blessed Reformation for the good of this poore Kingdome shall be effected and justice and common honestie shall be highly exalted how will the world then stand and admire and say with David mirabilis Deus in sanctis suis God is greatly to be admired in his Saints Doe but consider seriously of it for which of the Armies good works at Naesby Bristow c. must they in all haste be stoned Weigh their proceedings in an equall ballance since the Charge sent up against the eleven Members they have kept at a distance expecting justice to be done upon them it cannot be obtained they approach the City for that purpose onely Oh bid them welcome the sword is but the servant of justice and servants of justice are the Kingdomes best friends take heed you do them no wrong my life on it they will do you none you know they are no cowards when their cause is good the justice of heaven is for them they have assisted you against those who had designed the ruine of your famous City It is but justice and common equity that you should assist them against those that had designed theirs and in them the ruine of the whole Kingdome for believe it under the specious pretences of government order and uniformity the designe of these men and their Accomplices was no other but to get the Kings power into their own hands to monopolize all the great places to themselves and their Adherents to continue Grandees of Parliament during their lives and to make us the most absolute slaves that ever were in this Kingdome both for soules bodies and estates consider further what can you get by opposing this Army for though the Commanders and Officers be not Souldiers of fortune but Gentlemen of worth and quality and few of the souldiery but know how to live comfortably for you see it is not money they aime at being acted by more noble principles the love of justice and vertue for which they first ingaged yet if they find resistance nature justifies selfe-defence and justice must be done you may lose much and in the losse of this Army you and yours are likely to be inslaved for ever you know God has owned this Army as those that are holy faithfull and chosen and all Counties where they come owne them and love them and feare nothing but their disbanding before the peace of this Kingdome be setled and the Liberties of the Subject vindicated pray read the 8. of Numbers the Lord is with them and the shout of a King is amongst them Therefore as you love this Kingdome make not the least head nor face of resistance against them you and they are as two vessels at sea if you clash upon one another you are broken he that gives the first blow ingages the Justice of Heaven against him set open your gates if you have no intestine troublers you may throw down your works the Army under God will be your sufficient defence doe not object that to require justice in this manner is to enforce the Parliament force and right are opposed force being properly of things unlawful 't is no force to make a man to be honest these Members accused might have acted and voted freely for the infranchisement of the people but they are not free to vote for our inslavement t is a common Argument that by this meanes the Houses are over-awed and not in a free capacity but it beares not the weight of a feather For 1. God and nature law and reason all command the execution of justice and hee that ordaines the end alwayes appoints some means or other conducing to that end therefore when the Liberty of a people cannot be setled but by a defensive war that must needs be lawfull but this is the case there happens an unhappy difference betweene the Houses and the Army the Parliament say they will make the Kingdome happy the Army fears it and sayes it will not bee done unlesse these Incendiaries bee removed Now the Question is Whether the Army ought not in Law and conscience to continue in armes till this difference be ended and there is nothing more cleare then that they ought for it is a rule in Law and universall reason that when a suit is begun all things must rest as they then are till the matter be ended and adjudged for to deliver up the sword is to release the right 2. Here is no force unlawfully raised but commissionated by the Parliament for the freedome of themselves and the whole Kindome not to fight with an implicite faith but for justice and common Liberties and properties and there can no Argument bee used against the Army for whetting their glistering swords against the injustice of these men and keeping them unsheathed untill the King and Kingdome bee setled in Honour and safty but what may bee improved against the Parliament for the first raiseing of this Army Let not these and such like Incendiaryes nor their accomplices in pulpits nor elsewhere abuse you into any prejudices or jealousies as that the Army was raised and paid by the Parliament and that the servants oppose their Masters just as the Bishops argued wee are the shepheards ye are the sheepe shall the sheepe oppose the shepheards t is the Kingdome that payes the Army and they contribute thereunto out of their owne estates but the Parliament are so wise in all their declarations to exempt themselves from payments the Army fight for themselves and for the good of the Kingdome and are true to their first principles Iustice and Lawfull Liberties for the