not break nor yet to abrogate or change without his Majesties consent And that the House of Commons have not power to require an Oath of any except perhaps of their own Members And you in opposition to him affirm That the Resolves of the House declare it to have been Authoritative very good I pray answer me then Was not the detestable Rebellion against the Carolian Martyr Resolved to be Authoritative too and O strange parcel of non-sense to be Loyalty and Obedience and in the then blinde Conscience of your profound Lawyer to be lawful and necessary both in point of Law and Conscience Was not their Votes of Non-Addresses to be made or had to or from their Supream Lord and Governour with its immediate attendant unmatchable perjury Resolved to have been Authoritative too Did they not Resolve all the Villanies Murthers Blasphemies Sequestrations Imprisonments and utter Ruine of his Majesty and his Noble Adherents and in fine all their Actions from beginning to end to be Authoritative too Was not his execrable and perfidious Murder Declared to have been Authoritative when that Perjured perjured perjured Infamous Lower House next door to Hell Declared and Adjudged 10. January 1648 for a New-years-gift to the Nation That by the Fundamental Laws which was the creator of the two Houses fictious Legislative power it is Treason in the King of England for the time being to levy War against the Parliament and Kingdom Was not the lawfulness of their Perjuries and violent Murthers Oppressions and lawless Actings Justified and Declared to be Authoritative too when by a couple of Trayterous Votes three daies after they had the impudence to tell the Nation 1. That themselves being chosen by and representing the people had the Supream power in the Nation and 2. That whatsoever was Enacted or Declared for Law by the Commons in Parliament hath the force of a Law and the people concluded thereby though consent of King and Peers be not had thereunto Alas Mr. Crofton It s not the Resolve or Vote of a Party much less of that dismal black Faction in the long Parliament that can make their Treason and Rebellion their Perjuries and Blasphemies their unparellel'd Murthers Violence and Oppressions seem the less wicked and abominable or pretend to be more lawful and Authoritative either by the Divine or English Royal Laws It is not the Thieves justification of his action that will any whit the more extenuate the nature of his horrid crimes nor the Turbulent spirit 's applauding his Faction and Sedition speaking evil of Dignities and declaiming against the Legal Supremacy of his Prince and then cry out with his Brother Jehu See my zeal for the Lord of hosts and think that all this while he is beating down the enemies of the Lord Jesus that will make his Rebellion less odious or his blinde zeal without knowledge to be ever a whit the more rewardable but the Laws of God and man must be the Touchstone the Judge to justifie or condemn their respective actions according to their different waies of obedience or neglect and refusal to obey So that to conclude this particular I say It s not the Resolves of the two Houses that will make that to be lawful and Authoritative which neither the Laws of God nor of this Land declare to be justifiable and blameless their Votes and Resolves you speak of do proclaim nothing else but their matchless Treason and Rebellion You tell us further That the Priviledges of Parliament That the King can take no notice of what is debated or voted ordered or acted until it be by themselves Formally presented unto his Majesty And the very nature of Co-ordinate power if the Doctor understands it What do you think the Doctor to be such a learned Coxcomb such a Legislative dreamer as your self that you question his understanding of a Co-ordinate power with an If with their actings in case of his absence by Minority or otherwise doth determine it What It doth it determine Oh! you mean I suppose your so much adored Diana the Legislative Fiction placed in the two Houses You are an egregious Arguer but like all the rest of the Scotized party arguing from the momentary prosperity of an execrable Rebellion the Legality of the Traytors actions and because in the contriving and devising of a Statute the two Houses have a Priviledge excluding the Kings taking notice of them till such time as it is finished and presented for the Royal assent for without that it s no Law Therefore this wilful Sophisticator concludes or would have others believe that from thence it follows by good consequence That the Rebellious two Houses after they had taken the Oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy which bound them to assist and defend the King against all his enemies might by vertue of their Legislative whimsie take and impose a Negative Oath and stoutly swear with Perjury in their brazen brows not to assist the Forces raised by their Gracious Sovereign for his own defence against his Rebels against the Treasons and villanies of themselves who had the face without his presence or consent to call themselves A Parliament That they might by vertue of such Priviledges raise a Rebellion and swear to extirpate the Legal established Government of the Church justifie their Members in their Conspiracies and mischiefs send armed men against their Prince to fight with and shoot at him and his Loyal Subjects and other Abominations not to be parellelled like their Matchless Covenant and all this without and against the Kings consent because as I have said they have a Priviledge to be free in their debates and consultations about the devising of a New or repealing of an Old Law without the Kings taking notice of it until such time as they present it to him for his Fiat Truely Sir Presbyter you are fitter a great deal to dispute with Females with a rod of Correction in your hand then to prate with a Reverend Prelate with such shallow arguments as these which discovers nothing else but the Authors folly on the one side as well as his high imperious spirit on the other As for their Co-ordinacy in the Legislative power which our godly Rebel jabbers so much of and their actings in case of his Majesties absence by Minority or otherwise which he fondly supposeth doth determine the truth of his bold frantick assertion If the I say so of himself will be taken for a sufficient proof thereof the business then I must confess is clear beyond any contradiction but that they cannot Legally act any thing for I do not come here to contradict the prosperous Rebels actions when they hold the murthering sword of lawless Treasons and murthers in their hands instead of the sword of Justice but I say that they cannot Legally act any thing in the time of the Regal Minority without a Protector nor in the interim of his absence without Deputed Nobles under the great Seal both which are purposely
other inferior made without the knowledge of Father Husband or Superior should be at the pleasure of the Superior confirmed or made void Ergo this unsacred Covenant being taken without the consent or knowledge of our Regal Superior or as the Bishop alledges by the †See the 144 page of his book Subjects of England who were by Law and Oaths inferior to and dependents on the King obliged to duty and allegiance by his open Proclamation against it according to that Scripture is frustrate void and of none effect but ingenuons Arguings would have quite and clean spoiled the design of such a * Page 232 Sophistical Caviller and therefore he craftily forbore the pursuit of true Disputations not quarrellings and envious cavillings with his Reverend Adversary lest thereby his k 2 Tim. 3. 9. See p. 10. of Croftons book folly should have been made manifest to all men yea even to his Presbyterian proselytes who are pleased with a sound against the Bishops book and consider not the certainty of it and are ready jurare in verba Presbyteri be they never so groundless with whom the Say-so of a godly Presbyter is esteemed a sufficient reason of their Faith And yet the man thinking how bravely he had drawn the Bishops Arguings to serve the base ends of his own vain talking he presently begins to crow and vapour and cries out of a Syllogism Currens quatuor pedibus running of four feet and tells his Readers a Tale of a tub a story of his godly Brethren the Jesuits Conference at Ratisbone who just like his own Argument here against the Bishop set down thus their profound Determinations of the Articles of their Faith Qui negat articulum fidei est hereticus sed hereticus est qui negat Tobiam habuisse Canem Ergo just like our matchless Disputer sequitur articulum esse fidei quod Tobias canem habuerit He that denies an Article of Faith is an heretick But he is an heretick that denies Tobit had a dog Therefore it follows that it is an Article of Faith that Tobit had a dog Not considering that in his Parallel he fights with nothing but his own shadow that he utters his minde for the disgracing and vanquishing of no body but his own dear self not at all of the Bishop who hath no such rotten Arguments in all his Book And that we may perfectly see the mans design in Writing even to fill up his Book with cavilling he tells us in his Preface side 3. of the Bishops writing Mr. Grafton as if he should answer Dr. Gaudie when as one that could not reade he takes no notice of what the Bishop had set down at the latter end of his book to read Crofton for Grafton through the whole Discourse If his eyes were so dim he could not see it he should have said so and then I should have done my best to have got a clear pair of Spectacles for him that he might by that means have read what the Doctor had said for him to correct as well as others seeing he was one of his Readers but alas he wanted somewhat to say to fill up his Preface and therefore sets down this for a part of it to make appear his invincible ways of disputing His quotations of the Bishops words are such that besides those imperfect un-scholar-like ones I have already set down there are no less then fifteen or sixteen several other quotations which are either imperfect like the former or else absolute false ones as upon a true examination I have found them and such as leads his Readers into a wilderness for to see the truth of them but I consider his cavilling Discourse was made in a great deal of haste and his mad-brain'd tricks have made his Book good for nothing but to be the subject of some mens laughter and indignation for my part Mr. Crofton I * See the 8. page of his book will excuse you for your wrong imperfect false quotations though not for your Antimonarchical seditious Principles and Assertions up and down your Book if your very friends do not with blame to you say You are come a great deal too soon and have verified the old proverb upon your self The more haste the worst speed And truly I am afraid it had been better for your outward and inward safety both that your Book had been like the Bishops which you madly profess and say contrary to the judgements of many sober understanding men l Page 5. whosoever in his right mind doth but read will finde it a Rudis indigestaque moles a meer Chaos of Confusion where by the way whosoever is not of the same judgement therein with you is censured to be out of his wits like your self whose Wits run a wool-gathering rather then that which you are pleased to stile methodical exceptions which denies the onely Supremacy of the King It s but a sad merriment to play with edge-tools to laugh at your Adversary with Rebellion in your mouth and if the mercy of our most Gracious Sovereign prevent not which I know no reason in the world for you will finde it so to your cost before you are let loose from the reins of your Just deserved Imprisonment § 24. Again the Bishop said pag. 196. That he peremptorily determines that the King Lords and Commons have no prudent moral religious and lawful power to change an ancient universal and excellent Government by Bishops To any that is AS new and Schismatical SO far worse and unsutable to England every way Christian Kings and their Parliaments are obliged to the Laws of God and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity too of which the whole Church in its Primitive example and constant custom is the best interpreter As no Legislative power is impowered by Gods Laws to bring in Heresie and Error and Superstition so nor Schism Faction or Confusion by causelesly nuding or taking from the Essentials of sound Doctrine or Christian Communion ever owned and maintained in the Church of Christ Here 's the Docters whole sentence word for word as I took it out of his own Book and not as its mangled by our Presbyters paultry delusive false quotation where he makes the words run thus Doctor Gauden peremptorily determineth That Parliaments Kings Lords and Commons have no Prudent Moral Religious and lawful Authority to change the Ancient Universal and excellent Government by Bishops for Christian Kings and Parliaments are obliged c. leaving out those words of the Doctors which made his learned Assertion unanswerable and true beyond any sound contradiction which are these To any that is AS new and Schismatical SO far worse and unsutable to England every way that so his own arguings might thereby appear the better and sound more pleasingly to the ears of his factious brethren a practise somewhat like unto one that pictures a man with the greatest deformity of body he can for no other end but to make his
