the People and will no question that Power the Parliament which governs them This will suffer some such like infamy by their accusers either of Hypocriticum Indoctum Sacrilegum or Unjustum and their Enemies are framing Indictments to all four Hypocriticum as pretending good but intending ill to the King and State an ordinary charge cast on them by his party yea of Counterfeiting also in that they do connive at Truths suppressed and Falshoods printed in their quarters of the several Chances of the War c. The permitting which were indeed blame-worthy were it a matter of much moment or competent to their leisure from weightier Affairs to cure forth with all Faults in matter of Fact the rather whereas they are sure that no ill successe either of losing Forts of having the worst of it sometimes in skirmishes or the like accidents incident to War can deter their firm and constant Friends resolving to resemble the Souldiers of * Paul Emil. in vitam Car. 7 Charles the seventh so far from shrinking at the terror of an ill Omen that they resolved to encounter all hard chances in Battel with increase of Courage Indoctum as for opposing the Bishops the highest Order in the Clergy and other Schollers The Parliament seems invective in their Accusers eye against all learning Sacrilegum as some of their Enemies have from a far fetched Metaphor tearmed them because of taking away the plurality of Church-Livings Injustum in that they have condemned Malefactors whereof their Enemies have given a pledge already See their Declaration printed 1643. in that the Assembly at OXFORD in their writings of offering Peace hath charged the Parliaments friends with imprisoning two * Earl of Chesterfield and Lord Montague Lords Northward for their loyalty to the King Such and the like calumnies are like to be their fate in case they are vanquished But to return and view the charge whereof the King and his party are suspected which before it be treated on The duty required from the people by the two contesting parts the King the Parliament is examinable seeing a War is waged and such a one as dissolves all laws and the quarrel so bitterly pursued betwixt the King and the Parliament both requiring Subjection and obedience which is to be obeyed the King a supreme but single person or the Parliament the representative body of the Kingdom in number many which to be obeyed in point of safety and conscience But first to make the Question the more clear take these * The peoples Plea collections from a learned Divine That the King hath His Power from the Kingdom therefore His Authority which Tearms though commonly confounded if distinguished makes clear the matter For Authority is a Right and Lawfulnesse to command Obedience such as all Governors and Magistrates have more or lesse But Power is a lawful Ability to force obedience where upon command it is denied one may have a just and lawful right to command that wants compulsive means for Coertion others may have strength to force commonly called Power that wants Authority to command and Power is that which in all Government bears the sway Wherefore in the Scripture Rom. 13. and elswhere it is taken concretively for the Governors and Magistrates themselves which have power at command to force Obedience to their Commands Now there is no doubt but the King hath ful Authority to command according unto Law all such as are subject to Him by Law but if upon His command obedience be denied whence hath he lawful power to enforce obedience whence hath He His Power to make good His Authority but from the people He cannot have it from Himself being but one man To keep a strong guard of some of His people to impugn and force the rest must needs produce Commotions Insurrections and a Civil-War If of strangers the Philosopher and others who write of Policy Aristot will tell you it is Tyranny nor is such ability Potestas but vis violence not power because unlawful when vis and Potestas or vis and jus do clash and skirmish the consequence is dangerous To keep an Army on foot continually under other pretences thereby to affright and force the Subjects is litle better therefore the Kings power must needs come from His own peoples hands and strength and from the same people must come His Authority If any other should give him Authority that were not able to make it good by power it were given Him in vain nor were the people bound to make that good which themselves gave not whence He hath His power then from thence He must needs receive His Authority even from the Kingdom To Safety a Common-wealth is best provided for by Councel Councel confists of number in which is safety That foresees contrives concludes not that they are void of Error King and Parliament both may erre whilest humane joyntly and dividedly but which most prone to Error the Head without the consent of the Heart being one or the faculties of the Heart without the help of the Head if possibly to be severed being many 'T is resolved Securius expediuntur negotia commissa pluribus oculi plus vident quam oculus which is not construed of the quantity of degree as which is highest which greatest but of the quantity of number which most probable to provide for the common good one or many If it be objected That the King hath a Councel viz. his Privy Councel to assist and consult with Ans This is by the King in his Person chosen always or for the most part attending on his Court and Person That of Parliament by the free suffrages of the whole Kingdom and how fitly when the condition and affairs thereof are subject only to the capacity and knowledge of the Parliament the Members thereof dwelling in all or most parts of the Kingdom whereby to have cognisance of what concerns the whole Yea let this be taken for granted as advantage to his Majesties party whether so or not That the Major part of the Peers and Gentry are now with the King in some other place then where he first Summoned them Admit it be true yet that they were called by his Writ to attend the service at a certain place and time and both place and time named in that Writ where the Attendance is according to that Summons and they having all there met accordingly the place and time do define and limit the Action denominating those the Parliament which there reside For howbeit a great number be come away from the place whereto they were first Summoned whether solicited awed or otherwise engaged the residing part to that number which now sit there make a full Parliament 'T is no marvel if their number shall decrease their courage fail them when so proclaimed against and threatned as might terrifie men of much resolution and constancy when their Posterities and Estates are exposed to Ruine all possible means of
