prove it iâ— this That the King by his actual war against the Parliament did thereupon forfeit his Kingship and Crown and became a private person and enemy dissolved the Constitution both of the Kingdom and Parliament and not only violated all Law in the branches but plucked up she very roof of it in destroying the Parliamentary Establishment as much as in him lay and thereby introduced another Law of Arms From whence he deduceth 3. Conclusions 1 The Justice of secluding the Members 2ly The Sufficiency of the authority that condemned and executed the King 3ly The Legality of the remaining Members continuing and sitting as the Parliament and Supreme Authority of England which after the Kings beheading and other Mâ—mbers and Lords seclusion descended and was transmitted to them by the Law of war for the people This he determines to be Law and Reason too sufficient to convince both Royalâ—ists and Presbyterians of the Lawfulnes of the Power and present sitting acting as a Parliament by those few Members at Westminster secluding all the rest To which I answer 1. That if the Kings death by Law Reason dissolved the Parliament in an orderly course because his writs of summons abated by his death they could not treat with him concerning his and his Kingdoms affairs nor he consent to any Bills after his decease Which he freely grants Then by the self-same Reason Law his violent death must dissolve this Parliament as I have largely proved 2ly If the Kings levying war against the Parliament did actually dissolve the very Constitution Law of the Parliament and Kingdom and made him no King at all but ai private person which he layes for his foundation then it must necessarily dissolve the Parliament and Kingdom too and make them no Parliament no Kingdom at all as well as himself no King For how can the Parliament continue when its very Constitution is desolved 3ly By this Position it inevitably follows that we had neither King Parliament Kingdom nor any Laws at all but only of Warr from the beginning of the Wars or first battel at least between the Kings and Parliaments forces many years before his death But this the King Kingdom Parliament the sitting as well as secluded Members both Armies and our whole 3. Kingdoms ever denied in all their Votes Orders Ordinances Declarations Remonstrances Petitions Treaties Propositions whatsoever from 1641. till December 1648. and Nedham himself in his Diurnaâ—is and Mercuries In all which the Parliament both Houses and Army-Officers stiled him their KING and the King and his party ever stiled them the Houses of Parliament Therefore this position must be a most Notorious Falshood wherein Interest doth grosly lie 4ly Those he stiles the honest faithfull Members in their very Votes of Non addresses passed by force and fraud in their Knack for the Kings tryal Impeachment Proceedings Sentence of condemnation against him after our seclusion in their Dâ—claration of 17 Martii 1648. after his death and sundry other Papers ever stiled and acknowledged him TO BE KING and ENGLAND HIS KINGDOM notwithstanding the wars between him and the Parliament Therefore the very war did not Vnking nor make him a Private person noâ— dissolve the ConstitutioÌ„ of the Kingdom Patâ— during his life else there could not be a war against or between the King or Parliament if the war it self unkinged him unparliamented them and dissolved all their constitutions 5ly No person by the a Law of God Nature Nations the Great Charter Laws Statutes of England and Votes of Parliament ought actually to forfeit or to be ipso facto deprived of his Office Freebold Liberties Estate Life without a legal proceeding tryal conviction judgement attainder Much less then the King himself the Supreme Magistrate and Governor of the Realm in whom all have a common interest unkinged and made a private person or publike Enemy and totally deprived of his Crown and Soveraignty Therefore his actual levying war against the Parliament without before any legal impeachment conviction or sentence of deposition could not unking nor make him a private person as the cases of Edward the 2. and Richard the 2. and the b Parliaments which deprived them of their Kingships after their resignations clearly resolved against this Jesuitical new Doctrine 6ly If the King by his bare levying war against the Parliament actually lost his Kingship and became a meer private person before any sentence of deprivation then by the self-â—ame reason law his old and new revived Parliament by its manifold old new breaches of trust is actually dissolved become no Paul at all yea every Traitor levying war conspiring against the King every Murderer Theef Felon corrupt Judg Justice Mayor Sherif Inferior Office by the very committing of Treason Murder Felony Adultery Bribery Injustice and breach of their respective trusts should be actually attainted of those offences their Lands Offices presently confiscated without my Indictment trial verdict judgement against them yea every act of Adultery by any Husband or Wise should actually dissolve the bond of marriage for ever without and before any Sentence of divorce