THE CAMP OF CHRIST AND THE CAMP OF ANTICHRIST all Troopers after the LAMBE Revel 10.11.14 or his two Horns Rev. 13.11 12. 1. The Troopers for Christ are distinguished from the Troopers of Antichrist by the end they ayme and the side they undertake for the one must be against Christ that 's discussed and resolved the other are encouraged for Christ by the certainty of the victory in the end proved all at large out of Scripture but especially out of the Apocalips 2. Here is likewise declared how the government of this Kingdom hath been since it had first a being till now 2. Generall the Camp of Christ called chosen faithfull in fight with Antichrist and his Army 1. Declared to be fought under foure Standards reduced to foure Ensignes declared at large what they be The Lambes Camp compared to a Lion for courage and valour to a Man for wisdom to an Ox for patience and industrie to an Eagle for speed and expedition Antichrist is the Generall of the Prelates Armie 2. Two Captains two Camps their fatall and finall warres an instance in our Kingdom Revel 17.14 They shall make warre with the Lambe shewing the age of Antichrists it being and her now Ruine 3. The Warre proved lawfull from Scripture and Reason from the breach of Law and its own duty to hinder the Kings coming to rule by Arbitrary and Tyrannie as for Hezekiah to oppose Senacheribs coming against Israel Wicked men take no notice of that which good men observe viz. the time times and half a time of Antichrist Dan. 12.7.10 THe Warre is wonderfull that Antichrist should fight against the Lambe with his own Horns for what are the horns of the Lambe but his own power And what is that power but the power of the keyes And what power have the keyes but to bind and loose remit and retain sinnes And to whom is this power given but to the Pastors of the Church And of them who challenge the ordination of all Ministers and the jurisdiction over all persons but the Bishops And therefore of them we conclude what they would have according to revelation Apoc. 13.11 the second Beast had two horns like the Lambe the honour of Episcopacie but he spake as a Dragon the dread of their calling and disgrace of so great a dignitie The ten horns Dan 7.24 Rev. 17 12. are expounded to our hands to be ten Kings that take away the Cesars 2. Thes 2.6 7. and succeed him in his kingdom Rev. 13.1 the crowns were upon the sixth head Rev. 12 3 that is one Cesar held them and by civill and barbarous warres ten enjoy them to themselves which is called an Apostasie from Cesar 2. Thes 2.3 and this is first in order but in time we must joyn it with another from Christ Revel 17.12 and this is to Antichrist to whom the other give their power and both fight with the Lambe and his chosen Army who as Troopers in white and upon white horses make their expedition against a cruell companie with the greatest innocencie and alacritie in the world Antichrist is said to come out of the earth Revel 13 11. both for secresie and silence He is not seen so soon as the ten Horns that rise out of the Sea for they are up in commotion but he steals up in their troubled waters and at their back subdues them Dan. 7.25 Let my counsell be acceptable to the King and Kingdom and consider our Camps and how we have argued our selves into a civill warre and from words are come to blows Both cannot be innocent or Caviiiers of the same condition The Troopers in white must be known by the truth and the truth by God and the Countrey God if we defend true Religion and the Countrey if we seek the peace of it The miserie of our warre shall be the meditation of our miserie ever since we were a Kingdom We have been ruled by Romanes from the first King that ever we had who having killed his own Father by accident exiled himself into this Island A thousand yeers and more before Christ Brute a noble Romane ruled us and some 58. yeers before Christ we fell into a civill warre and Julius Cesar conquered us and when the Cesars were conquered we fell into a civill warre and the Saxons Fortiger sent for to help him conquered his sonne Vortimer and themselves by a civill warre fell into an Heptarchie and in this time came the Monke from the Pope and mastered our Bishops and by them our Kings and at this time they are suspected to joyn with a Malignant Partie to part the King and his Councell and all because he cannot have a Monarchie of their making which is stamped with that character 1. Sam. 8 9 11. where the judgement reason or will of the King is tyrannie if the judgement of the Kingdom be not in it Nineteen Propositions propounded by his Councell have provoked him exceedingly and made many to think his very Councell would impose a tyrannie upon him and all this for want of a true distinction between justice distributive and commutative Distributive of honours to deserving persons and in this the Kings Prerogative cannot be violated Privy Counsellors Bishops Judges Souldiers publick Officers Courtiers Servants to the King are by him to be honored but not to the hurt of the Kingdom His Majestie must look by distributive jâ—stice to the qualities of the persons he honours that they be as himself not for themselves but the common good Queen Elizabeth would say Populus nihi preciocissimus Courtiers Maledictus and when his Majestie saies his beloved people too many curse them and say keep them under By reason of the which oppression they cry to God and we hope God will