollerated and that those who should be punishers of these gross and crying Crimes as Judges Officials Doctors Proctors and Apparitors these are scorned reviled libelled against cryed down and made to be the shooting stake and laughing-stock of every libidinous incontinent Whore and Whore-monger The Law of God contained in the Decalogy or Ten Commandements they say we have cast out of the Church not so much as suffering it to be read and the New Testament which was the last that Christ commanded That we should love one another we have turned the clean contrary way to the spoyling and murdering of one another and for the Law of Nature it is most unnaturally changed to a Brutish Heathenish Inhumanity Paricide Intricide Fratricide and Homicide and hath been and is by us defended maintained and rewarded no Affinity Consanguinity Alliance Friendship or Fellowship hath or can have any true Protestant or Loyal Subject either of Life Goods Safety or Freedom These are the best Reports our Adversaries the Malignants do give us to have done for the Laws Nay they say further we have infringed and violated the Law of Arms here and the Law of Nations abroad for whereas Messengers and Ambassadours have always had and ought to have free and safe passage with fair and courteous accommodation and entertainment but we contrary to them and repugnant to Christianity and Christians have suffered Ambassadours to be Rifled Robbed and Ill-intreated and we have caused His Majestie 's Messengers to be hanged whom he most graciously hath sent to us with Conditions of Peace by Vox Populi or common Vote of the People without we are pleased to call Malignants Popish Enemies to the State with other scandalous names reproachful words and Epithites which they utterly deny and we know both in their words and practise we are justly taxed to be the mean independent and pestilent propogation of all mischiefs that this afflicted miserable Kingdom groans and bleeds under for they say that the Old Statutes of Magna Charta are overthrown by us under the colour of supporting them by our Votes and Ordinances Precepts and Proclamations Edicts Mandates and Commands we have countermanded abrogated annihilated abolished violated and made void all the Laws of God and Nature of Arms and Arts too and instead of them we have unlawfully erected Marshal Law Club-Law Strafford's-Law and such Laws as make most for Treason Rebellion Murder Sacriledge Envy and Plunder but as for the King we have not allowed Him so much Law as a Huntsman allows a Hare these are our Enemies words and thus much say they we have done for the Laws Fifthly The first Question or Quere is what we have done for the Kingdom It is spoken we have done and undone the Kingdom this Ancient Famous Kingdom the Envy of the World for happiness this Eden of the Vniverse this Terrestrial Paradice this abstract of Heaven's blessing and Earth's content the Epitome of nature's glory this exact extraction of Piety Learning and magnanimous Chivalry this nursery of Religion Arms Arts Laudable Endeavours this brood of men this wonder of Nations formerly renowned feared loved and honoured as far as ever our Sun and Moon did shine this England which hath been a Kingdom a Monarchy many hundred years under the Reigns of 168 Kings and Queens this Kingdom that hath conquered Kingdoms that hath made India Palestina Cyprus tributary tremblers hath made France shake Spain quake relieved and defended Scotland from French Slavery that saved and protected the Netherlands from Spanish Tyranny Now we have made this Kingdom of England a most miserable Slave to it self an universal Golgotha a purple gore Ackeldema a Bloody Field a Gehenna a Den of Devils ot Infernal Furies and finally an Earthly Hell were it not for these differences that here the best men are punished and in Hell the worst only are plagued here no good man escapes torments nor any bad man is troubled the Gracious King is abused for being good and just and his true and loyal Subjects and Servants massacred and maligned for their fidelity the Protestants are called Papists because they will not be Brownists Anabaptists and Rebels and Adversaries are so bold to say that we have plotted and laboured long to turn this glorious Monarchy into a pelting holy polly Independent Anarchy and to make the Kingdom to be no Kingdom so much they say we have done for the Kingdom Sixthly Mr. Speaker we are questioned what good we have done for the Benefit and Liberty of the Subject Some