the King is under none but God This saith he is that divine Sentence Quod nec Jovis ira nec ignis nec poterit ferrum nec edax abolere vetustas which neither angry Jove nor fiery Vulcan neither devouring Age nor bloody sword a worse devourer then that shall ever expunge out of our Law-books or explode out of the memory of every pious man Thus he Bracton cited by the Reverend and Learned Judge Jenkins tells us Rex non habet parem in Regno suo That the King hath not an equal in his kingdom if not an Equal then certainly no Superior and so by consequence shows the fiction of the Two Houses Supremacy There hath been so much already cited for the Supremacy of His Sacred Majesty over all persons in his Dominions by Judge Jenkins Mr. Diggs and several others that I need not trouble the Reader with any more repetitions thereof but refer the dissatisfied to their several Writings and conclude this point with a word or two concerning the Oath of Supremacy which every Member of the two Houses must take before he sits in the House or else according to Law he stands a person to all intents and purposes as if he had never bin elected or returned which clearly declares the King to be the onely Supream Governor of this Realm and of all other His Highness Dominions and Countreys as well in all Spiritual and Ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal and so certainly by undeniable consequence over the Two Houses in Parliament causes For why was the exclusive Particle Onely inserted but to cut off all pretences of co-ordinacy or share in the Regal Supremacy And truly if he be Supream there is neither Major nor Superior saith the Learned Lord Bridgeman in his Speech aforesaid Was this Oath think you Mr. Crofton composed by the Lords and Commons in Parliament in the time of Qu. Elizabeth and at their suit by * Eliz. c. 1 Act of Parliament made high Treason 5 Eliz. c. 1 for a subject to deny to take it for to be evaded and treasonably denied the subject matter thereof ascribed to the Subjects themselves who were fain to take it ere they could have the least colour or pretence perjuriously to claim or usurp it from the rightful owner and this too by such a Shadow of a Disputant as your fanciful self who have armed your self with so much confidence to bawl out these seditious Assertions which deserve nothing else but the utmost rigor of the Law for a confutation Nothing but self-condemnation No other way left you to save your credit but by writing sedition and throwing your poison'd darts of malice against your Superiors for the pretended denial of that the truth whereof your own whimsical self is found to be a real disclaimer Cannot you dig a pit for another but you must presently fall into it your self These shabbed courses of yours forces me to deal with you by a retortion and ask you once again some more of your own questions Where is Sir the Kings Prerogative over all persons in all causes What is become of the Oath of Supremacy Hath a Gracious King lately pardoned you and your Delinquent party for your former misdemeanors really to debase nay dethrone Him by your impudent and traiterous entituling his sworn Subjects with His Onely Supremacy Truly Sir I cannot blame you much now for your words in your Preface where you tell us That side 2. having animadverted this Anti-Baal-Berith i. e. the Bishops Book you finde a necessity to apologize for the very act of your Animadversion and fear nothing more then to be bound to your good behavior in misbehaving your self so much as to answer not according to what your confidence helped you to prate A fool according to his folly wherein you may seem like unto him but a learned reverend Prelate with whole mouth-fuls of sedition and rebellion wherein you are the perfect image of all the traiterous Conspirators that have been before you why else do you divide non dividenda make a division in that wherein none without perjury ought or can be make two sharers and partners in the Supremacy which the legal Oath and Statute-Laws of this Realm by which we must steer our course and not by your horrible frightful dreams declare to centre and to be the peculiar right and Sovereignty of one alone and that inseparable from his person too The goodly aim and end of all your Jabbering for the Two Houses co-ordinacy in the Supremacy is but to fulfil the Martyrs words e See Eikon Basilike in 24. P. 47. That the Majesty of the Kings of England might hereafter hang like Mahomets Tomb by a Magnetick charm between the power and priviledges of the Two Houses in an airy imagination of Regality But the Two Houses usurpation of the Supremacy it seems will not serve Mr. Croftons turn if they cannot swallow up the Legislative power too from the Royal Owner In his Analepsis * p. 12. he called them then onely Co-ordinate and Sharers in the Legislation of England now he grasps for the Suprem Legislative power alone for those long Parliament Legislative theives that made it their precious saintly work to make their strength the Law of Justice robb and pillage and murder the Subjects of their Soveraign by their cursed illegal Orders quirkes and devices and then show them the Law of their uncontroulable atheistical wills for it sic volo sic jubeo stat proratione voluntas I am perswaded the man hath a huge fancy to go higher and higher in his Seditious and treasonable language till he comes to make his last ascent at the Sacred Gallowes or else he dreams with the Fifth kingdom Rebels That notwithstanding any thing he saith or doth yet that not a hair of his head shall perish I shall not stand long upon answering him in this fiction and dream of his but shall quickly dispatch him by adding to what I have upon this point already said that which now immediately followes And therefore for that which he termes the Legislative power and because he is just like the Cuckoe repeating over and over one and the same thing to lengthen his Book Let 's hear a little what Justice Hide told the Blackening Regicide Harison at his Tryal in the Old Bayly I am sorry saith he that any man should have the face and boldness to deliver such words as you have You and all must know That the King is above the Two Houses They must propose their Laws to him The Laws are made by him and not by them by their consenting but they are His Laws That either or both Houses or any assembly or people in this or any other Nation Governed by Monarchy hath or ever claimed saith f See the Royallists defence p. 39. another in 1648. to have a Legislative power or so far to represent the Kingdom as to make new Laws and change the old without
him but Liberty of Conscience in the wearing or not wearing of a Surplice in all Churches and places throughout the Nation excepting his own Royal Chappel Cathedrals and both the Vniversities they must have the Customary Rigor suspended and Liberty of Conscience allowed them there too or else all the fat 's in the fire their queazy stomachs cannot bear it and their Consciences poor harmless lambs they think wil be thereby over burdened and oppressed but let truth come somewhat might them for once which hath bin such a stranger to them and tell them to their faces That they have possessed themselves of Cauterized Consciences that are oppressed with ☜ the sight of a garment and eased with the practice of sedition which stumble at strawes and swallow a Camel that cannot away with a piece of Holland and yet make no bones of Rebellion who can by no meanes endure to bow at the name of Jesus and yet fall down and worship their own Inventions And thus Mr. Crofton profoundly supposeth That a bloody faction of the Two Houses swearing an Oath without and against the concurrence of their Princely Head had a Parliamentary Authority to make their Oath legal and themselves that took it to be no Rebellious Covenanters § 40. Errors saith Squire l See his History of K. Charls p. 268. Saunderson grow fastest in hot brains and the most reverend Archb. Bancroft in his excellent Survey of the pretended holy discipline hath also told us of Beza's m Pag. 53. applying himself altogether to strengthen and incourage his factious old acquaintance i. e. The Disciplinarian Canker-wormes then here in England in their froward and perverse obstinacy The first is made evident by the frightful language of this Hot-brain'd Sheba The second is also proved by the open averring of one of the near Allies of those Puritanes and rash Heady Preachers that King James of blessed memory hath well informed us of who think it their honor to contend with Kings and to perturb whole kingdomes And to what end can any man think was the See his preface to his Basilicon Doron wicked errors of his ways made publick by a press but to encourage his factious proselites and Holy-prophane Leaguing brethren to persist in their froward and perverse obstinacy in their old crooked pathes of Schism and Sacriledge of blood and confusion And all this under a colour and pretence to advance the power of Godliness too But what said one once Men saith n See the Subjects sorrow or lamentations upon the death of Britains Josiah K. Charles p. 40. he profess they know God yet in their works they deny him using the name of God and Religion as Conjurers in their incantations to perpetrate those things which are most contrary unto God and destructive unto Religion for as the devil never doth more hurt then when he appears in the likeness of an Angel of Light so are men never so mischievous as when they drive on wicked Designs under the shew of Godliness And thus have we found this Covenanting Corah first praying to be delivered from rendring railing for railing and yet rake in that puddle himself for several times together after he had told us he did not delight to rake in it Mangling and Clipping the words of his Reverend Antagonist so long till he made his own way the more easie to catch others in to make his Puritanical Gang to believe him to be some rare kinde of Phenix at the very time when a faithful Monitor will sooner compare him to a Pratling Cuckoe for his idle repititions and leaving out like a perverse Disputer the Principal Verb the chief words of the Bishops Sentences o See King James his Preface for speeds sake putting in the one half of the purpose and leaving out the other not unlike the man that alleadged that