between them which * Mr. Wheatly publikely recanted as a dangerous error And how destructive such new Nedham Interest Low would prove to all mens lives liberties estates yea to every mans soul since every act of sinne by like consequence should actually damn and make even Saints themselves to 〈◊〉 totally and finally from Grace and Gods favor let all judicious men resolve 7ly If this be Law then had the King and Parliament upon any Treaty after the wars accorded he ought to have been new proclamed installed crowned King again and the Parliament resummoned by new writs 8ly He confesseth this to be the very principle of Barclay the * Jesuit from whom he borrows it p. 34. Therefore his present Parliament and Republike built thereon are purely Jesuitical by his own confession 9ly This Jesuits position is not so bad as his He speaks not of every Civil war made by a King upon his Subjects for which there may be just occasions but only of a King warring upon his people of purpose to extirpate and destroy them which he saith it seems almost impossible any King should be so mad as ever to attempt Which the King in his war against the Parliament by his victories proceedings against the Prisoners Members Towns he took during the wars in sparing all their lives actually really and oft times verbally and professedly disclamed in all his Proclamations Speeches Remonstrances Messages to and Treaties with the Houses Therefore his war against them did neither unking him nor make him a private person and publike Enemy by this Jesuites resolution 10ly If the Kings war against the Parliament did really unking him then certainly the Generals ArmyOfficers and Armies actual levying war upon both Houses of Parliament by secluding securing the Members and King did really uncommission and 〈◊〉 â—my them and made them no Officers
A Brief Necessary VINDICATION Of the Old and New SECLUDED MEMBERS from the false malicious CALVMNIES AND Of the Fundamental Rights Liberties Privileges Government Interest of the Freemen Parliaments People of England from the late avowed Subversions 1. Of John Rogers in his Un-christian Concertation with Mr. Prynne and others 2. Of M Nedham in his Interest will not lie Wherein the true Good Old Cause is asserted the false routed The old secluded Members cleared from all pretended breach of trust The old Parliament proved to be totally dissolved by the Kings death The sitting Juncto to be no Parliament and speedily to be dissolved by the Army-Officers The Oathes of Supremacy Allegiance Fealty to the King his Heirs and Successors to be still binding continuing The New Commonwealth to be the Iesuites Project Ch. Stewart not sworn to Popery as Nedham slanders him The restitution of our Hereditary King and Kingly Government not an Vtopian Republike evidenced beyond contradiction to be Englands true Interest both as Men and Christians and the only way to peace safety settlement By WILLIAM PRYNNE of Swainswick Esq a Bencher of Lincolns-Inne The Second Edition Jer. 51. 9 10. We would have healed ENGLISH BABYLON but she would not be healed forsake her and let us go every one to his own Country for her judgement reacheth unto heaven and is lifted up even to the skies The Lord hath brought forth our righteousness come and let us declare in Zion the work of the Lord our God Ps. 63. 11. But the mouth of them that speak Lies shall be stopped London Printed and are to be sold by Edward Thomas at the Adam and Eve in Little Britain 1659. A brief necessary Vindication of the Old and New secluded Members c. ON the 17. of this instant September during my private retirement in the Country for my health and quiet I received 2. Books fraught with malicious calumnies bitter scoffs insufferable Reproaches against my Self and other secluded Members yea destructive to the very fundamental Rights Liberties Privileges Government Interest of the Freemen Parliaments and Realm of England for which we have so many years contested The 1. of these thus intituled A Christian Concertation with M. Prynne M. Baxter M. Harrington for the true Cause of the Commonwealth c. by J. Rogers A most scurrilous 〈…〉 fraught with absurd impertinercies conjuring canting new coyned a swelling words of vanity odious comparisons bitter scoffs raysing Epethites b loathsom stinking obscene Queres defiling the very air c boyish tricks playing with mens names and reputations which he d severely censures in others yet is most guilty of himself displaying him to be rather a e conjuring Sorcerer than Gospel-Minister an Apostate scoffing Lucian than sober real Christian standing much in need of the f several Pills he prescribes Mr. Baxster to purge his filthy stomack spleen brain heart pen from such rotten stinking humors for the future almost every page in his book being either g Scandalum Magnum or Scandalum Magnatum to use his own expressions against all dissenting from him but an h egregious flattery of his own faction The 2. Interest will not lie Or a View of Englands True Interest by Marâ— Nedham which had he intituled Interest will lie Or a View of Englands False Interest by Mar. England it had been a true