love whereof they will adventure ten thousand lives a peece if they had them For my part if they should willingly disband before our Liberties be setled and secured I should proclaime it to all the world that they had betrayed us Have honest men laid out themselves to their very shirts and must they now be trampled upon and made at the best hewers of wood and drawers of water if so much favour may be granted them to breath in the Land of their nativity How is justice vineger at the best and gall to the most Protestants by a new trick made Papists and indicted upon the Statutes of Recusants honest men imprisoned every where as if it were no more to imprison a man then to whip a Schoole-boy Petitions burnt a thing never heard of amongst Heathen Magistrates that dries up the fountaine of all reliefe and these persons are the chiefe incendiaries and promoters of all these mischiefs these are the Phaetons that would set all on fire before the generall conflagration at the day of judgement for I have a most reverent and honourable esteem of many in both Houses who in my conscience really and sincerely without those unworthy and base ends of enriching themselves upon the ruines of others intend the glory of God and the good of this Kingdome but are over-voted and silenced as wheat lies buried amongst the chaffe Therefore this being no time to write much All you honest Citizens go down to the Parliament and cry Iustice Iustice against these men take your Bibles and mark well the 20. Chapter of the second Book of Samuel let these Sheba's be but suspended the House and justice done upon them and the Army if you desire it will make an honourable retreat so as they may have moneyes not to be chargeable to the almost quite exhausted Countreys The Army desires an account of the many millions of money that have been raised for the Kingdomes service In the name of God let the Treasurers Committee-men and those that have swallowed down the money vomit it up againe why should they not let quick and cheap justice be done to rich and poore I assure you the work will be glorious if you hinder it not if you make any opposition against this Army you are undone Farewell the glory of London-Towne the Lord give you wisdome to know your friends from your foes In this will Gods love be manifest to the city I hope your unthankfull Remonstrance may be forgotten because you were at the first a Sanctuarie for honest men I trust God will inspire you to foresee and prevent your ruine which can onely be by complying with this Army for which I shall pray and conclude my selfe an unfeigned well-wisher of peace and truth of the honour of the King and just Rights and Liberties of the Parliament and Kingdome FINIS
REASONS why the House of Commons ought In Justice forthwith to suspend the MEMBERS Charged by the Army from sitting in the House And to proceed in Judgment against them Or else the City is obliged by way of requitall to help the ARMY to justice upon them London Printed in the Year 1647. REASONS why the House of Commons ought In Justice forthwith to suspend the Members charged by the Army from sitting in the House and to proceed in Judgement against them Or else the City is obliged by way of requitall to help the Army to Justice upon them WHerein to speak with all due Reverence to the Honorable House the question rightly stated will be thus Whether it be any breach of priviledg to require such a present suspention for such reasons and matters which are already fully known to the House having been acted in the House or there examined and fully proved Or whether those other high misdemeanors charged against them ought first to be proved which will require some time and I conceive that there ought to be an immediate and present Sequestration of their persons from that great Counsel and that I may make forth this truth for the satisfaction of the intelligent Reader in point of rational conviction grounded upon the Laws of this Kingdom I shal premise a few Considerations and argue the point as in quiet times upon the Law of the Land which is the only rule of justice in times of peace 1. That it hath ever been the course of all arbitrary Courts not to suffer their priviledges to be questioned nor to be known to any but to themselves that so when they are minded to oppress any Clyent if they be non-plust in point of reason they may fly to the course of the Court and say it is but the priviledg of the Court as King James in his speech in the Star-chamber saies that the priviledges of that Court were so transcendent that they were not to be disputed by common Lawyers and charged the Chancellor to check the presumptuous boldness of such Lawyers as durst argue and dispute of the limits and extents of his Prerogative and the decapitated Archbishop in the high Commission Court made an express Inhibition that no Minster should preach of Predestination and matters of such high concernment and formerly in the Court of Wards he that argued for the King to finda Tonure to fetter and clog the subjects Lands could never want a reason for if neither Common Law nor Statute law not Custom not the Kings Prcrogativo could carry it then it was the priviledg of the Coure so to do that if the Counsel should say give my Client what is his due by the Common Law then sayes the Court give us what