part of the Psalm Non est Deus but left out the preceding words Dixit insipiens in Corde suo Stating of damnable Doctrines of Sedition and Rebellion for the Honour and Happiness of the Kings Majesty and his Posterity That the Common-Prayer-Book was expelled by a lawful Authority That neither the place of his Majesties retirement nor reason of his absence doth add or abstract to the Authority of Parliament That the two Houses are not only Co-ordinate and Sharers in the Legislation of England and may exercise it without the Kings consent but also have the Supream Legislative power directly contrary to the Laws and Statutes of this Nation and to the Oath of Supremacy which by the Particle Onely cuts off and excludes all Rivals and Sharers therein and which by an express Statue Law is made High Treason for a Subject to deny to take and this affirmed by him That the world may bear witness that he hath no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesties just Power and Greatness Threatening distress and that so sudden too for not keeping of the Covenant as may too late engage his Majesty to send to his faithful Monitor to pray for him and no less then twice affirming with an If the yet legal continuance of those long Athenian Tyrants at Westminster notwithstanding their undoubted Dissolution by their unparellel'd Murther of their Prince That the world may bear witness also with his Conscience of his Loyalty This this is the person that would bewitch the world with the Bishops premunires and Sedition against their Sovereign Princes But Quis tulerit Gracchos de Seditione Quaerentes Who can with patience endure to hear the devil correcting sin Traytors seditious persons exclaiming against the fictitious Sedition of others Sacrilegious Rebels against the Sacriledge of others I say Quis tulerit Who can without indignation entertain any thoughts of a Covenanters speaking against Sedition Sacriledge Treason King-Deposing and Rebellion For p See the Bishop of Canterburies Speech at the censure of Burton c. p. 5. t is most apparent to any man that will not wink That the intention of these Fiery Turbulent Presbyterians and their Factious abetters was ever and is still to raise a Sedition being as great Incendiaries in the State where they get power as they have ever been in the Church The thoughts of whose Seditious Principles and Anti-Monarchical Practises made one in 1574. cry out q See The defence of the Ecclesiastical Regiment p. 40. God of his mercy abridge their power and continue the shortness of their horns or else grant them greater measure of his grace and moved another to commend to his Readers consideration this one Caution r See the Post-script to the Right Rebel p. 164. That as ever they desire intend and expect to escape they withdraw themselves from the Society of Rebellious persons and take heed they give no entertainment unto any Rebellious Opinions or Principles whatsoever extraction they be of whether Popish Presbyterian or Popular if it be not more proper to refer them all to one Original the Mystery of Iniquity as their Common Mother For I make account saith he That Popery Presbytery and Popularity rightly understood with respect to their rebellious Principles are but as so many several Dialects in the language of that Beast which * Rev. 13. 11. had two horns like a Lamb and spake as a Dragon And this likewise was the reason of that Conclusion of the most Reverend Primate of Armagh to his excellent Fair warning to take heed of the Scottish Discipline which shall also put a period to this discourse I would to God saith he we might be so happy as to see a general Council of Christians at least a General Synod of all Protestants and that the first Act might be to denounce an Anathema Maranatha against all broachers and maintainers of Seditious Principles to take away the scandal that lies upon Christian Religion and to shew that in the search of Piety we have not lost the principles of Humanity In the mean time let all Christian Magistrates who are principally concerned beware how they suffer this Cockatrice Egge to be hatched in their Dominions much more how they plead for Baal or Baal-Berith the Baalims of the Covenant It were worth the enquiring whether the marks of Antichrist do not agree as eminently to the Assembly General of Scotland as either to the Pope or to the Turk This we see plainly That they spring out of the Ruines of the Civil Magistrate They sit upon the Temple of God and they advance themselves above those whom the holy Scripture calleth Gods Vivat in eternum Rex Carolus Secundus quem Deus nunc in secula seculorum defendat oro Lectoribus Doctis Indoctis INdocti non damnent quod ipsi nesciunt Docti non invideant quod ipsi novum putant ab utrisque peto si alicubi Erratum sit illud Castigent non Culpent si quid ab illis merui ut Deo non mihi gratias rependerent Apud Aditus ad Logicam Page 57. l. 40. for Covenant r. Court p. 80. l. 3. for the r. he l. 40. for might r. nigh FINIS
cavilling declaring of their own folly That g See his fair warning p. 2. this discipline which the Croftonians so much adore is the very quintessence of refined Popery or a greater tyranny then ever Rome brought forth inconsistent with all forms of civil Government destructive to all sorts of Policy a rack to the conscience the heaviest pressure that can fall upon a people and so much more dangerous because by the specious pretence of Divine institution it takes away the sight but not the burthen of slavery Reader peruse that small book and I 'le undertake it shal give thee full satisfaction what this Cockatrice egge the Scottish discipline is and what a precious jewel it is to be preserved But how will they preserve this Pandora's box why according to the word of God the example of the best reformed Churches that 's brave indeed to swear to preserve that according to the word of God which knows nothing of it as it is singular by it self Suppose I should swear to preserve a thief in his pilfering courses according to the word of God would that make the thieves actions good because it is expressed according to the word of God or would it not rather aggravate and heighten the bloody nature of my sins to swear with such a strange self-contradiction Just as if I should say I would do a thing according to the will and desire of another who hath openly made his protestation against it I am sure the thieves actions cannot be more opposite to the Sacred Canon of Scripture then some part of the Scottish Discipline is which the Reverend Primate hath well informed us of to which I refer the doubtful for satisfaction and therefore notwithstanding that expression the Oath for preservation of such an Anti-Monarchical Discipline cannot but be very wicked and therefore unlawful to be sworn or kept And as for the best Reformed Churches the Church of England by all impartial unbyassed sober Protestants was wont to be accounted the best Reformed Church in the world and h See the fair warning p. 2. before these unhappy troubles in England all Protestants both Lutherans and Calvinists did give unto the English Church the right hand of fellowship which made the most Reverend Doctor Hammond of renowned memory to affirm That i See his View of the new Directory and vindication of the ancient Liturgy P. 7. the Church of England as it stands established by law is avowable against all the Calumniators in the world to be the best and most exemplary Reformed so far saith he that if I did not guess of the sense of the Covenant more by the temper then words of the Covenanters I should think all men that have Covenanted to Reform after the example of the best Reformed Churches indispensably obliged to conform to the King-Edward or Queen-Elizabeth English Reformation the most regular perfect pattern that Europe yieldeth Thus that indefatigable Defender and Propagator of Catholick truths against the novel inchroachments of the then Julianizing times whose memory will be precious and his name smell as sweet odour in the nostrils of all true hearted Christian Protestants when the name of an Assembler will hardly be thought on without immediate branding him for Treason and disloyalty And so now having briefly dispatched the first I shall proceed on to the second and there they speak out what their Covenant for Reformation is for they tell us there too in their Rebellious language § 4. That they shall in like maner without respect of persons endeavour the extirpation of Popery Prelacy that is Church-Government by Arch-Bishops Bishops their Chancellors Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Arch-Deacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on that Hyerarchy Superstition Heresie Schism Profaneness and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound Doctrine and the power of godliness lest we partake in other mens sins and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues In good time Excellent Deformers They that were the grand Promoters and carriers on at first of the Regular English-Reformation though indeed not by Sedition and Rebellion against their Soveraign nor by making use of cursing Merozian Texts to stir up the people to assist them in such filthy courses but by obedience and subjection to the unjust punishment of Majesty and freely offering their bodies to the fire must now be extirpated by our Deformers of Truth and Christianity under a sly pretence of a detestable Reformation A good requital to them for their incomparable defences of the true Protestant Religion against the Jesuits and others of the Babylonian Romish rout to be now cast out as unprofitable branches by a pack of holy Leaguers not worthy to be named with them but what said our own late most noble Sovereign k See Eikon Basilike upon the Covenant Many Engines of religious and fair pretensions are brought chiefly to batter or rase Episcopacy This saith he they make the grand evil Spirit which with some other imps purposely added to make it more odious and terrible to the vulgar must by so solemn a charm and exorcism be cast out of this Church after more then a thousand years possession from the first plantation of Christianity in this Island and an universal prescription of time and practice in all other Churches since the Apostles times till this last Century But no antiquity must plead for it Presbytery like a young heir thinks the father hath lived long enough and impatient not to be in the Bishops chair and authority all art is used to sink Episcopacy and lanch Presbytery in England which was lately boyed up in Scotland by the like artifice of a Covenant And therefore for that Apostolical-Primitive Universal Church-Government of Episcopacy so Universal That l See Eikon Basilike in 24. P. 103. as the Martyr saith since the first Age for one thousand five hundred years not one example can be produced of any setled Church wherein were many Ministers and Congregations which had not some Bishop above them under whose Jurisdiction and Government they were and so by consequence unavoidable the damnable infamous nature of the Covenant for extirpation thereof There hath been so much said by our Reverend Episcoplains and by our late Josiah of most blessed and glorious memory that I shall forbear to say any thing more of it but refer them that desire satisfaction to their respective writings and I wonder when the Presbyterian will answer them I do not mean by cavillings and railings for there have been too much of that already but by true good solid sound arguments and reasons such as may carry truth in their fore-head which people shall easily perceive when they can once have the happiness to see the Swans turn black § 5. But is this all that these Leaguers swear to extirpate in this Article No they joyn with the former just as if a man should joyn a Scottish Presbytery with a Monarchy which