Character of it The first most furiously chargeth me and my secluded companions in the Van the later in the Rear The one with whole Vollies of fired squibs more like a Whiffler than a Mâ—skateer shooting nothing but wild-fire and i bitter words without bullets The other like a Trumpeter rather than a Trooper sounding a fierce charge against us with his Trumpet without wounding us with his Lance or Sword which are very obtuse To avoid prolixity impertinence and repetitions I shall reduce all the material Differences between us into 6. distinct Questions wherin I shall refute what they have published relating to my self the other secluded Members the Rights Privileges Interest of our Parliaments and Nation with all possible Brevity omitting their personal scoffs and scurrilities The 1. Question Question 1 between J. Rogers and Mr. Prynne wherein Nedham hath no share is but this Whether the Defence maintenance of the true Protestant Religion the Kings royal person authority government posterity the privileges and rights of Parliament consisting of King Lords and Commons the Laws Statutes of the Land the Liberty Property of the Subject and peace safety of the Kingdom were the only True and Good Old Cause for which the long Parliament and their Armies first took up Arms in 1642. and continued them till the Treaty with the King 1648. as Mr. Prynne asserts and proves like k a Lawyer by punctual Evidences Witnâ—sses Votes Declarations Remonstrances Ordinances of both Houses yea of the Army-Officers Generals Council during all the wars in his Good Old Cause rightly stated his True and perfect Narrative The Re-publicans and others spurious Good Old cause briefly and truly anatomized and in his Concordia Discors Or whether the erecting of a New Commonwealth and Parliament without a King and House of Lords and Majority of the Commons House upon the ruines of the late King Kingdom Parliament since 1648. to 1653. and the reviving of it May 7. 1659. by some swaying Army-Officers and the farr Minor part of the old Commons House confederating with them by meer armed power secluding the greatest Number of the surviving Members and whole House of Lords Which J. Rogers endeavors to prove like a Logician without any evidence witness but his own Ipse scripsit though l professedly disclamed by both Houses of Parliament and the Army too in sundry printed Declarations as the highest scandal never once entring into their loyal thoughts When this Logician with all his Sophistry Anatomy Pills Physick can make that which was never in being but since 1648. as we all know and himself asserts in his Concertation p. 7 9. to be the Good Old Cause in being m long before the last Parliament of King Charles for whose defence they first took up arms in 1642. Or that cause which never once entred into their thoughts and was professedly disclamed till 1648. to be the cause they proclamed and fought for from the wars beginning he must yeeld up his Spurious Good Old Cause as desperate his scurrillous Goos-quils to use his n own words dashing the GALL of his ink upon Mr. Prynnes former papers to little purpose in this particular but to blot them a little not to answer them a line nor the Argument of them in the least The 2. Question is this Question 2 Whether Mr. Prynne with the Majority of the Commons House and whole House of Peers were forcibly secluded the Parliament by the Army for any real breach and forfeiture of their trusts in 1648. or ever legally impeached convicted thereof either then or since before any lawfull
the Writs and Returns themselves yea all a antient Writs of this kinde and their returns and the expresse words of these Oathes resolve with the Protestation League Covenant and manifold Declarations Votes Remonstrances of both Houses to which those sitting from 48. to 53. and now met again gave their full free consents and subscriptions as well as the secluded Members Let heaven earth our whole 3. Kingdoms and our Accusers themselves then now resolve whether I and my secluded Companions who constantly loyally strenuously in the forecited vote and all other our proceedings pursued those Trusts Oathes Duties in despite of all Oppositions or those unsecluded sitting re-sitting Members and Army-Officers who have most apparently perfidiously violated them in every branch by and since our seclusions to the destruction of our King Kingdoms Kingship Parliament Church all rights and Jurisdictions of the Crown and subversion of the Liberty Property Privileges of their fellow Members and all other subjects be the Greatest Trust-breakers Traytors and which of us best deserve to lose not only our right of sitting any more in the House but our very lives heads liberties estates in point of justice and conscience All that is or can be objected against us with any shadow of reflection is the a Vote of January 11. 