heare them as he hath in this Parliament which zealously seek the peoples good not to distribute honours the right of the King but prevent their hurt the right of the Kingdom by commutative justice that respects not persons but things and if his Majestie meane to distribute hurtfull honours his Councell may well request that commutative justice may not be exchanged into tyrannie Jus militiae â—â—m bellum indicendi quam gerendi cum inimicis pacis quoque contrahendae paciscendae cum peregrinis est lex Regis To proclaim and make warre to contract and make peace are in distributive justice the Royalties of a King but in commutative justice the men and money the King would have to make war must come from common consent Let this be the carriage of the Common-wealth and we shall soon be at peace The Campe of Christ called chosen and faithfull in fight with Antichrist and his Armie THe Campe of Christ consists of 144000 and the Campe of Antichrist of 666 not because Christ hath the greater number but the better men as being virgins undefiled with women Rev. 14.4 The other is a round number of a name of a Beast of a man Rev. 13.17 18. There will be great wisdome
their deliverance David danced in one not so costly as this for it seemes to rise as high as Aarons Ephod But Gideons good intention for God proved superstition in the people who went a whoring after it as soone as he was dead and what he made for God that they speedily dedicated to Baal Ready they were to change their Government and to take any man for God that did them good though he were but the instrument and God to shew how the best men may fall gives them over in some things to shew they are but men Thus was it with the Bishops of the Church who by the keyes of the Lambe gained power with his people and might command eares and eare-rings hearts and hands to set up any monument to God and time turned all humane inventions into grosse Idolatrie and the very keyes of Bishops prevailed with Princes to goe higher then their eares even to the top of their heads and take off their crownes and cast them into the laps of Bishops which have so handled their keyes that they are become hornes held as upon the head of the Lambe but made to fight against him and having gotten such interest in the Kings of the earth and their Crownes worke them as hornes with theirs to wage warre with the Lambe and he is blinde that sees it not in that part of the Street of the great Citie that is in our Kingdome Brute a Romane for killing of his Father was banished into this Land 1108 yeares before Christ the first King we reade of in our Nation and some 58 yeares before Christ Julius Caesar being twice beaten out of the feild and having his sword taken from him by a valiant Duke and Labianus a Romane Tribune slaine by it yet civill warres gave Caesar the Conquest in the end and when he lost his Crownes in all his Monarchie he had the same fortune with us and Vortiger a murtherer of his lawfull Prince to hold that Crowne craves ayde of the Saxons and Hengist for his good service marries his Daughter and brings in the Saxons so fast that as tumbling stones they came upon us and at the last over-bare us and then in this division comes in the Monke and finds hornes fitted for him and so the ten and two in all Kingdomes agree to warre with the Lambe and these miserable slaves to Satan hold up his Soveraigntie against Christ and not like Gideon grant Christ his due but as the people will have it take all to themselves We see in our dayes jurisdiction without Empire to doe well in the Low-Countreys and the States rule and their Generall the Prince of Orange warres for them and they prosper and may be some thinke they should doe better if the Prince of Orange were their Emperour and the States changed to be his servants There is Empire with Jurisdiction this is two-fold merum and mixtum Imperium Meere Empire is absolute Monarchie and that is divine or humane Divine when God alone rules the Lord shall rule over you Judg. 8.23 yet at this time was there an Aristocratie assisting this Thearchie for Elders left by Moses Numb 11.17 and that out-lived Joshua Judg 2.7 kept the people to God and might have done without kings in all ages for we are mistaken to tye God to them as by a Law of nature to rule the world The Apostle saies not be subject to kings but to the higher powers Rom. 13.1 and to confirm us in them all saies Th re is no power but of God and therefore to resist one power with another is as well damnation as to withstand one alone and therfore the forms of Government must be obeyed as well as the men In the Thearchie of God the Elders as well as the Judges were to be obeyed and may be with the disobedience of God the people disobeyed their Elders and for both were punished Judges successively one by one are raised and for the life of their judge they are said to obey and being dead the people presently sin again and I may think if they had been constant the people would have been the worse for if God had not humbled them by oppression and so for a time made them sensible of their sorrow they would as they were in the wildernesse have kicked at their Commanders Deut. 32.15 And it appears so at the last as the book of the Judges ends their story for Thearchie that when they had no kings that is no Judges every man did that which was right in his own eyes This is arbitrary Government when no form is observed and as