made by those who had nothing else to say for themselves and their illegal courses being assisted too by such a Learned Assembly of so many Divines who after a Three years Conference most profoundly voted God to be the Father § 9. And yet notwithstanding this Anti-monarchical limitation they declare they did set it down that the world might bear witness of their Loyalty they might have said Jugling and Rebellion for that is the true english of such a limited Loyalty and that they have no thoughts to diminish His Majesties just power and greatness No question but the world would did and have sufficiently taken notice of that which they call their Loyalty and have found it to be such as their Guisian Leaguing Brethrne practised who under pretence of x 2 Sam. 15. 7 8. maintaining w See The Right of Kings in Marg. the Roman Catholick Religion as these did for that which they usually mis-called the Reformed undermined the Kings Authority and sought to advance themselves the very same which Absalom the Beautiful Rebel showed to his Father when under a fair colour of Evil Councellors at Court and under a plausible pretence of paying his vow he made to the Lord in Hebron he * verse 6. stole the hearts of the men of Israel from their due allegiance to their King and drew them †verse 11 in their simplicity into a damnable Rebellion with him and therefore he that is loyal in practises and works will never approve of these Westmonasterian Leaguers loyalty which onely consists in words whilest their actions declares nothing else but Treason and Rebellion unless y See A Vindication of King Charls by noble Mr. Symmons p. 40. when they are in Cathedris in their seats as Parliament-men they are all as infallible as the Pope and have a power as well as he to do what they please to make evil good and good evil to make Rebellion and Treason to be Duty and Loyalty and duty and loyalty to be Rebellion and Treason to vote sacriledge murder and theft to be no sins killing slaying and destroying to be acts of zeal and christian duty Till then their loyalty will appear in the eyes of all judicious men to be no better then a Wolf in Sheeps clothing As for their disclaymer of diminishing His Majesties just power and greatness upon search and inquiry after it we shall find it to be a chip of the old block a parcel of contradictions like the other of preserving the Kings person with a destructive limitation and therefore I again thus Quaere Is the taking the Antient right of the Militia from him which was never for z See The Royalists Defence p. 97. the space of 1700. years past questioned or disputed until by these usurpers injuriously wrested from the Crown but hath been time out of mind inherent in the King a See Iudge Jenkins Lex Terrae p. 37. The practise of all times and the custom of the Realm no diminishing his Majesties just power Was the justifying the war by a party of the two Houses the Kings sworn Subjects against the Martyr to be warrantable both in point of law and conscience and making a deforming Reformation without the consent and against the express prohibition of their Dread Soveraign and not onely so but justifying for a commendable practise the iniquity of Witchcraft which Rebellion is termed by the Prophet was this no diminishing His Majesties just greatness What do they think English men are made of What are all made up of a bundle of contradictions that they impose such juglings upon us Surely the power of the Militia in the King was a very just necessary power and he being b See A Letter to a Member p. 5. under God the Protector of the Law I wonder how he could could defend it and the d Priviledges of Parliament without the power of the sword and the greatness of His Majesties over all in his dominions was very just too if either the laws of God or of this Land or an oath of Supremacy are able to make it so And yet forsooth people must be forced by vertue of an illegal Anti-parliamentary League not onely to be c See The Animadversions upon General Monk's Letter to the Gentry of Devon p. 4. ingaged in the wars against the King and so thereby become perjured and faithless persons and to swear to assist all those that shall do so too in order to the taking away the Kings Negative voice and the power of the Militia from him which was one of those jurisdictions priviledges preeminencies and authorities belonging to the Kings Highness His Heirs and successors and united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm which every one of the Parliamenteers as they were called had by a solemn legal Sacred oath of Supremacy sworn to assist and defend to his power but also hipocritically to say no worse to sware too that for all that they have no thoughts of diminishing His Majesties just power and greatness Was there ever such jugling seen that men should endeavour to take away that from their King which is his just right and yet sware with their right hands lifted up to the most high God that they have no thoughts to diminish it Ay and sware too that they had before their eyes at this present the honor and happiness of the Kings Majesty and his posterity in what part of the world can these mens peers be found as to the art of jugling and contradictions in their oaths Where may we find a pattern of their venemous courses but among the damned Guisian leaguers in France who murdered their King with a promise of fidelity and of their being his true and faithful Subjects And yet this this is that Covenant God wot that notwithstanding it set us together by the ears and put us all in blood and confusion must be still kept to inrol us amongst mad men for ever This jugling and contradictions in this ungodly Covenant cannot but be contrary to the nature of a true oath which as the Prophet saith must be made in Truth righteousness and in Judgement and therefore unlawful and not to be kept by any without an evident disobedience to the command of the Lord expressed by the said Prophet to the men of Israel § 10. And though they can tell us in their sixth Article That this Cause and League of theirs so much concerns the glory of God the good of the kingdoms and the honor of the King yet I demand and they may answer me if they can Was is it ever heard spoke before by men that pretend a fear towards God that that which is a most horrible breach of the Laws of God could ever tend to his glory and was not this Rebellions Covenant and covenant Rebellion against the Martyr directly a breach of the Divine Precept spoken by the mouth of his blessed St. Peter d 1 Pet. 2. 13.
imposers thereof are guilty of the highest crime Now can that oath be said by any man in his right wits to be warranted by the Laws of the Land which is directly opposite and contrariant to them and for which the imposers may be hanged at Tyburn for the gallows have commonly been the immediate fate and consequence of that highest crime of Treason This Covenant was thrust down the Throats of many people not by an Act of Parliament which must have been made as the Petition of Right and all other Laws and Acts have been by the King and all the Lords and Commons but by an Ordinance as it was called of a packt black faction of the then never to be forgotten two Houses which serves for nothing but to * p. 84. record to posterity a lawless distemper'd time A thing so far from being warranted by the Laws of the Land that such a thing was never heard of till these latter times of Treason and Sacriledge Rebellion and Confusion when mens brains began to be possessed of the effects and virtues of a Midsommer-moon Again can that be warranted by the Laws of the land which is so far a breach of those laws as it s esteemed high Treason u p. 22. 40. Arising to alter religion established or any Law is Treason saith the reverend Judge And did not the thing which Crofton will needs have to be a Parliament arise to alter the religion and was not this league devised to keep men under an oath for the doing and assisting of them in it Let Jack Presbyter deny it if he can In the second Article of this Covenant the takers swore to endeavour to extirpate Arch-bishops Bishops c. which is absolute contrary to Magna Charta which in the 25th of Edw. 3. chap. 1. 2. is declared to be the common Law of the Land chap. 1. and the last Salvae fint Episcopis omnes libertates suae That the Bishops shall have all their whole Rights and Liberties inviolable and this great Charter the Judge tells us p. 62. is confirmed by no less then 32 Acts of Parliament and in the 42th of Edw. 3. The first chapter enacts That if any Statute be made to the contrary it shal be holden for none and therefore their impious lawless League in this respect is far enough from being warranted by the Laws of this Land being so notoriously against the very Charter of our Liberties Again the Leaguers declared as Crofton himself told us lately for I am scarce old enough to remember the doing of it That they Abolished the Common-prayer Book in pursuance of their Covenant Very good This very book which they pretended to abolish with the power of an illegal ordinance was not onely compiled by true Martyrs and Reformers and practised in the times of four Princes but was and is still p. 62. notwithstanding their Rebellious Ordinance setled by no less then five Acts of Parliament And therefore their Covenant being in that act also contrary to the Lawes All Ministers and others that have taken this Oath must teach themselves and others according to the exhorters own assertion for I love to take men at their words that such oaths call for repentance and not pertinacy in them it being proved to be so far from being warranted by the Laws of the Land that it is an absolute breach of above 26 of them § 15. I remember The Leaguers in their Disputes and Arguments ☞ against the wearing of the Surplice and performance of other commendable Ceremonies of our best Reformed Church of England do out of their wise Noddles send forth such doughty windy Affirmations as will excellently wel serve to prove the unlawfulness of their Covenant Let a man go and ask them why they will not wear the Surplice and live in conformity to the Rites and Customs of the Church they 'l tell him because they are unlawful and why are they unlawful because God hath no where commanded them to be done in the Scripture though in any wise mans judgement there can be no unlawfulness in a thing without it be a breach of some Law which hath forbid it and where they will finde that Law against the Surplice and Ceremonies its possible they 'l tell us when they are able and their ability for that end will be I believe Ad Grecas Calendas but not well before Now according to their own ways of arguing I shall make this retortion That God hath no where in the Scripture commanded subjects in case of a default made by the Prince or that he will not consent to any Reformation to rise up in Arms and rebel against him and swear an Oath to do it themselves without any Royal Consent at all and let any of the Pack make it appear if they can For for them to set down the examples of the Oaths and Covenants Kings and Subjects joyntly made for a Reformation when they are demanded to show a pattern for their Covenant is no more to the purpose then to say Queen Elizabeth and her Nobles made a Reformation in this kingdom to pull us out of the mist of Popish darkness no more satisfaction to a Quaerist then as the Reverend Dr. Pierce told one of his Antagonists for a man when he is asked what 's a Clock To answer a windmil or a pump for the question is not whether Kings and Subjects may joyntly swear a Reformation of Abuses either in Church or State for there is no body I think wil stand to dispute that but whether in case a King will not make that extirpating Reformation his Subjects would have him whether they may do this without his consent by Oaths and rising up in Armes which is palpable rebellion u See the League illegal p. 17. Where doth God command the English to swear to preserve the Scotch Discipline and Liturgy which they themselves have often varied Or to abjure Episcopacy which was the onely Government of the Church for more then 1500 years and under whose shade Christian Religion most flourished and the Church stretched forth her branches to the Rivers and her boughs to the ends of the earth Where doth the Scripture warrant much less command the association of two kingdoms and joyntly taking up Arms in the Quarrel of the Gospel and defending and propagating Religion by the sword And let them answer that or let their silence conclude their being convinced I say again God never commanded Subjects any where in the Scripture to make a Reformation without their Princes consent by arms And therefore to deal with them with their own weapons according to their own ways of disputations against the Ceremonies I affirm that their Covenant is wicked and unlawful and being an unlawful sinful Oath by the resolution and judgement of all Casuists it ought not to be pleaded for nor taken or if once taken to be kept by any that ever took it because x See The Fair