1648. made upon the Armies Answer touching our securing Jan 3. That the House doth approve of the Substance of the 〈◊〉 of the General 〈◊〉 of the Officers of the 〈◊〉 to the Demands of this House touching the securing 〈◊〉 secluding of some Members thereof And doth appoint a Committee of 24. or any 5. of them to consider what is further to be done upon the said Answer and present the same to the House But doth this Vote fix any breach of trust upon us for which we deserved perpetual seclusion without any hearing impeachment trial Surely not in the least degree For 1. it approves only the substance of the Armies Answer which is general and indefinite 2ly It is not touching the securing and secluding of all the Members then secured or secluded by the Officers but only of some of those Members who were secured as well as secluded without naming any one of them in particular most of them being released before this vote Therefore it can fix no guilt or crime upon any one particular Member of us unlesse those some had been nominated 3ly This Vote was past behind our backs without hearing any of us before it passed 4ly A special Committee was appointed to consider further of their answer and report what was further to be done therein which they never did 5ly This Vote was made above a full Month after our secluding and securing when all the Members but 42. were secluded or driven thence and the rest sitting under the Force Guards of the Army and so by their own Votes and Ordinance of August 20. 1647. this Vote with all their other proceedings were mere Nullities 6ly Ten of those who passed this Vote were the very Army-Officers who made the Answer the chief Contrivers Authors of our seising securing and chief Accusers Therefore most unfit to be our Judges or passe any Vote against us behind our backs especially since they promised to conferr with us at Waâ—â—ingford House the Evening they seised us and yet lodged us all night on the bare boards in Hell After which they promised to confer with us the next morning 9. a clock at Whitehall there kept us fasting waiting in the cold till 7. at night without once vouchsafing to see us sending us away thence through the dirt guarded on every side like Rogueâ— to the Kings head and Swan in the Strand where they promised several times to conferr with us but never came to do it Now whether there can be any credit given to their Votes or Answer who so frequently brake both their trusts words faiths promises to us and others before this their Answer let the world and our greatest Enemies determin Finally the chief Authors of and instruments in this our Accusation and seclusion were the very self-same Army-Officers and Members who in April 1653 dishoused * dissolved those now sitting and then accused branded them twice or thrice in print as farr greater Infringeâ—s oâ— their trusts than we as for the House of Lords secluded suppressed by them a there was never the least breach of trust objected against them Neither had the Army b or smaller Garbled remainder of the Commons house the least right or jurisdiction to seclude or eject the Majority of their fellow Members much lesse the whole House of Peers Upon all which premiâ—es I here appeal to all the Tribunals of Men on Earth and Gods Christs Tribunals in Heaven before which I summon all our Old and New Accusers whatsoever to judge Whether this Great Charge of breach of our trusts ever justly could or henceforth can be objected against us civilly or criminally without the greatest scandal and whether this could be a lawfull ground for any to justifie our first or last seclusion The 3d Question is this Question 3 Whether the last Parliament sumneâ—ned by King Charles his Writ assembled at Westminster 3. Nov 1640. was not totally and finally dissolved by his beheading January 30. 1648. notwithstanding the statute of 17 Caroli c. 7 In this my 2. new Antagonists are divided Rogers p. 7. confâ—sseth it to be dissolved and that I have learnedly proved it in my Narrative p. 24 to 34. Adding How Néedlesse that long Discourse is to prove what we never denied But though he and his wee denied it not yet those who sate from 1648. till 16â—3 by pretext of their first writs elections and of this Act as they then affirmed in and by their Speeches Declarations Mr. Abbot and Purefoye in their Prynne against Prynne both of them Members and one of them now sitting with their President J. Bradshaw who condemned the King and sundry others denyed it yea most now sitting denyed it by words and action whereupon I unanswerably refelled them and satisfied most others by that long Discourse Therefore it was not needless as this Critick rashly censures it Nedham p. 35 36 37. though he confesseth That according to Law the Parliament was dâ—ssolved by the Kings death and that whiles the old Constitution of Parliaments remained without disturbance it is reason this Law should be retained for the reasons I have rendered Yet in this particular case by reason of the warr between King and Parliament he will by no means yeeld the Parliament to be dissolved by the Kings death but to remain intirely in the Members sitting at his death and that it is now again revived in them after above 6. years interruption to prove which strange Chymara by stranger Mediums he * spends some pages to convince and satisfie all Contradictors I shall a little examin his absurd and most dangerous Principles from whence he draws his Conclusion His main Principle to