is our due by the priviledg of the Court the Honor and Rites whereof we sit here to maintain and upon that ground the Papists made marriage a Sacrament that if Caesar should say give me my due marriage belongs to the Civil Magistrate the Answer is give God his due Sacraments belong to the Church and so it was in our Spiritual or rather Carnal Courts when the unreasonableness of Excommunication for trifles was objected oh t is ' the priviledg of the Court so to do But blessed be God the subject is well infranchised in these Particulars and yet King Charls must have his due the Army have declared their desires therein and his Majesty saies he desires no more and certainly he deserves no less I cannot but observe what plotting there is to make the Kings late party beleeve that his Majesty dislikes the Armies proceedings one B. Rheymes informing the Right Honorable the House of Peers thereof a Relation was printed by Order as was but just for every Court gives indubitate credence to informations 〈◊〉 the contrary appear or 〈…〉 〈…〉 every 〈…〉 to consider of the improbability of it that the King should desire private conference with 〈◊〉 stronger for the 〈◊〉 was never any Courtier nor so much as known to the King is very strange to me and the Relation indeed is repugnant in it self for my own part I think it is something like the Romish Translation and not a word of 〈◊〉 true for I find the Areny expressing the contrary and where his Majesties best interest and hopes lie I refer the Reader to the Kingdoms 〈◊〉 lately printed with this that King Charls shal be King of Pree men governing according to just and whole some Laws by which to command one man is more honorable in the Judgment of men that are truly so then to have absolute power of life and death over ten thousand Galley slaves 2. Concerning the Pavliament priviledges there are very few Cases printed in any Law books the Houses have always been the proper Judges of their own Proviledges the Journal books and books of Remembrances and Orders in both Houses being matters of Record and Registers of their Priviledges and Proceedings and when a special case happen for which there is no President then right Reason must be judg For the Honerable House of Commons the represenvdtive body of the Kingdom the priviledges of that House are great for Parliament are must being the greatest 〈…〉 in the Kingdom the Trustees must have inswrabld Priviledges now a Priviledg is private 〈◊〉 an Exemption from some general Law for the ease and benefit of the priviledged party and a private Law must be 〈◊〉 as well as a publick Law but the power of the House is far above the priviledg of the House they being impowered for the common good and themselves priviledged for the better carrying on of the same The first day of Parliament M. Speaker in his speech to the King alwayes concludes with a prayer in the name of the House that they may enjoy their ancient and undoubted priviledges the essentials whereof are Three First freedom from Arâ—esâ—â— for themselves their necessary servants 2. Freedom of debate the very life of Counsels 3. That they may not be drawn 〈…〉 but â—yed by themselves unless for Treasons or Felonies which are apparently so as if a Member should kill a man there is no question but he ought to be tryed by the Common Law which is the common arbiter of life and death This being laid as a substratum and ground-work I conceive thereby that if any considerable number of men free from all faction and conspiracy shal by Petition or Remonstrance which is an humble way make a complaint to the House of Ten or Twenty of the Members charging them with high misdemeanors and amongst the rest that they by artisicial practises seduce the House and poyson the very fountain of Justice that they cause divisions between the Parliament and the Kingdom and such men as have given most large testimonies of their cordial affections to the Parliament and Kingdom and are ready to aver and make good their Charge praying that the parties may be suspended from voting in the House for the present
who yet lay long in prison before they were tried the Armie are so farre from the least face of revenge that though these men have voted them enemies to the State for that which the Parliament since acknowledge to be just that they do not so much as desire to have them imprisoned which in justice they might well expect but they desire onely their absence from the House that their hands and tongues may be tied from doing further hurt to the Kingdome If the case of the five Members should be objected there is no comparison between them for the King cannot accuse any subject and they were demanded in a hostile manner because they voted for the liberty of the people but these Members of late have voted nothing in the House but meerly to inslave the people he that was one of the five is as a star fallen from heaven which was no starre but a Comet 't is pitty good parts should be imployed to make slaves of those that intrusted them But still it will be said can words make any man guilty I answer their actions clearely bespeake their intentions which is the ruine of this Army to disgrace and oppresse every man that will not conforme to their practises but stands in the way of their Domination to Lord it over the Lords inheritance all their Votes