and shameless Semaiah a h Pag. 49. Runegado an Apostate Presbyter a i Pag. 51. man of Fancy k Pag. 61. An envious Runegado and Apostate l Pag. 63. A shifting Runegado and a m Pag. 67. subtile Sophister and yet behold and wonder this is the man that cries The Lord deliver him from rendring Railing for Railing The Bishop having said in his Anti-Baal-Berith Page 191. That the late Primate of Armaghs Reduction of Episcopacy was propounded not in order to binde the hands of or limit Bishops in England and Scotland but as a condescension and expedient to disarm and binde the hands of Presbyters and People Crofton in answer thereunto thus profoundly Quaeres * Pag. 13. Sir Who told you that this was the politick stratagem of that pious Bishop Did not Bishop Wren It would make a man mad and t' would make a man laugh to see such pitiful arguings used in a rejoynder to an Antagonist and yet to be believed as excellent and invincible by some people to hugge themselves up in their delusions Just as if a man should make such a like Quaere to him Who told people that it was little Mr. Croftons Politick stratagem not onely to whipp his maid behinde but before too Did not the Church-Wardens and several other of the Parishioners of that Parish where that noble Ministerial act was done to administer somewhat to the maids necessities So again The Bishop having said That the League which Joshua and the Rulers of the people made with the Trappanning Gibeonites was to the damage of no honest men but themselves Crofton cries out †Pag. 48. Was the Oath of the Gibeonites no way to the injury of honest men Was it no injury to Israel to loose four Cities out of their inheritance given them by the Lord Whereas the Bishop had said It was to the injury of no honest men but themselves which two last words Crofton very cunningly leaves out to make his Readers believe the convincing force of his Arguments But alas he knew to set down the whole Proposition was not for his turn of disputing but would have broke the neck of his cause and design and made it evident to every one that he was a meer shifting caviller one that was minded more to quarrel with an Antagonist then to answer him by good Reasons and Arguments which practise of his brings to my remembrance the like cavilling tricks and shiftings of the most learned Bishop Mountagues Puritanical Informers in the very self-same case who thereupon told them that the setting down of his whole passage and Proposition f See his Appeal to Cesar p. 145. Stood not with their prime purpose of calumniating directly it gave check to their detraction in chief and so they passed it slightly over § 20. So again The Bishop having said That g See his Anti-Baal-Berith p. 146. a King though never so Supream and Free yet may not Vow and Covenant to the diminution of his own just Sovereignty and Authority and Power which is his by Law Crofton thinks fit to give no other answer but this †Pag. 32. Which all people of the world must and will contradict and leaving out like a wrangling Sophister the principal Clause and Hinge of the Bishops Sentence on which hangs the force of the preceding words which is this And necessary for his high calling to protect the Church and State himself and his good Subjects And doth he or any one in his wits think that any Prince may Vow to diminish that whereby his Subjects are defended to extenuate and give away that Power he hath given him by God to Preserve and Protect those people over whom by the same God he is set as Ruler and Supream To cast his Subjects in a maner out of his Protection and give leave to others to Domineer and Tyrannize over them and do them what rapine and mischief they will and he himself sit still as a Cipher Certainly those people that are in such a case may well cry out of an Egyptian slavery and sadly proclaim to their great grief and sorrow both of heart and minde That every man doth that which seems right in his own eyes as though there were no King at all in Israel That a Prince may vow the diminution of his own just Sovereginty and power which is too hard for his Subjects to bear and when such diminution tends to their ease and benefit no body indeed in the world I think will deny but that is nothing at all to what the Bishop saith But that a Prince may not Covenant the diminution of his own just Soveraignty and Power necessary for his high calling to protect his Subjects which and which alone is what the Bishop says is a truth as cleer as the Sun and in that case our Presbyters all people in the world that must and will contradict it must beyond dispute be such people as belong to the world in the Moon § 21. Again the Bishop having set down p. 149. That the two Houses alone no nor the King alone or with them have any Legislative power to decree or execute what is unrighteous against God or man The Shifter answers with a * p. 32. So that the Legislation is founded in the piety and justice of the decree and rebellion against authority is acquitted by the iniquity of the command not at all caring to consider that what the Bishop saith in those words must needs have reference to the Law of God and his meaning thus that by that Law neither King nor two Houses joyntly or severally have any lawful power to decree or execute what is unrighteous for its impossible that that Reverend Prelate should ever forget what he hath read in the Scriptures of wickedness established by a Law and the possibility of Governors Legislative power to execute †Isa 10. 1 unrighteous decrees by the Woe that by God himself is pronounced unto them that decree such Nay the very language of the Bishop in that assertion of his doth convince me cleerly that he was wholly guided by this very Scripture in what he said which Crofton so much carps at and so as I just now said must needs have reference to the lawfulness of such power for such ends and purposes by the Law of God which expresly hath prohibited it and pronounced a woe against the Actors of it But hark what the man makes a matter of complaint of why that Rebellion by the Bishops saying oh how loyal he is all of a sudden and fearful of maintaining any Rebellious principles not above eight lines before he hath point blanck affirmed nay and as though it were a convincing truth too what I shall prove before I have done with him not onely to be sedition and rebellion but an open denial of the Supremacy Power and Authority of His Most Sacred Majesty but le ts hear what he can say for himself
authority to change it which must needs have reference to the Laws of God according to the subsequent words of the Bishops where he explaines his meaning by judiciously asserting That Christian Kings and their Parliaments are obliged to the Laws of God and rules os Christian piety and polity too of which the whole Church in its primitive example is the best interpreter and so his position in short is this That they have no lawful authority by the Laws of God and rules of Christian piety and polity to change Episcopal Government which is a cleer evident truth to me for I consider with my self that those Laws and Rules will admit at no hand of any schism ataxy confusion or division in the Church which are contrary to true Christianity for the abounding whereof amongst the Corinthians they were so often taxed of their too much carnality and that Bishops were set up by the Apostles themselves in remedium Schismatis for the preventing of schismes and divisions and that none of those errors and heresies were so prevalent or apparent to humane eyes in the Bishops times as since their Julian extirpation for the setting up of Prsbyterian practical-jesuitism was the ground of a day of fasting and humiliation amongst the Godly rebels and a Sermon thereupon preached by our unsacred Covenanter What shall we say to those things that men should show so much pretence of goodness in appointing a day to humble themselves for the errors and heresies of the times the true proper effects of their arrogant ways of Rebellion in setting up Presbytery as a distinct Government by it self without Episcopacy in direct opposition to the practise of the Catholick Church as well as to the King and his Laws which is and hath bin the head and fountain from whence the unclean muddy streames of heresies and blasphemies have had their rise and product And yet forsooth must have the means still kept for the production of the same ends of disorder and confusion Vpon the consideration of the whole I cannot but subscribe to the great truth of the Bishops words That as no legislative power is impowered by Gods Laws to bring in either Heresie Error Superstition Schisme Faction or Confusion so neither have the King Lords and Commons any prudent moral religious or lawful Authority by those Laws or those of this English Nation and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity to change the Ancient universal and excellent Government by Bishops to any that is As new and schismatical so far worse and unsuitable to England every way If one part of the sentence be true which by Croftons silence is absolutely concluded No man need fear to affirm the other without any derogation to the legal rightful Supremacy of the King That which speakes against Schisme and faction confusion and disorder will not surely give me any lawful power to extirpate Bishops the main preventers of it by being the constant promoters of love and unity § 27. Thus I have examined the words as I found them imperfectly quoted in Croftons Discourse without that additional clause which I have set down in my true Citation of them which he most unworthily and basely had left out that so he might have some what to fill up his rambling discourse with for a true Citation would have fo confounded his understanding as immediately to have commanded him into a becoming silence and ingenuous conviction of the Bishops truths but rather then he would depart from his cavilling art and shiftings he 'l mangle the words of an Antagonist to make his own way the smoother for credulous poor mortals to set their steps in which hath brought to my remembrance the answer of a most Reverend person to the Miltonian Justifier of Regicide and Rebellion depraver of verity and breaker of the Kings Image That he p See the Image unbroken p. 153. broke sentences and truths lest he should breake for want of matter And the words of the Bishops with that additional clause in it is so cleer a truth as can no waies be darkned by a Presbyters Argumentations which was seen evident enough by Crofton himself and so very craftily left it out and therefore needs no other defence but the bare words themselves which carry truth in their forehead to the convincing of any opposer