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.
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
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
from rendring rayling for rayling and yet rayl your self for several times in several pages against that very person whom you so strangely exclaim against for the very same thing which clearly manifests an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a notorious self-condemnation and brings you within the reach and lash of the Apostles sentence which in his Epistle to the Romans he pronounces with a Therefore thou art inexcusable O man who ever thou Rom. 2. 1. art that judgest for wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thy self for thou that judgest dost the same things § 39. But Crofton hath not done yet but continues belching forth his own wickedness and folly against the Reverend Prelate with a z Page 51. Thus he supposeth the Two Houses into a non-entity as to their Supream Legislative power by the temper they were a Page 52 then in and the absence of the King though they were animated by an express Statute Law which some upon good grounds and reasons beyond the reach of Dr. Gauden or little Mr. Crofton to resolve have openly averred to continue them yet in being And thus he profoundly supposeth a Parliament swearing qua Parliament in the fullest formality and profession of their National capacity was a personal Covenanting Bless me what doth this Presbyter prattle thus for of things he lets us know by his fanciful jabbering he hath no more skill or knowledge in then his neer acquaintance the Ass The man is out of his element sure he is got into a wrong way and fancies to himself that he 's going the direct right way on to his journeys end and therefore I le do what lies in my power to manifest his error and mistake unto him And therefore first Doth the Doctor suppose such a thing Doth he suppose nothing to be nothing that to be a non-entity which never had a being A terrible cause indeed of a Presbyters exclamation for we finde that the Supream Legislative Bauble of the Two Houses is the very very Loadstone that draws up a sanctified Puritans zeal and affection to them to shew us a Presbyters inclinations more to fictions and whimsies then to those which are visible undoubted Truths Supream What Gimcrack or New-nothing have we got here That the Body should be affirmed to be above the Head The Legs Arms and Trunk of the Body indeed as Judge Jenkins b See his Lex Terrae p. 49. saith are greater then the Head and yet not above nor with life without it Certainly the man hath a mind to show the profound depth of his skill in Corah's art of murmuring and rebellion against the Supremacy of the Prince and Priest He tells us of an Observation in his Book That it hath been the fatal chance of the Bishops of England Page 25. to run themselves into a premunire If he speak of any since the Reformation I defie him to show me one example of any Protestant Bishop that ever since then proved disloyal either in words or actions to either King or Queen except Bishop Williams when he began in his old age to dote and lean too much on that rotten prop of Presbytery which taught him to fortifie his House against his Gracious Sovereign I do not mean those pretended premunire's for which the incomparable Laud was so infamously murthered nor by which sundry others of the Royal Adherents were the very same way dealt withal as Traytors against His Majesty and the Bauble which they call'd The Parliament for assisting him by that Black Cabale that Assembly of Treacherous Men before in and after the year 1644. But certainly there 's none but can observe the Presbyters Loyalty is good enough when they are deficient in power that is to say when they cannot help it for it is as clear as noon-day that a Puritan never wants a will to rebel if he hath at any time any power and opportunity and that the Magistrate refuse to set up the Consistorian Slavery which made the Learned Dr. Pierce cry out c See his Self-Revenger exemplified p. 100. Blessed and happy is that Nation where such mens Loyalty consisteth in their want of power or opportunity to make resistance In good earnest Mr. Crofton I le for once make answer by a retortion and ask you your own questions you so weakly and impertinently to say no worse propounded Page 25. to the Bishop Sir have you not stretcht too far and stept into a premunire I should fear to be made less by the head as guilty of Treason Sedition at the least should I thus confront the King and Loyal Parliaments in what all their Statutes and an Oath of Supremacy declare to be the peculiar Prerogative of the King And that they do so need no further demonstration then that which follows even the words of the Lord Chief Baron now Lord Chief Justice Bridgeman in his Speech to the Grand Jury at the Regicides Tryal where we thus finde his learned Language Gentlemen Let me tell you what our Law-books say for there 's the ground out of which and the Statutes together we must draw all our conclusions for matter of Government How do they stile the King They call him The Lieutenant of God and many other expressions in the Book of Primo Henrici Septimi Says that Book there The King is immediate from God and hath no Superior The Statute says That the Crown of England is immediately subject to God and to no other power The KING say our Books He is not onely Caput Populi the Head of the People but Caput Reipublicae the Head of the Commonwealth the Three Estates And truly thus our Statutes speak very fully common experience tells you when we speak of the KING and so the Statutes of Edward the Third we call the King Our Sovereign Lord the King Sovereign That is Supream And when the Lords and Commons in Parliament apply themselves to the King they use this expression Your Lords and Commons your faithful subjects humbly beseech I do not speak any words of mine own but the words of the Laws Stat. 24. Hen. 8 cap. 12. Whereas by divers sundry old authentique Histories and Chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed That this Realm of England is an Empire and so hath been accepted in the world governed by one Supream Head and King having the Dignity and Royal Estate of the Imperial Crown of the same c. 25 Hen. 8. cap. 21. There it is the people speaking of themselves That they do Recognize no Superior under God but the Kings Grace Thus that learned Person To the Judge let me add Mr. Duncomb who telling us d See his Royal buckler or a Lecture to Traytors p. 108. That the Law of Nature shall perish and the heavens and earth shall pass away before Lex Terrae the Law of the Land shall deny this Oracle Omnis sub Rege ipse sub nullo nisi tantum sub Deo All men are under the King and
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