no Army at all but a rebellious rout and all Members concurring with them therein no Members no Parliament at all The sequel is infallible Therefore Nedham must either now disclaim this desperate Jesuitical position with all his 3. Treasonable Conclusions from it or else henceforth disclame the Army-Officers Army and their formerly suppressed now revived Parliament 11ly Admit his Paradox true that the King by his war against the Parliament actually ceased to be a King c. yet his Inference thence that the Parliament was not dissolved by his death but continued after it is most false yea the contrary thence inevitably follows that it was wholly dissolved long before his death so soon as he ceased to be a King and became a private person and that by the expresse resolution of the whole Parliaments of 22 R. 2. and 1 H. 4. rot Parl. n. 1 2 3. in a case most like to ours * Henry Duke of Lancastér raising a great Army to lay Title to the Crown King Richard the 2d bringing an Army to suppresse him the King finding his forces over-weak and the Dukes too potent for him having seised Bristol and other forts thereupon a Parlee was had between them and agreed King Richard should summon a Parliament at Westminster wherein he should resign his Crown renounce his Kingship and the Duke to succeed him Upon this he accordingly summoned a Parliament where he formally resigned renounced his Kingship and was actually deposed of it by sentence and Henry the 4. who claimed the Crown upon his resignation declared King Which done it was resolved declared both by the Parliament King Lords Commons Judges that this Parliament was actually dissolved by King Richards deposing to all intents and a new Parliament ordered to be summoned by King Henry in his own name wherein he was declared crowned King and the resignation deposing of Richard the 2. ratified and recorded Therefore by the resolution of both these Parliaments by Nedhams own position if true the last Parliament of King Charles was so farr from being continued only by his wars even after his death which else would have dissolved it without dispute that it actually dissolved it in his life time six years before his death by degrading him from his Kingship and making him a private person And then his Westminster Juncto sitting from 1648. to 1653. and now again cannot have the least shadow of right law reason to fit act as any part of the * last Parliament summoned by the King neither could the whole Parliamentary and supreme power descend or be transferred to them alone by any Law or colour of right whatsoever by the Kings war death or our seclusions as he most absurdly concludes 12ly The sum of all Nedhams discourse to support his present Parliaments and Republikes right title is but this That in civil wars and commotions the conquering or prevailing party gains a legal Supreme Authority and Parliamentary power over over the whole That the Kings royal authority devolved by conquest to the Parliament the whole Parliamentary Authority to his Juncto by their forcible seclusion of the Majority of the Commons and suppression of the House of Lords And if so then by the self-same consequence the whole Kingly and Parliamental Authority was lawfully devolved on the Lord Gen Fairfax and Army-Officers when they seised the King secluded the Members suppressed the Lords and placed Guards on those that sat in 1648. Or at least to such of the Officers as were then Members of the Commons House not to the Juncto since or now sitting That afterwards it descended devolved to Gen. Cromwell a principal Member when he conquered and turned the Juncto out of doors Apr. 20 1653. as he and the Army-Officers then argued who thereupon after some Moneths exercise thereof by making New Laws and imposing New Taxes at Whitchall †Anno 1653. afterwards transferred it by deed to their Litle Conventicle elected by them in September part of which resigning back their Supreme power to Cromwell he thereupon claimed it as wholly and absolutely vested in himself without any limits as he declared in his printed Speeches 1654. and 1657. whereupon he retained it under the Title of A ROYAL PROTECTOR till his death then delegating it to his Son Richard who by this original Title enjoyed it till overpowred by his Brother Fleetwood and other Army-Officers who by this right of the Long Sword alone unprotectored him and then called in the remainder of the Old Juncto to sit and act as a * Parliament under them So that by Nedhams Doctrine the Supreme Regal and Parliamental power is legally residing in those Army-Officers who have conquered all the rest till some other greater stronger power shall be able to conquer them and his Westminsterâ— Conventicle is but their Substitute to act vote what they shall prescribe And by the self-same principle as the Army-Officers by rebelling against and suppressing the Parliament and their Masters who raised waged them for their defence contrary to all Laws of God man their own Oathes Commissions thereby gained a just and legal Title as he argues to the Supreme