his Majestie accuseth the Parliament thereof I dare say if we forsake that Government our government will be as the King saith an arbitrary Government for meer Monarchie is no other The two Horns have long strugled for it and the Pope hath gotten it over all Bishops and what is his Government but an arbitrarie rule to rule all men as if all men should rule themselves and because Cesar kept Antichrist from this meer Empire to the thraldome of all the world so Antichrist having gotten it from Cesar cannot endure one king to reign in Italie Dan. 7.24 till he have subdued them all I told you of Martian a good Emperor in the East and the story of him is that the Gothes Vandales Hunnes and Herules gained from him the West which in the dayes of Theodosius belonged to Constantinople and from them it was gained again by the valour of Belisarius Mundus and Narses and lost again to the Lombards and by Antichrist assisted by the French they are expelled and the French too and the two Horns evidently the absolute Lord of Rome and hath used his horns so well that he hath by one means or another tamed all the ten horns and either by power or policie makes them serve him It s true hatred is spoken of Revel 17.16 and in point of Supremacie Princes have since Luther looked to this two horned Beast but their hatred as yet is not hot enough to eat the flesh of the Whore that Antichrist labours to cherish in all Countreys I said this Whore ends her street with us for Brute a Romane and Cesar Romes perpetuus Dictator have given us more then Ireland and Scotland our denomination to be in the Romane jurisdiction and I see Historians this way carrie it no further then us which makes me suspect this our present time to agree with Revel 11.7 The street that from Jerusalem stretcheth to us receives our dead bodies that is the Church and kingdom which politically are taken for the two witnesses for blessed be God in spite of all that Antichrist but Church and Kingdom do witnesse against him and he must do to us as he hath done in other parts of this street over-seas bring us into straits with them and the time is when they and we shall be about to finish our testimonie and then riseth the last warre to lay us as lowe as the graves mouth but not to be able to bury us and the reason is the same that we have 2. King 13.21 The invasion of the Moabites make the Israelites cast by the dead body and fall to their Armes It is thought our Bishops the worst of them intended again to bury us in the grave of Poperie and would have done it solemnly in an honourable mixture of their sweet spices and ointments and if Scotland had liked well of their preparation we had gone down together into the grave without redemption But Scotland tasted the Myrrhe and Aloes to be too bitter to be born by them and there is no Nation up to hinder the buriall and Ireland and England follow and over-seas the watres preceded and God hath so tempered them that if the Papists were at peace amongst themselves they would put hard but they would heave us into their grave again and make their own peace by our buriall They are glad they have such an opportunitie to kill us but their joy will not be long to hurt us with their horns That the horns of Antichrist are in it is more then manifest and our Bishops so blinded that they see it not and if his Majestie cannot through the thick mist see it God of his goodnesse expell the clouds that hinder it Admiration it is to see Papists flock to the Church take the oath of Supremacie by some dispensation from the Pope for certain it is he loves meer Monarchie and may perswade Kings so to do for if his Majestie would come to mixt Monarchie and consider that his Parliament by the form of Government in this Kingdom must joyn with him he would not forsake it or suffer Papists to abuse his Crowns to be as horns to goare his own body to prevent an arbitrarie Government where it cannot be to set up one where it ought not to be I say it is impossible to make the Parliament an Arbitrarie Government for all the world cannot invent a better means against it and his Majestie saies the power of it is sufficient to prevent tyrannie and therefore it cannot set it up But Anarchie and absolute Monarchie that is not Thearchie is and ever will be an arbitrary form of Government the good God of heaven preserve us from both for we are in the way to fall into them FINIS
alterations in all States For the second no King is above his Councell but in it as a member In solio Rex est sine pars In the royall seate the King hath no Peeres but in Concilio habet pares but in his Councell he hath Peeres not to command him but to agree with him Consilio consensu votis Wee may resolve two doubts The first of a negative vote the second of the Kings Supremacie That the King hath a negative vote quoad interesse suum no man can denie it and the Lords and Commons have as much and the reason is good no one part can be injurious to another but quoad interesse regni of the common good of all the members they are all bound to consent to what is good and to dissent from what is evill The privie Councell Judges of the Land Men of Warre Officers of State c. must all receive their honours from the King What shall be done to the man whom the King delighteth to honour Esther 6.6 Royall favours must come from his Majestie but not with the hurt of the Subject Ahasuerus reading the Chronicles of his Kingdome and finding