tend to inslave them whom they should enfranchise and it is most apparent that they neither intend to doe right to the King nor the people This is sufficiently knowne to the House that these were the principall actors in procuring that hastie Declaration against this Army which is the wonderment of Heathens that men who with the venture of their lives had vindicated the Petitions of Right should be denied the right and Liberty to present their grievances to their noble Generall and this Declaration to be past in the House late in the night contrary to Order of the House that it should not be debated till the next day when the Armies friends were gone away and so the House surprized and abused and these are the men that afterwards of their owne accord without any warrant from the House called back those three Regiments out of Worcester-shire that were going for the relefe of Ireland and what plotting there was between some of these Members and the Reformadoes abetting them to come downe to the House and imprison the Members in the House till some of them by their elegant speeches pacified them and what high affronts have been and are daily offered to those that are the Armies friends let but everie reasonable man seriously consider Whether the House in justice has not sufficient clear ground to suspend these men from any longer sitting til the other heads of the Charge be cleerly united which if it be denied if the Army cannot finde justice from the House in the Hundred how shal they expect it in the Shire If these men have such an influence and power in the House that they may not be suspended in Order to a triall what hopes has the Army that the House should inflict condigne punishment upon them according to their demerits though I believe the Army desires they should be more mercifully dealt withall then they intended towards the Army had they been disbanded If one strike a man in Westminster-Hall in the face of the Court he shall lose his hand without any further proof and if the Court adjudge an Infant of sixteen to be of full age by inspection there is no averment against it now not onely the House but every man that walkes in Westminster-Hall knowes that these men are the principall firebrands in the House But come you worthy Citizens what if the honourable House of Commons will not doe justice upon them for my part I know no other way to the safety of this Kingdome 〈◊〉 by the present suspending of these Members for as sure as the Lord is in heaven if they continue in the House they will imbroyle this Kingdome in a new warre by private listings inviting the Scots or rather then faile to make a peace with the Irish Rebells and bring them over calumniating the Army or otherwise what will you doe in this case pray let me give you counsell without a fee if it taste bitter as I hope it will not to any found palate swallow it downe for it is wholsome doe not I beseech you upon any pretences raise any Forces against this Army do not alledge you must defend the City of whom are you afraid Is not the Army the best friend that ever the City had have they not been your strongest walls and Bulwarks will you be briars and thorns to them had not your enemies long since deflowred your Virgin City had not they stood in the gap Rejoyce rather never such true cause of ringing the bells and making bonefires gallant Sir Thomas Fairfax and his Army under God preservers of your City is coming now keep holy-day and write over your dooers Victoria this is the second nativity of London every thing shall be setled for the good of us and this Kingdome as well as heart can wish let 's give them our best wine to drinke that have ventured their lives for us truly 't is but justice so to doe 't is no charity to relieve that poore man that has saved my life all the wealth in the City is not sufficient to requite this Army But mee thinks I heare a poore honest heart say this would doe well if there were not a difference between the Parliament and Army good friend doe not mistake the Charge is not against the Parliament but some corrupt wormes in the body that are to be purged out that the Body Politique may be the sounder but what if we be commanded to our Armes Oh consider what you doe and aske counsell from heaven a warre is quickly begun but not easily ended the first blow is like leaping into a deep pit or as opening the floud-gates if there should be a breach between Parliament and Army which God forbid who made it who gives the first blow what had the Army done to be declared enemies for presenting a Petition to the noble Generall which by the Law of Armes all souldiers have liberty to do in case they should persist in it which since the Parliament has acknowledged to be but just and though that Declaration be since retracted the unbending of the bow does not heale the hurt made by the arrow when the wound is cured though I thinke all sober men counted it at the best but an impolitike and hasty Declaration full of ingratitude to say no more of it yet the scar remaines so farre as that it was a sufficient Declaration how the chiefe promoters of it intended to deale with the Army when disbanded Rebels Traitors Heretikes and Schismaticks men not worthy to have a mouthfull of ayre in the Kingdome though under God they had saved it but when by their meanes a