which I have no sooner done but I took a resolution to follow the mans pattern for once and turn Quaerist too Where 's the Premunire that the Bishop hath stept into now Is speaking of a known Truth confronting of King and Parliaments Suppose the Bishop had lived in Queen Maries days and had said That neither Queen nor Parliament had any lawful power by the Laws of God and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity either to change the King Edward-Reformation or to set up and establish Popery in the kingdom Was it fit for any mans mouth but a cursed Jesuits to charge him with sedition and treason against the Queen in confronting her and her Parliaments by saying black is black and white is white by asserting a known truth Blessed be God we live under a Prince that desires not to have His Supremacy stretcht so as to make it an Instrument of Justification of the Lawfulness of His Actings either against God or his Truth or the Defenders of true Christianity that desires to have His Supremacy carryed on and maintain'd for no other ends and purposes then those for which it was first established To make Clergy-men as well as Lay know that he is their onely Supream Governor and in case of offence that His Power will reach to the punishment of both that they shall not be exempted from the Civil Magistrates sword of Justice either by the wicked pretence of a foreign Papal superior Jurisdiction or Antimonarchical Sentence or Determination of the traiterous seditious Consistorians if they do that which is not justifiable either by the Laws of God or this Land Where 's the Bishops sedition I wonder Where 's his treason that he needs to fear to be made less by the head for as this Leaguer cants it Why he saith in affirming the defect of the Kings and Parliaments prudent moral religious and lawful power to change Episcopacy to one that is worse and far unsuitable to England every way for that is it which the Bishop saith which our unsacred Covenanter hath dared to contradict with his shabbed pratling Ay but saith Crofton The Statutes of the Kings declare against the Pope That Holy Church was founded in Prelacy by their own donation power and authority and so by the same way changeable Ergo What That they have any prudent moral religious and lawful authority to change it to a worse After what rate doth this wily Covenanter argue Can they that swear to govern a people well and according to the Laws of the Land have any of that quaternary Power to change one Government for a worse Will the people in such a case think or can
irreverence How now Mr. Zechary Whereabouts are you What will you never leave fighting with the Sun never leave striving and presenting the people of this Nation with * See p. 18 of his book the foggy fancies of your own giddy brain and run away with them by your fluid and gliding tongue or discourse as if the state of your question were granted by understanding persons for the truth you crake hugely methinks but I doubt I shall marr your sport with what follows and to that end let me intreat this favour of your Kirkifi'd Holiness as to speak the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth to these few questions I have subjoyned here for an answer either from your self or godly partakers Doth the Bishop go about to debase and dethrone his Sovereign as to follow your religious pattern so far as to say any where in his learned Writings which you so much snarl at that * See his Preface to the Considerator consider'd The Common-Prayer Book was expelled by a lawful Authority which if it be not Treason as the Noble L'estrange saith in his Holy Cheat Scot and Peters were no Traytors Doth the Bishop talk any where of a See p. 51. of his book The Two Houses Supream Legislative power without His Majesty and so give the lie to the Oath of Supremacy and Laws of the Land which ascertains it to be the peculiar Prerogative of the King Or doth he in any of his Writings like you b Page 31. averr That neither the place of His Majesties retirement nor reason of his absence doth adde or abstract to the authority of Parliament Or fourthly Doth the Bishop any where bid His Majesty keep that damnable traiterous and seditious Oath called The Solemn League and Covenant and tell him He shall be delivered from that distress which Page 42. may too late engage His Majesty to send to you for sooth his faithful Monitor to pray for him Oh Mr. Crofton you are a notable fellow at feminine scourges feminine do I say I am a little too short there for male and female are both alike to you nay and not every ordinary one neither for the King himself must not be exempted from the distress you threaten him with for not performing of a bloody treacherous Oath but the best on 't is Curst Cows have short horns and its very fit you should be so short kept lest being left to your self you should be apt to stray out of the pathes of loyalty and obedience and get into the by-pathes of religious Rebellion and playing the devil for Gods sake pushing and goring at every one nay at your own Sovereign himself if he will not fulfil your whimsical humours It s like you would be good enough if you were but once throughly cleansed from the Kirkish leaven of Hypocrisie and Treason Sedition and Rebellion but till then they that trust to you and your party for exact loyalty and obedience will soon finde upon any opportunity for Tumults and Sedition that they have trusted to a broken reed to their own fancies and chimaeraes The Bishop might well fear I must needs confess and that most justly too to be made less by the head as guilty both of Treason and Sedition should he so confront his Prince and his Supremacy as to set down such treasonable seditious Affirmations as you have done but you Presbyters have been so always constant as Mr. L'estrange saith in his Holy Cheat to the rule and method of doing your own business in the Kings Name that you can plead your being His Majesties true Subjects at that very time when you your selves are debasing and disallowing of His legal Supremacy and so setting a fair step for the dethroning of him when your desired opportunities of doing mischief shall unhappily fall out for the performance of your Antimonarchical Consultations And now to conclude this particular I shall put his own question to him and all the godly Generation of Scribes and Pharisees Hath a gracious and I wish he be not in the mean while too merciful a King out of His own Princely Goodness passed an Act of Indempnity by which He pardons the long continued Rebellion begun by a Club of Running Lecturers as Mr. L'estrange calls them and their Adherents in 1642. against His Royal Father for the doing whereof He might by the Statute have cut off the heads as well as seized on the estates of hundreds of those primary Rebels who yet by the mercy of a Princely Patron of Episcopacy enjoy both the one and t'other I say hath a Gracious King out of His own sweet Christian Nature done this for you and your party to debase nay and dethrone him by your denial of His Supremacy and setting on foot the doctrine of the devil who was a Rebel and a Murtherer from the beginning § 30. Ay but saith Crofton * Page 29 30. Dr. Gauden being well considered will be found to be no less erronious in his Politicks then in his Ecclesiasticks So then who ever concludes for the truth of the Doctors Assertions in his Book he is by your heady suppositions adjudged to be one that hath not well considered them But we 'l see your reason for 't first before we believe you good Mr. Zechary and that is I perceive the Bishops true saying that The Hierarchy or Episcopacy is established by the Laws of England which you you say have in your Analepsis Analephthe denied At this rate its in vain to meddle with you That a mans expressions shall be true or false according to what they seem to be in your giddy brains That your Ipse dixit onely shall be proof enough to overthrow the arguments of your Reverend Antagonist But such things as these Mr. Zechary must not be allowed of and therefore the examination of your Denial will in this case be somewhat needful You say You deny that Episcopacy is established by the Law The more shameless man you to deny that which is so apparent For what think you of the very first Article of the Great Charter which is not onely declared to be the Common Law of the Land as I have already said but is confirmed by 32 Acts of Parliament which runs thus Salvae sint Episcopis omnes Libertates suae Let the Bishops have all their whole Rights inviolable What think you now Mr. Presbyter Is the Great Charter no Law or are Bishops and their Liberties expresly named in the very first Article and yet Episcopacy not established by the Laws of England What a grand Cheater is this high-flown Presbyter that shall have the face to condemn his Superiors and give them the Lie for speaking such a notorious truth as this That Episcopacy is established by the Laws of England § 31. But he 'l Print Errors and give a Reason for it when he hath done I do averr saith he like an arch Presbyter That the English laws finding Episcopacy conversant
about the Church doth restrain its exorbitances and direct its administrations but neither Canon nor Common Law doth establish it and in terminis declare and authorize it to be the Government of the Church of England That neither Canon nor Common Law doth establish Episcopacy is notoriously false by your good leave Mr. Shifter And that neither do in terminis declare it to be the Government of the Church of England is clearly beside the purpose T is not your I averr nor mine neither will weigh any thing in the way of Argumentation but good solid Grounds and Reasons raised upon a Foundation of Truth must be the way and Method for the satisfaction as well as conviction of an opponent and I am sure there is none at all in this and mine I am sure is as good a proof of the truth of my expression as your I averr is of yours but are both of the same mettal both a kin to the Scotchmans confutation of Bellarmine Bellarmine saith thus but I say the contrary where is he now You say That neither Canon nor Common Law do in terminis declare and authorize Episcopacy to be the Government of the Church of England Well What of that Because neither do in express tearms name Episcopacy to be the Government of the Church of England to say presently it s not established by the Law notwithstanding the express mention of Bishops and their Liberties in the very first Article of Magna Charta signifies little to me but onely the shallowness of the Authors brains and yet his proud confidence too to strive with a Father of the Church with an ipse dixit who avers nothing but his own folly mixed with a Turbulent and Seditious spirit I had not read much further beyond these last words but I meet with a Trayterous expression of his in his venemous Answer to the Reverend Bishop which makes as clear as the Sun what a Factious Seditious spirit a Sacred Covenanter is composed of even such That if the Law makes once a strict enquiry will send his head to accompany his Brethren in Iniquity upon London Bridge and to that end observe the words of this factious Pulpiteer § 32. The Bishop having said That the Parliament he means the the two Houses can Act Vote Determine and Execute nothing under the Kings withdrawing from them into any part of his own Countrey Who may yet saith a Pag. 31. Crofton do all things in his infancy or while in a Forreign Countrey As if the place ☞ of his Retirement or reason of his Absence did add or abstract to the Authority of Parliament A right Rebellious Covenanter One ready for the work of Treason Perfectly opinionated of the Sovereign power of the two Houses over the King and ready prepared for a Second Rebellion upon the old false thredbare grounds of Loyalty and Religion He offers first as an argument against the Legislative