A MOST Learned and Eloquent SPEECH Spoken and Delivered in the HOUSE OF COMMONS AT WESTMINSTER By a most LEARNED LAWYER the 23th June 1647. Mr. Speaker I Know no man weaker than my self who do acknowledge I am as unfitting to speak in this Honourable House as Phormio the Philosopher was to prattle an Oration of War-Discipline to the great Souldier Hanibal in the presence of King M. _____ Yet out of the debility of my Knowledge the inability of my Learning the imbecility of my Judgment the nobility of this Transcript-Senate the mutability of their Censures the instability of Opinions the timorosity of Offending the volubility of Scandal and the impotency of my Utterance I have maugre all these perilous Impediments adventured to unbosom and disburden my mind before these unmatchable Patriots Mr. Speaker I am not ignorant that you are appointed in the Parliament to be Ear of the King and Mouth of the Commons And I desire that your hearing may not take offence at my words nor your tongue retort me a reproof instead of an applause Mr. Speaker In my Introduction to Grammar vulgarly called Accidence I found Eight Parts of Speech which is now an Introduction to me to divide my Speech into Eight Parts Viz. 1. What we have done for Religion 2. What for the Church 3. What for the King 4. What for the Laws 5. What for the Kingdom 6. What for the Subject 7. What for Reformation 8. What we have done for our selves Of all these in order as my infirm loquacity can demonstrate Mr. Speaker I do not herein declare either of neither the Opinions of this Honourable Assembly or my own but I will make plain unto you how the Malignants esteem us and into what Odium we are fallen among Forreign Nations First For Religion the Malignants say We have thrust out one and taken in two that we have thrown down Protestantism and erected Anabaptism and Brownism and that in our Doctrine we abuse the Renowned Memories of Queen Elizabeth King James and consequently King Charles that in their Religions they were Papistically minded which their Lives and Acts did and do manifest the contrary And the Malignants say it is no less than odious Treason either of these deceased or surviving Princes to traduce with such false and scandalous aspersions Mr. Speaker I would not be mistaken I say not my own words but I say what the Malignants say of us and my Lord Say And they the Protestant and Protestant Church was wont to be and ought to be an inward robe and vesture for the Soul and Conscience of all true Believers And that the Bishops Ancient Fathers and all Orthodox Divines have and had a care to keep her neat and hansom in as spotless integrity as a Militant Church in this imperfect Age could keep it But our Adversaries they say That we have in our Religion an outward Garment or Cloak of any colour which none do wear amongst us but Sectaries Fools Knaves and Rebels the said Cloak being with often turning worn as thread-bare as our Publick Faith is full of wrinckles spots and stains neither brushed spunged nor made clean with as many patches as Beggars Coats and that our preaching or pratling as they also say it is kept by Coblers Tinkers Weavers Wyer-Drawers and Hostlers so that all order and decent comliness is thrust out of the Church all laudable Ornaments and indifferent beseeming Ceremonies are cried down trod down and banished under the false and scandalous terms of Popery and in the place thereof is most nasty filthy loathsom and slovenly beastliness or Doctrine being vented in long and tedious Sermons to move and stir up the People to Rebellion and Trayterous Contributions to exhort them to Murther Rapine Robbery Disloyalty and all manner of mischief that may be to the confusion of their Souls and Bodies All these damnable Villanies our Adversaries say are the accursed Fruits which our new-moulded Linsy-Woolsey Religion hath produced for they say our Doctrine is neither derived from the Old or New Testament that all the Fathers and Testant Doctors and Martyrs never heard of it that Christ and his Apostles never knew it And for the Book of Common Prayer they say in Verse of that Ten thousand such as we can ne'r devise A Book so good as that which we dispise The Common-Prayer they mean if we should sit Ten thousand years with all our brains and wit We should prove Coxcombs all and in the end New make so good t is too good for us to mend And so much they say we have done for Religion it being the First Part of my Eighth Part of Speech as my weakness and your patience will permit I will more briefly and compendiously proceed to the second Secondly For the Churches we are taxed by the Malignants with prophane and more than barbarous pollutions of the Churches or Houses dedicated to God's Service they say we never built any but have taken too much accursed pains to deface and pull down many or perverting the right use of them into Stables Brothels Receptacles for Strumpets Luxurious Villanies and infernal stinking smoke of Mundungus as a Common Stable destroying those things which were with great maturity of Judgment Learning and Wisdom enacted by former Parliaments most execrably spoyling all by the usurping Power of this Parliament Mr. Speaker It is a rigorous medicine for the Tooth-ache to knock out the brains of the Patient he is no wise man that takes violent Physick and kills himself to purge a little flegm nor is he a prudent Builder that if his House do want some slight repair will pull it all down a man that loves his Wife will not cast her away for a few needless black patches that her face is disfigured withal In like manner the Malignants conceive if any things were amiss either in Ornament Gesture Ceremony Lyturgy or whatsoever might have been proved unfitting scandalous