p See their Reasons p. 15 16. To pray say those reverend persons to the purpose in the conclusion of the Covenant seemeth to us all one in effect as to beseech Almighty God the God of love and peace 1. To take all love and peace out of the hearts of Christians and to set the whole Christian world in a combustion 2. To render the Reformed Religion and all Protestants odious to all the world Mark the third To provoke the Princes of Europe ☞ to use more severity towards those of the Reformed Religion if not for their own security to root them quite out of their several Dominions 4. The tyranny and yoke of Antichrist if laid upon the subjects necks by their lawful Sovereigns is to be thrown off by Christian boldness in confessing the truth and patient suffering for it not by taking up arms or violent resistance of the higher Powers and yet forsooth this is that sacred Covenant that must be so strictly kept to set the whole Christian world in a combustion This is that League which must be so zealously continued in to render the true Protestant Religion and professors thereof odious and detestable to all the world yes and for the enlargement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ too they tell us I remember a very good observation of one upon this very account q See the Right Rebel p. 145. That as none of the Disciples denyed cursed and forswore his Master but Peter onely who alone without his leave drew a sword in his defence so neither is it said of the rest that they forsook him and sted till after that Peter had rashly attempted to defend him by force as if the Holy Ghost would have Christians observe That fighting for Christ without warrant from him is the next fore-runner of forsaking him That * Pag 139 if there be any one thing above others which The Antichrist may properly challenge as peculiar to himself it is the professed practise of Rebellion of purpose to promote pretended Religion for nothing can be more directly opposite both unto the Doctrine and Practise of Christ himself and his Apostles of Orthodox Christians in the times of the Primitive Church and of all genuine Protestants since the Reformation and yet that was the absolute tenour of the Covenant to resist King Charles to fight with a pretence for the advancement of King Jesus which how contrary to his Will Practise and Command may very well be gathered out of what hath been already set down as well as what Croftons profound Lawyer Mr. Prynne himself hath said upon that subject in his True and perfect Narrative Pag. 68 74 75 76. In which last page he sets down one of the express affirmations of the Jesuits plainly declaring the great union between them and our English Leaguers in that unchristian Practise That their Gospel and Religion is to be propagated set up the Heroticks and Evangelical Sectaries who resist them Refuted how Extirpated Abolished with Fire Sword and War like holy Leaguers and therefore upon all that hath been said in my Animadversions upon the several Articles of the Sacred Covenant so called I hope there is no man of any ingenuity or understanding but will conclude with me the damnable sinfulness thereof both in the Form and matter of it and so according to the Leaguers own Assertions in the number of those unlawful Oathes which must at no hand be kept by any takers of them § 14. Having thus dispatcht my Animadversions on this illegal League I shall now proceed to set down their own words to prove the unlawfulness and sin of keeping of their so much idolized Diana and so the necessity of repentance from all its takers Their words are these in their exhortation to take the Covenant That if there should any oath be found into which any Ministers or others have entred not warranted by the Laws of God and the land in this case they must teach themselves and others that such oathes call for repentance not pertinacy in them which words being suitable to what the Reverend Dr. Hardy said I shall here adjoyn his words That r See his Pious Votary p. 16. those Covenants which ingages men instead of keeping the Laws of God injuriously to violate both the Laws of God and perfidiously to break their own former oaths are no better then Leagues with hell and Covenants with the Devil Now mark will the Law of God warrant any persons whatsoever in the swearing a Reformation against their Kings consent will that Law which commands me to yeild obedience to the King as Supream warrant me in my disobedience and rebellion against him for to carry on my work of reformation Can that Law which enjoyns me to be subject to Principalities and Powers warrant my throwing that subjection off because I have the face to affirm and pretend it is for the fulfilling of it That this is the tenour of this impious Covenant we need no other witness then it self which plainly testifyeth to all the world that the swearers thereof took up arms meerly to alter Religion And that disobedience to God in the rebellion against the King was the very matter and subject of the Covenant is exceeding plain to any who consider the famous assertion of the now most learned Primate of Armagh one of whose words weighs more in the judgement of any understanding person then ten thousand of of such bablings as our wily factious Presbiters keep such a chatting in the Nation with s See his fair warning p. 30. Subjects saith that most accomplished Speaker vow to God and swear one to another to change the Laws of the Realm to abolish the discipline of the Church and the Liturgy lawfully established by the sword which was never committed to their hands by God or man without the King against the King which no man can deny in earnest to be plain Rebellion So that unless they can make the Law of God to warrant that which it no where commands but severely condemns Their League and Covenant according to the exhorters own affirmation calls for repentance and not continuance in the keeping of that which the several takers had either the confidence at first rebelliously to swear or through the horrible seductions or threats and menaces of the Delinquent Imposers took it not considering the venom in it without and against the Carolian Martyrs consent in perfect defiance of his legal sworn onely supream authority And as for its being warranted by the Laws of the Land hear in the first place what the reverend Judge Jenkins saith in general It is an oath saith t See his Lex Terrae p. 158. that famous Lawyer against the Laws of the Land against the Petition of Right and he gives us a reason for it presently after thus No man saith he by the Law can give an oath in a new case without an act of Parliament and therefore saith he again the
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
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
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