Regal and Parliamental Authority of the Nation not the people in whom they pretended it to be vested to any Traytor by killing or dispossessing his lawfull Soveraign any Son by killing or disseising his Father any Servant by imprisoning killing or tuâ—ining keeping his Master out of doers every Theef plunderer in the world able by force to take away any persons purse goods house lands or shall by power make himself a Judge Justice Magistrate or take away another mans wife shall have a just and legal Title against the owners and all others and Nedhams Parliament and new Republike can neither condemn nor execute any Thief Pirate Murderer Plunderer Adulterer Ravisher nor punish any disseiser or wrong-doer whatsoever that â—â—a stronger than the party injured since they all may justifie their force actions to be lawfull against the letter of the 6 7 8 9 and 10 Commandements by the self-same Law Divinity Saintlike Title of the longest Sword the greatest might and prevailing party I hope by this time he and all others clearly discern the desperate fatal consequences of his Jesuitical position and that his Interest will not lie is but a meer sink of Lies and destructive paradoxes If all this will not help to prop up the legal Soveraign Authority of his present Parliament and Republike he hath 3. other Pillars to support them p. 37. 1. The Law of Necessâ—â—y a pretty bull when as the old proverb resolves Necessitas non habet legem I am sure it will now admit of no Law Justice Conscience Equity 〈◊〉 Did not the beheaded King plead this Law for Ship-money Excise and other illegal projects yet the long a Parliament adjudged necessity in these cases to be no Law nor Plea at all And shall those very Members plead it in their own case now who then
judged it no Law nor Plea in his 3ly This Law was pleaded by Cromwel and the Army-Officers in April 1653. for the dissolution of those now sitting who together with Nâ—dham p. 40. resolve it no Law or Plea at all and can it be justly urged now for their restitution 4ly It is a pretext for all villany treachery impiety violence ever acted in the world as I have proved in my Epistle to my Speech and the secluded 〈◊〉 in their Vindication when the Officers pretended it for our seclusion and can it then be made the foundation of Commonwealths and its Junctoes constitution 5ly He addes out of Grotius l. 2. de Jure Belli cap. 6. Necessitas summa reduoit res ad merum jus naturae If so and we are now reduced to such a necessity as he argues then it followes 1. That this extreme necessity which exempts any part of a Kingdom Republike City from the power jurisdiction of the whole as Grotius there resolves hath much more exempted our whole three Kingdoms the intire Lords House and Nobility the Majority of the old Commons House yet surviving with all Counties Cities Boroughs for which they served from the power jurisdiction of the present usurping Juncto Army so that they have no right authority colour at all to impose any new Laws Taxes Militiaes Excises on all or any of them nor yet to imprison sequester punish any of them for defending themselves by force of arms against their unjust usurpations over them 2ly That they can * impose no new Government or Republike on all or any of them without their own free voluntary elections consents because all politick Governments and Corporations are and ought to be made by voluntary contract and free consent of all the parts ac propterea juâ— ejus in partes ex primâ—va voluntate metiendum est as Grotius there resolves 3ly That all the integral parts of any politick body when the first agreement and Government which united them into a Kingdom or Republike is dissolved as Nedham asserts our Kingdom and Parliament are by the meer right and Law of Nature have as inseparable inherent a right vote to cast themselves into another new form of Government as any one prevailing party of that body being all equally men Englishmen free-men by Nature and having no superiority over each other Therefore the Supreme authority and Parliamentary power in our present condition and extreme necessity by Grotius his decision is not devolved to the Westminster Juncto or Army-Officers as Nedhamâ— absurdly concludes against his Oracle Grotius but to the generality of the people as this very Juncto voted Jan 6. 1648. and the Army-Officers declared in their Agreement of the people presented to them November 20. 1648. and Jan. 20. 