power of his Sovereign for that feigned suppositious one of the two Houses That they may do all things in his infancy or whilest in a Forreign Countrey Either the man is very short sighted and simply versed in the Royal English Laws and yet before we finde him pretending to it or else he is a wilful Sophisticator If he is not knowing in our Laws Why is he so arrogant and presumptuous as to offer his shallow Arguments against the Bishops undeniable Assertion and to stand to contradict him in that wherein he hath no skill If he doth know the Laws he is the blindest of all Beetles by being wilfully blinde and speaking contrary to his knowledge I do not mean contrary to his desire or his Trayterous Seditious spirit for its a thing too well known and evident to be denied by any whose face is not perfect mettal and free from all the sparks of Modesty That in the infancy of a King there is a Protector appointed in the Princes Supream Legislative place of Calling Proroguing and Dissolving of Parliaments of setting the Stamp of the Regal Sanction upon the Writings and requests of the Two Houses for the making of them Laws for without the Royal consent no Law and Repealing of old Laws if it be thought convenient and this that I say is confirmed by that learned and Reverend Judge Jenkins who tells us That b Lex terrae p. 52. the Protector assisted by the Counsel of the King at Law his twelve Judges the Counsel of State his Attorney Sollicitor and two Serjeants at Law his twelve Masters of the Chancery hath in the Kings behalf and ever had a Negative voice And whilest the Prince is in a Forreign Countrey there are certain Noble men Commissioned under the great Seal of England to supply his place while he comes himself as the Histories of our Kings whilest in Forreign parts do attest as well as the practises of our present Prince whom God long preserve out of the juggling murdering Clutches of Presbyterian Judasses in relation to Scotland and Ireland by appointing a Lord Commissioner in the one and a Lord Lieutenant in the other to supply the place of Majesty in both Kingdoms So that his may yet do all things in his infancy or whilest in a Forreign Countrey without either Protector at the one time or Deputed Nobles at the other is nothing else but a meer fiction a delusive Cheat the effects of his Crazy brain endeavoured to be put into peoples belief and therefore I 'le trouble my self no further with it § 33. But behold the spirit of the man That neither the place of his Majesties Retirement nor reason of his Absence doth add or abstract to the Authority of Parliament Is the issue and fruits of his wilde seditious humor He without whom there can be neither Parliament nor Law is concluded by this hair-braind Presbyter to be but as a Cypher and that the two Houses are a compleat Parliament of themselves alone without his Sacred Majesty their Only Supream head and Founder By what Warrant were they at first called together Was it not by vertue of his Majesties Writ And was not the tenor of that Writ the Treating and Advising with the King And did they perform the ends for which they were summoned together when they raised Tumults against their Prince and forced him away from them and at last had the confidence to declare by their Votes of non-Addresses that they would neither Treat nor Advise with him If not then t is clear they sate to no purpose in the world but ingraved the name of Rebels upon their foreheads and made themselves to be no Parliament by destroying the ends for which they were called together But because Crofton is so arrogant in denying the Kings Presence or Absence to be of any force or validity in adding or diminishing the Authority of a Parliament I shall make bold to present him with this one Example Queen Elizabeth summoned 3. Eliz. Dyer 203. her first Parliament to be held the
23. of Jan in the first year of her Majesties Reign the Lords and Commons assembled by force of the same Writ the 21. day the Queen fell sick and could not appear in her person in Parliament that day and therefore Prorogued it until the 25. of the same month of January Resolved by all the Judges of England That the Parliament began not the day of the Return of the Writ viz. the 23. of January when the Lords and Commons appeared but the 25. of the said moneth when the Queen came in person What think you now Sir Presbyter You see the Queens presence and the reason of her absence was so far looked upon and esteemed in those daies in relation to the Authority of a Parliament that her absence but for two daies by the resolution of all the English Judges was enough to degrade them of their Parliamentary title till her Personal appearance amongst them gave them the denomination of a Parliament And unless this man can make it out That the late blessed Carolian Martyr had not the same place and Authority over these Nations as that noble Queen had the same Conclusion will follow upon his Assertion That the place of his Royal retirement and reason of his absence did so far add and abstract to the Authority of that which our Presbyterian Jugglers so often miscal a Parliament that they were neither Titular nor Real neither Name nor Thing without him For c See Lex terrae p. 51 the King is the head of the Kingdom and Parliament How then can a body act without a head There hath one long since told us to whom for knowledge in the Laws and Customs of the Realm our Caviller is not worthy to be compared That d Pag. 156 157. the two Houses are no more a Parliament then a body without a head a man Two Houses and a Parliament are several things Cuncta fidem vera faciunt all circumstances agree to prove this truth Before the Norman Conquest and since to this day the King is holden Principium caput finis the Beginning Head and chief end of the Parliament as appeareth by the Treatise of the maner of holding Parliaments made before the Norman Conquest by the Writ of Summons of Parliament whereby the Treaty and Parier in Parliament is to be had with the King onely by the Common Law by the Statute Law by the Oath of Supremacy taken at this and every Parliament it doth manifestly appear that without the King there can be no colour of a Parliament e See the Royal Buck ler p. 62. The two Houses saith Mr. Duncomb frame the body the King giveth the soul for without him it is but a dead Carcase Nay further saith the learned Judge in the Table of his Book concerning Parliaments This became no Parliament when the King with whom they should parley was driven away By what hath been said and many more instances that I could produce for this purpose I leave it to every understanding person to consider whether His Presence or his Absence without whom there can be no colour of a Parliament doth add or detract the Authority of Parliament And leaving Crofton to the just deserved censure and punishment of Majesty for his Rebellious Malignant Principles I shall proceed on to his next Arrogant and yet Ignorant pratling for his Seditious Vow and Covenant which hath been the cause of so many direful plagues amongst us § 34. Whatever the Libeller i. e. Dr. Burges his sweet-tooth'd Sacrilegious Brother did Mr. Crofton he f Pag. 37. saith allowed the Doctor this Text i. e. Numb 30. before mentioned in its Latitude and referred him to be judged by it and now granteth That the inferior in things not sui juris may have the action vowed superseded by the declared pleasure of the superior and that whether it be son or servant Doth he so Doth Mr. Crofton grant then the truth of the Doctors Arguments What doth he keep a kackling for then What doth he make such a buzzing then in the peoples ears with his perjurious Covenant Doth he first confess his Antagonists Arguments to be good by granting what the Doctor wrote for and yet set out another vain glorious discourse against them so far as to run into seditious principles to keep his faithful Covenant on foot Ay but in our case he then affirmed he said The Parliament sitting had over us a Legislative power to which we owed subjection They were in their National capacity the Nation Collective and sui juris and to be obeyed during their session by those whom they represented The Parliament What is that It is the King the Lords and the Commons saith the Covenant at the trial of the Regicide Harrison That the world may not be abused by the insinuations of a man who acts as if he had a spirit and in truth is possessed I will say saith his Majesties Learned Councel That the Lords and Commons are not a Parliament That the King and Lords cannot do any thing without the Commons Nor the King and Commons without the Lords Nor the Lords and Commons without the King especially against the King if they do they must answer it with their heads g See judge Jenkins Lex Terrae p. 80. The Lords and Commons make no more a Parliament by the Law of the Land then a body without a head makes a man for a Parliament is a body composed of a King their Head the Lords and Commons the Members All three together saith Judge Jenkins make one body and that is the Parliament and no other The Two Houses are not the Parliament but onely part thereof and by the abuse and misunderstanding of this word Parliament they have miserably deceived the people So then we see what is become of our zealous Presbyters Parliament consisting of Two Houses without a King for its clear by the preceding words he meanes them and them onely when he prattles of the Parliaments having a Legislative power over us Here we finde the judgement of the Reverend Judges and learned Sages of the Law to be cleerly against him and his Titular Parliament and telling us how the faction miserably deluded the people with the name when they were destitute of the true nature of a Parliament by applying it to them to whom it no more belonged then the title of a man appertaines to him who wants the conveniency of a Head As for their Legislative power It s huge like their empty title of Parliament and both Phantasmes of their own braines and that it may apppear to be such I shall bring in Croftons profound Lawyer Mr. Prynn in the front to bear witness against him for he tells us That h See his plea'gainst illegal Taxes p. 5. the Parliament Rolls and the Printed Prologues to the statutes of c. and names a great many run all in this form At the Parliament holden c. By the advice and assent