or justly offensive as is conceived it might have been removed or reconciled in a more Christian way than by Ruinating Demolishing Tearing and Violating Defiling and Spoyling all without regard of either Humanity Christianity Charity Law or order from God or man as too many Parishes and other places in this Famous Kingdom can most truly wofully testifie And these sweet pieces of services our Adversaries say we have done for the Churches Thirdly Concerning our Loyalty and Obedience to the King It is manifest we have all taken the Oath of Allegiance to His Majesty and that we have also lately taken Oaths and Covenants to make War against Him our Enemies would fain know who had power of dispence to free us from these Oaths and likewise by what authority The latter Covenant and Oaths were imposed upon the consciences of men for my own part if there were no wiser men than my self this ambiguous Aenigma should never have gone so far but it is reported by them that if we had kept our first Oaths religiously and
of them say nothing at all which they find by lamentable experience that we have turned their Liberty into Bondage their Freedom into Slavery and their Happiness into Unhappiness and Misery nay it is reported we have found no way to Hell for them which we are perswaded to be the way to Heaven which is to Rebel or Perjure to fight in Person against the King and to be forsworn to owe Him no Duty and Allegiance tush these are but trifles and may be answered at any easie rate a small matter will clear the hearing it 's no more than everlasting damnation from which Speech Master Speaker I am bold to make use of a Speech in the distastful Letany Good Lord deliver us Master Speaker the Malignants do compare the Commonwealth to an Old Kettle with here and there a fault a hole a crack or a flaw in it and that we in imitation of our blessed Brethren of Banbury were intrusted to mend the said Kettle but like deceitful heatings Tinkers we have instead of stopping one hole made three or fourscore For the People chose us for to ease them of some idle and tollerable Grievances which we have done so cunningly and superficially that all the Subjects cry out and complain that the Medicine is forty times worse than the Disease and the Remedy an hundred times worse than the Medicine and so much is reported we have done for the Subject which is either enough or too much Seventhly Master Speaker the seventh Malignants Question or Quere is what we have done for Reformation what by our industrious care and long sitting we have Reformed how the Sermon and Word of God is by us religiously sincerely zealously frequently and orderly preached and practised what we have amended either in the Church or Kingdom how either the King is by us honoured or the Subject eased or what we have done these four or five years the Malignants would fain know with what faces we can look on the Free-holders and Corporations in every Shire County City Town and Burrough in this Kingdom who cried us up with their voyces and carried us up like Popes on their shoulders with an Elle to be Elected Knights and Burgesses which way Mr. Speaker can we answer them for our many Breaches of that great Trust which they intrusted us withal I tell you Mr. Speaker these are home Questions and that they say plainly that our Reformation is Non-confirmation and by sure Confirmation true Defamation and that we have by cunning Transformation turned all to Deformation so that our Predecessours and Ancestours that are deceased this Life to a better or worse should or could they arise out of their Graves and see the change alteration and unmannerly manners that hath overspread this Church and Kingdom they would think they were in Turkey Barbaria Cerilia Tartaria or some Land that is inhabited by Infidels Pagans or Devils for England as it is looks no more like England as it was six years agone than a Camel or a Cockle are like an Owl or a Red-herring Eighthly and lastly Mr. Speaker the Malignants question us what we have done for our selves It is true Charity begins at home and we ought to make much of and strengthen our selves but we have run as the Adversaries say to the hazarding of our Estates to be justly forfeited for Rebellion against so just merciful and truly religious a King our Lives are liable to the censure of such Laws as former Parliaments have Enacted against Rebels and Traytorous Rebellion and our souls are in danger of perdition if submission contrition and satisfaction be not humbly heartily speedily performed for we and only we have altered this Kingdoms Felicity to confusion and misery from a blest merry Comedy to a doleful bloody Tragedy which may fill a large History of perpetual memory to the everlasting oblivion shame and indignity of Us and our Posterity And thus Mr. Speaker with as much brevity as I could I have run over my Eight Parts of Speech whereby may be perceived how our Malignant Adversaries do esteem of Us and our Actions I could speak more than I have said and I could say more than I have spoken but having done I hold it manners and discretion to make an end FINIS