1649. Therefore by their own Votes resolutions practices the generality of the people not the Juncto are now the Supreme authoritie and those 50 or 60 Members of the old Parliament * Army have not the least pretext of Right Law Reason power to domineer over all the Nobility Gentry Clergy Freemen of the Nation and the secluded Members nor totally to seclude them all from their Councils Company much lesse to secure disarm plunder them at their pleasures to double treble their Taxes to use them not like their fellow freemen but their Aegyptian bond-slaves as now they do What such an Extremity Necessity then may now put our whole three Nations justly upon by Grotius and Nedhams Law too let them wisely and timely consider for their own and the publike safety His 2. Pillar is this of Grotius That In a civil warr the written and established Laws of Nations are of no force Indeed we now finde it true by sad experience under our New Legifers and Tax-masters and then that only is to be admitted Law which shall be setled by the prevailing party How this new doctrine will suit with all our late Parliamentary Votes Ordinances Declarations Remonstrances Protestations League Covenant Soldiers Commissions and Army-Remonstrances or with our Civil war which was only for the preservation and defence of our antient fundamental Laws Statutes and Great Charter of our Liberties against all arbitrary encroachments alterations violations of them Or with the Junctoes Declaration March 17. 1648. for turning our Kingdom into a Free State wherein they promise over and over inviolably to defend and maintain these antient Laws The Badges of our Fréedom and the most excellent of all other Laws in the world by violation alteration or abrogation whereof greater mischiefs would inevitably befall us than ever we suffered under our Kings and Kingly Government Or how it will accord with their Proclamation May 7. 1659. to like purpose let Nedham and that power for which he pleads resolve us To whose arbitrary wills and tyranny if this monstrous paradox be Oracle he prostrates all our Laws and Liberties after full 17 years bloody contests and most cruel Concertations for their Defence against this his position and practice His 3. pillar is this which he applies to the particular case of the secluded Members p. 37. Si qui jure suo uti non possunt â—orum jus acerescit praesentibus Grotius l. 2. c. 5. His meaning is that if any Members of a Senate Court or Parliament be absent through sickness or any other voluntary or necessary occasions the rest may sit and act will it thence follow as this Mountebank argues Ergo the Minor part of the Commons House yea less than 40 of them may fit and act now heretofore not only as a Commons House but absolute Parl. because they and the Army forcibly secluded the Major part the whole House of Lords and beheaded King Such a grosse Nonsequitur as this is no better justified from Grotius words than this The Army may forcibly seclude all but 5 or 6 of those now sitting or leave Fleetwood and Sir H. Vane alone Ergo in such a case the whole right and power of the Parliament accrues to them alone and they may sit vote as a Parliament and make what Laws Acts and impose what Taxes Excises they please as * Cromwell and his Council did at Whitehall upon the self-same ground Vno absurdo dato mille sequuntur You see now by this time the falshood absurdity and dangerous consequences of Nedhams Atheistical Jesuitical Principles whereon he would bottom the continuance revival justice legality of his pretended Parliament and Republike laying a ground for and encouraging all disorders confusions violences treacheries and villanies whatsoever by the Law of Necessity and the longest sword and what a necessary Tool he is for the party because he can say or print any thing for them though never so false absurd mischievous and yet not be in danger of his head they are his own expressions p. 32. 37. I shall inform him of some other Principles prescribed to all Saints Christians and Souldiers by God and Christ himself which they ought to follow under
new Laws Acts Treasons repealing altering old Lawes and forms of Processe imposing new Taxes Excises Forfeitures Militiaes erecting new Courts Judicatures neither of all which the King can do by his regal Power but in and by the Parliament only wherein both the Power of the King in its highest orb and of all the Lords Commons are united concentred must needs be the highest Treason that possibly can be committed both against the King Kingdom Parliament Lords Commons People all injured usurped on tyrannized over dishonored and oppressed thereby in the highest degree Which should discourage deterr the Anti-Parliamentary Juncto and all those who have any dread of God Men or love to Parliaments and their Native Country from usurping such a power as well for their own as the publick weal If the long Parliament be still in being and now revived as Nedham pleads but proves not at all his own principles evincing the contrary then all the Lords and secluded Members ought in right and Justice to be freely admitted to sit vote therein for the premised reasons else those now sitting and acting without them will incurr the guilt of Highest Treason for Usurping both Regal and Parliamental power by meer force without any Act of Parl. which an express Act of Parlament made by assent of all the 3. Estates cannot transfer unto them as the Statute of 1 H. 4. c. 3. and Parliament of 1 H. 4. rot Parl. n. 25. expresly resolve and I have proved in my Narrative p. 22 23 24. since the Highest regal and Parliamentary trusts for the publike good safety reposed in many by the people cannot be transferred nor delegated unto a few nor the Parliament power trust assigned over any more than the * Regal Having dispatched these grand questions