appointed to supply the place of such Regal absence for the time is manifested plainly by what I have already said and in my weak judgement so clear a truth that it is not in the power of any Factious Presbyter to contradict me that keeps in the way of verity and therefore I shall not trouble my Reader with any further answer of it Well We have seen now the Presbyters Allegations concerning the two Houses exercise of the Legislative Fiction without the Kings consent and weighing them in the ballance of right Reason and Laws and Customes of the Realm have found them to be too light and weak to bear that stress and burthen which our filthy Dreamers lay upon them I 'le now try what he saith of those Long-Parliament Legislative Thieves exercise of their whimsie against the Kings consent and here we finde him foreseeing a palpable Treason in asserting an Affirmative Proposition and yet that we may perceive his willingness to have an Affirmative maintained he thus breaths forth his doubtful fancy As to the exercise of it against the Kings consent I shall conclude nothing but commend Mr. Pryn's Sovereign power of Parliaments to your serious study What a Seditious minde and Treacherous heart this Crofton is possessed of We are beholding to a wise King and a lawful Parliament for his avoiding of his Cackling and concluding of nothing in the case at this time His faint-hearted seeming Negation of the Legality of those Rebels exercise of their Usurpation is just like the Olivarian-Machiavelian-Pro-Traytors denial of the Kingly Title even full sore against his will He would not say AY for fear an Ax or an Halter might presently attend him nor won't say NO neither lest his seared Conscience should look him in the face and contradict him with a Truth That a Negative was by No means agreeable with his Classical rebellious spirit and therefore very cunningly commends another mans unreasonable Jangling as full of Treason and Rebellion as a Toad is of poyson to the Bishops study If he had commended it to the Bishops and every mans study and detestation and abhorrency thereof when they had read it as well as indignation against the Treasonable venome of the Authors heart he had spoke more truth then a Presbyter is wont to do What that book is and how worthy to be Commended to a Bishops reading and study I leave to every one to conclude something seeing Crofton will conclude nothing by that just Sentence and Condemnation which the learned Mr. Duncomb upon ferious study thereof past in these words against both the Author and the Book it felf His book saith he p See his Royal buckler or a Lecture to Traytors p. 240. is such a Rhapsody of non-sense a bundle of Rebellion and Treason a Pamphlet so Seditious Pernicious Sophistical Jesuitical Trayterous and Scurrilous that I want Mr. Pryn's Epethites to give his own book its deserved odium Truely I must needs say That the Author of that heady Trayterous discourse who as the same judicious person saith setteth q P. 243. the body above the head maintaineth that the two Houses or the Major part have the Sovereign power may act without the King levy War against him and kill him too by defending themselves hath very little or no cause to return thanks to his Seditious Brother for the courtesie he hath done him to conclude nothing in the argument himself but commend the others Book to his Reverend Antagonists serious study the true English whereof amounts but to this conclusion I dare not maintain such a Treasonable Position as that my self for fear of having my reward on a block or a Triple tree but I 'le commend a book to you wherein it is asserted and justified and made known to the world by a deluding Trap-door of the Sovereign power of Parliaments It s but a sad commendation of Mr. Prynne especially from a Brother of the Sacred Covenanting Tribe too to do as good as tell the world that his Book is the Store-house of Seditious and Treasonable Principles The Shop to furnish others with what and as much as the Rebel pleases For if the justification of an Affirmative in the controverted point be not to be found in that putrid loathsom hospital of Trayterous diseases in that which the deluding Author was pleased to term The Sovereign power of Parliaments To what end or purpose do we hear of a Citation or Commendation thereof to the serious Study of his Reverend Opponent And if it be therein justified as who doubts but it is the Conclusion that I have made doth naturally flow from the Premisses and therefore I say how much the one is bound to thank the other I leave to both their considerations to decide the controversie between themselves at their next meeting and in the mean time seeing this man of fancy our windy Croftonian disputant doth as it were in the dark confess the truth of a Negative herein I shall proceed to his next Dream where he Magisterially affirms That The Legislative power of their Votes Debates Resolves orders or Ordinances were never gainsaid by His Majesty Here 's a rare spiritual man for you now one that peremptarily determines a notorious falsity for a truth And what an incomparable mistake it is His Majesties own words shall make appear In his noble Answer to the 19 Tyranical Propositions of those Legislative Traytors p. 1. who so often have made it their Godly work to establish iniquity by a Law we finde him declaring and telling of the English Nation of those pious Theives having thought fit to remove a troublesom Rub in their way The Law To this end saith he That they might undermine the very foundations of it A new Power hath bin assumed to interpret and declare Laws without us by extemporary Votes mark without any case judicially before either House which is in effect the same thing as to make Laws without us Orders and Ordinances made onely by both Houses tending to a pure Arbitary power were pressed upon the people as Laws and their obedience Required to them Their next step was to erect an upstart authority without us in whom and onely in whom the Laws of this Realm have placed that power to command the Militia by a r See his Majesties Speech to them July 21. 1642. In Reliquiae sacrae Carolinae pretended Ordinance which His Majesty told the Knights Gentry and Freeholders of the County of Lincoln That as the same was against the known Laws and an invasion of his unquestionable right and of their liberty and property so I do now declare saith the Sacred Speaker That the same is imposed upon you against my express consent and in contempt of my Regal Authority And I doubt not but you will sadly consider That if any Authority without and against my consent may lawfully impose such burthens upon you it may likewise take away all that you have from you and subject you to
their lawless arbitrary power and government At another time telling the Gentry c. of Leicester of his defending their Religion their Liberties their Laws with his life I mean s See his Majesties Speech to them July 20. 1642. saith he the good known Laws of the Land not Ordinances without my consent which till within these twelve moneths was never heard of from the foundation of this kingdom In his message from Oxford to those insinuating serpents at Westminster of the 12th of April 1643 he justly terms the Declarations Ordinances or Orders of one or both Houses illegal And lastly not to tire my readers patience too much His Majesty was pleased to tell the inhabitants of Flint and Denbigh at Wrexham That t See his Speech to them Sep. 27. 1642. By their power i. e. that of the housed Rebels the Law of the Land their birth-right is trampled upon and instead thereof saith he they govern my people by Votes and arbitrary Orders These I finde in those very few pieces of his late Glorious Majesty which I have had the happiness to take a cursory view of and yet enough to set forth Crofton in his proper dark colours to evince the Regal gainsaying of the Legislative power as our Presbyters nickname the Chimaeraes of their braines of the Two Houses illegal extemporary and arbitrary lawless Votes and Orders which as it was the sole intent in my Citation so they are an apparent proof of the notorious falshood of Croftons heady affirmation and perverse disputings Who sees not that his Seditious and 2 Tim. 6. 5 Rebellious principles declare him to be a man of a corrupt mind Who perceives not that his emitting to the English Nation his Legislative falshoods do make apparent that he is also destitute of the truth and too much inclined to dreames and fancies § 38. The Doctor having justly termed Croftons urging by a Presbyterian pertness the present Kings taking the Oath in Scotland u p. 149. bold and odious no less then fallacious Crofton cries out w p. 24. How bold and odious soever it may seem none but a proud Pashur and shameless Shemaiah Who is the Raker in the puddle of Rayling now O Presbyter could count it odious in Jeremiah to say to the King Keep the Oath and thou shalt be delivered Observe his Traiterous and shameless addition from that distress which may too late ingage His Majesty to send to his faithful Monitor to pray for him Goodly Goodly how delicate sweet rebellion smells in the nostrils of a Covenanter What damnable Seditious spirits possesses them with the impudence of threatning distress to his Sacred Majesty for not keeping of that National plague the Covenant He that can make any other of this then Sedition let him lend me his spectacles I wonder what day or hour it is wherein these Sacred Covenanters may be found deficient in their endeavors of x See the slight healers of publique hurts p. 29. drawing on Rebellion perjury innocent bloodshed and Sacriledge with the shoeing-horns of Religion and Reformation of setting up the Gospel of Peace with unguentum armarium the sword of war Our Canting Presbyter not onely threatens His Majesty with distress but also by his venemous speeches implies the approach of mischief when it will be too late for His Majesty to send to him to pray for him Nothing is to be looked for here but destruction and damnation hereafter it seemes if that brat and spawn of the serpent that primary deluding rebel the Covenant which being hatched in Sacriledge and Rebellion was at length brought forth into the world in blood and confusion be not carefully looked to and provided for y See Archbishop Bancrofts dangerous positions p. 51. Those Kingdoms and States who defend any Church-Government save this of Pastors Doctors Elders and Deacons are in danger of utter destruction says Martin Junior in the time of Queen Elizabeth The Parliament in her time for tolerating of Bishops in stead of their new Government were told by others of the then factious party z p. 50. That they shall be in danger of the terrible mass of Gods wrath both in this life and in the life to come and that if they did not then abrogate the Government by Bishops well they might hope for the favor and entertainment of Moses that is the Curse of the Law but the favor and loving countenance of Jesus Christ they should not see nor never enjoy Birds of a feather will flock together all Cuckoe-like singing the same tune of destruction distress to their Sovereign Princes if they will not bow down and worship the Golden Calf of their Presbytery But why too late Mr. Crofton Is not the Murther of one King enough but you must harp upon the Rebellion against Imprisonment and godly consequential murther of another Satia te sanguine Cyre More Gun-powder Mines still to blow up Regality Is there another Rebellion a contriving amongst the Saints that must needs have Sata as canonizing stamp upon 't Too late Are you in serious Combination with the party to stir up an execrable Rebellion against the Son for his ruine in this world as formerly your Cursing party did against His Martyr'd Father And all for not keeping of an Antimonarchical horrid Confederacy and Conjuration called The Solemn League and Covenant These expres-pressions deserve a sharper Answer then my Pen is able to make being filled brim-full of covenanting-rebellious Malice But why Faitful Monitor You live far from neighbors sure that you are fain to crown your seditious pate with laurels of praise for a Faithful Monitor which is as fit for you as a Saddle is for a Sows back or the Epethite of Godly was for the peerless Cut-throats of the Carolian Martyr He that was so impudent as to tell the King to his face He was a Tyrant Traytor Murderer and a publique and implacable enemy to the Common-wealth was just such another Faithful Monitor as your self But for what meerly for the chastising and crucifying of both But what must His Majesty send to him for why it seems to pray for him Alas gude Covenanter what are all your prayers but for the destruction of Princes and stirring up their subjects to rebel against them if they will not preserve your hellish Trap-door and as the ends of that set up and maintain your Trojan Horse of Ecclesiastical Discipline Their worth are weighed down with a nut-shel if they be like those which are in your Book which prayer of yours and your practise like true religion and your irreligious destructive Covenant at at drawn swords with each other even in the very writing of a few sheets of paper They had need of a bird as the saying is that give a groat for an Owl They must needs be in great want of prayers sure who send to such a bold confident Kirker as you for that end who can one while cry The Lord deliver me