Mordecai to have done him good service will have him rewarded and Haman that had prepared the Gallowes for him must be the Herald of his enemies praise and when Hamon is found unworthy of his honour for the hurt he had done his Subjects the King commands him to be hanged for Mordecai Here is right distributive justice and it is onely the Kings to give But to denie his Councell hearing in the hurts of his people is most unjust and commutative justice pleads the Parliaments providence to provide for all these and no King can denie it and the contention riseth that the King may not give honours which is true when they hurt his Subjects and the Parliament may see he be punished whosoever hath such honours and if by that Councell they may be deprived of them doubtlesse to save labour they may advise the King not to give them except he meane greater hurt to his people then honour to his favourites In point of Supremacie we may thus be resolved Rex est Major singulis the King is greater then his Subjects Minor universis lesse then his Kingdome and his Councell that represents it No King needs to feare his Supremacie for he both hath it sine pari and cum paribus The Kingdome is his but not by conquest but contract The Church is his to nurse it with the sincere milke of the Word but not with the poyson of Popery The Lawes are his to keepe them but not command them at his will The judgement of the King in the distribution of rewards penalties is properly his as the provision in the vacancie of Parliament for such accidents as happen above Law beside the Law or beyond the reach of it Vltra supra praeter legem the Prerogative is as necessary as Ordinances are to provide where Law is defective but contra legem terrae or fundamentall Lawes commonly and constantly received in this Kingdome neither King nor Councell are warranted at all for both are to build upon that foundation Furthermore the King hath no legislative power contra statuta regni Having then found out the maine matter of the Kings Prerogative in praemiis paenis wee will to his honours adde potestatem vitae necis and instance in that Indictment of Felons Contra coronam dignitatem regis c. It is the Scripture phrase Vir es mortis thou art worthy to dye Non morieris thou shalt not dye is the Kings mercie and yet here his Majestie is limited and his pardon proves voyd when there comes in interesse viri the right of any one man much more interesse regni Come wee then to the judgement of the Kingdome 1 Sam. 10.25 where wee have the same word Mishphat but applied to a more universall subject as the judgement of the Kingdome and so it is in the great Councell Deut. 17.8 9.11 There is a judgement in that place inferiour both to the King and Councell and therefore what is too hard for inferiour Courts comes to the supreame and that must be heard and feared of all The great Charter of this Kingdome granted by Henry the Third hath in it these three fundamentall Lawes that completely secure every free man in this Kingdome yet now most grossely troden downe by our Caviliers and his Majestie should thinke how they ecclipse his Protestation in a violation of it and all good Lawes There is jus personarum nullus liber homo capietur imprisonetur the Law is that no free person be arrested imprisoned or compelled to doe or suffer any thing further then may justly be required by Law Secondly Jus rerum quae nostra sunt sine nostro consensu à nobis tolli non possunt fine furto Latricinio Thirdly Jus actionum nulli justitiam negabimus c. How are these Lawes observed in the Kings Army What man can resist violence done to his person save his goods from rapine theeverie and Latrocinie What action or suit of Law can he have with lawlesse men Our last Point taken from our Captaine is justè pugnare to make warre in righteousnesse This appeares in foure things in his vesture which he puts on in his thigh which gives him issue in his name which gaines him glory and the inscription of it both upon vesture and thigh to perpetuate his honour and fame to the worlds end He puts not on the vesture of bloud he is Dominus in albis he and his appeare not like bloudy Souldiers but Saints in the purest white which may be dipt in bloud by others yet is it not their naturall dye From his thigh spring forth millions of men to be saved though he smite his enemies as Sampson did hip and thigh with a great slaughter His name in so doing is above all names and Kings and Lords must come under it The inscription of this honour remaines to this day on his vesture and thigh maugre the malice of Antichrist and all his members whose reigne is most wicked judgement corrupt and warre cruell They that cannot abide to be servants to God are willing to be the greatest slaves to the Devill Gideon knowing the best Government to be a Thearchie would not make himselfe a Monarch at the request of the people Judg. 8.23 neither he nor his should alter the forme of the Kingdome God for him and them should rule over his owne Nation all that he will request of them are the golden eare-rings gotten from the Ishmaelites amounting to a thousand seven hundred Shekles of Gold which the people give and what will they not give to make an Idoll They give beside them Ornaments Collars and Purple rayment that was on the Kings of Midian and beside these the chains also that were about the Camels neckes A masse of costly materialls to make an Ephod for a Monument of