I shall be briefer in the 4th being only this Whether the Oathes of Supremacy Question 4 Allegiance and Homage to be late King his Heirs and Successors were finally determined by and expired at his death Nedham p. 41 42 and Rogers p. 33. affirm they are because the old form of Kingly Government is lawfully as they say extinguished and a new form introduced and so the Oath impossible because the persons and things to whom they were made are at an end Which opinion having largely refuted in my Concordia Discors proving those Oathes to be still obligatory and binding by unanswerable Scripture-presidents and authorities to which neither of these Antagonists reâ—ply one syllable I shall briefly reply to what they object 1. That the frame of our Kingly Government was not legally dissolved but violently and trayterously interrupted only as he saith this Parliament and Republike were by Cromwels intrusion 2ly That by the resolution of our Statutes Judges Laws which admit no Interregnum we have still a Kingdom a King an Heir and Successor to the Crown in actual being though out of actual not legal possession to whom we may and ought to make good our Oathes 3ly That our fellow-members and subjects who took these Oathes as well as we can neither absolve themselves nor us by their perjury or treachery in violating them by their late forcible illegal proceedings and new Ingagement against the King his Heirs and successors 4ly That it is both possible just necessary safe honourable Christian for them and us and our 3. Kingdoms Churches Religion to call in the right heir and successor to the Crown upon honorable Terms there being no obstacle to it but only want of will or the covetousness rapine ambition guilt or fear of punishment in some particular persons in present power against the general desire and interest of our 3. whole Kingdoms Nations endangered embroyled oppressed and well-nigh totally ruined exhausted by his long seclusion 5. That these Objectors and others slighting neglecting violating absolving themselves and others from the conscientious obligation legal performance of these sacred Oathes obliging themselves in particular and the whole Kingdom in general to the late King his Heirs and Successors in perpetuity is no argument of their piety saintship religion fear of God honesty truth justice but of their avowed Atheism Impiety Injustice contempt of God and all his threats judgments denounced inflicted upon Perjured infringers of their Oathes Covenants to their King and others 6ly That for the violation of these Oathes the whole three Kingdoms have deeply mourned suffred in sundry kinds ever since 1648. and are now likely to be ruined by Taxes Contributions Oppressions of all sorts losse of trade unseasonable weather diseases epidemically reigning and other judgements 7ly That Abraham himself the father of all the faithfull swearing by God that he would not deal falsly with Abimelech nor with his Son nor with his Sons son but according to the kindness he had done to Abraham Gen. 21. 23 24 c. and his care to perform his Oath hath justified not only the lawfulness of all our Oathes to the King his heirs and successors but confirmed our Obligation to them all and how conscientiously we ought to perform them without fraud or falshood yea disowed all those from being of his faith or spiritual seed who make little conscience to perform them 8ly That as the Apostle resolves Gal. 3. 16 17. That the Covenant made by God to Abraham and his seed in Christ before the Law which was made 430 years after cannot disannull that it should make the Promise of no effect So the New Ingagementâ—â—de taken after these two Oathes to our New Governors and their late Oath so be Constant as well as True and Faithfull to their new Republike without King or Single person or House of Lords obliging those who take it if binding not only to sundry Prejuries Treasons but constant perseverance in them without repentance cannot disannul these former Oathes to the King his heirs and successors and make them of no effect as Rogers Nedham tell us which I have elswhere proved 9ly John Rogers p. 9. informs us that Cleomines the Lacedemonian sware to his friend Archonides that he would do all things joyntly with him and Act nothing without his HEAD were in it After which watching his time he cut off his Companions head and to keep his Covenant after he had parboyled it he kept it by him honored and preserved it and upon every weighty matter or consultation would set his Scull by him and tell it what he purposed saying that he did not violate his Ingagement or break his Oath in the least seeing he did ever take counsel withâ— the head of Archonides and did nothing without it Verily my Antagonists and those Members they plead for have dealt more falsly with the late King Lords and their fellow Members than Cleomines with Archonides they twice Swore Protested Vowed and Covenanted too over and over to be true and faithfull to the King and to act all things Ioyntly with him the Lords and their fellow Commons in Parliament and transact nothing without their heads and advice were in it But