some other contagious Disease or such like Reason those towns otherwise incompetent for such conflux of people as probably may have recourse to the Parliament for their dispatch and redresse in their Desires And whither that Adjournment amounts not to a Dissolving against the Law so consented unto by the King hereafter Besides observe the difference of Times and Persons which satisfies the Question Former Kings have been willing to call often Parliaments that the Usage and Necessity of often Summoning grew 36. Ed. 3. into a Law and yet in force to call one every year when in this of His Majesties Raign how seldom and sparingly He hath called any And when He hath as He did in the first year of His Raign to begin in June it continued unto July and Adjourned until August following and but few Acts passed before it ended In these last years the Parliament at the importunity and humble Request See their Petition 1639. of divers the Nobility and a valuable number of the Gentry the King summoned in April 1640. how soon He dissolved the same the beginning of May following Then he called another in November after in which for their more firm and constant proceedings in their Affairs and to the end that being come and met together from the several parts of the Kingdom they should not upon every light matter of Debate be dissolved and remitted home His Majesty was pleased to passe an Act against Dissolving without their own consent how soon after their sitting and that Act passed their Priviledges were seized by charging several Members of either House of High Treason Which when that could not take effect nor their persons seized the King withdraws Himself advised thereto from the Parliament and their place of sitting thereby to make void their Court whereof His Majesty one part yet His personal presence in this case not so requisite as that His absence should make void the Parliament The Parliament consisting of three Estates King Lords and Commons if the King be a necessary and constitutive part without which there can be no Parliament as those of His party contend to have it so His removing from the other parts amounts to a dissolving contrary to a Law consented unto by His Majesty wherefore it were a greater degree of undutifulnesse in any Subject to think that the King would violate that Law then that His Power and Vertue being there His Person should be so requisite as that the absence of His Person should adnul and make it no Parliament The person it self being severed from its Office and Vertue is a thing inanimate The distinction into a voluntary and necessitated absence or that the Kings presence shall make it compleat His absence an incompleat Parliament abates not the force of that Law nor serves to make whole the difference unlesse there be such a condition or limitation in the * See the Act passed in full Parliament Act. Which the proper and true Parliament is that summoned and resident at WESTMINSTER or that removed by a latter summons as before expressed to OXFORD which Question together with the perverse and proud obstinacy of an engaged and desperate party though throughly convinced of the truth thereof hath cost much blood The King and His party at OXFORD do resolve it truly Again He or His parties instability of Actions do seem to renew the doubt certainly do wound their own Cause For whilest His Majesty often and of late calls the Assembly at WESTMINSTER The Parliament and the Assembly at OXFORD by one and the The Assembly at OXFORD acknowledge in their Declaration printed there March 1643. The Parliament at WESTMINSTER not to be Dissolved pag. 25. same stile and that two Parliaments are inconsistent at one and the same time in this Kingdom the people unlesse wilfully and perversly ignorant are not to seek which is the proper Parliament Here by the way the OXFORD Mercury seeming to subjoyn in some ways to the Declaration printed there with a plausible Frontispiece of A Declaration tending to Peace rather Refutes that Book and deals more plainly and ingenuously upon the matter of a Peace offering from His party there and moving a strong cause of Jealousie against a truly intended Peace as is before expressed Now to examine the several Passages and Tracts of that Book Intituled A Declaration tending to Peace whither or no it ministereth matter of Peace as the title doth insinuate or further Quarrel For first they can say little for themselves to justifie their assembling as to a Parliament for the enacting and constituting Laws but what is ordinary and easie to be answered They lay aspersions on some mis-fezance and Errors in their fellow Members So great a body could not well be free from failings they accuse the whole body of Parliament of High Misdemeanors of High Treason of disturbing the publique Peace of the Kingdom of promoting and fomenting an horrid War and who to be judge thereof but themselves the Accusers The Parliament by an ancient Law in force is the sole Interpreter in matters of this doubt and consequence 36. Ed. 3. and themselves at OXFORD do not assume the Title and Power of a Parliament when as they acknowledge in the same Declaration ther fellow Pag. 16. Members sitting now at WESTMINSTER to be so material a part of Parliament that if they themselves at OXFORD might have enjoyed their freedom without being forced their sitting at WESTMINSTER to have been a full and free Convention and a Parliament The formal part of a Parliament in the Kings summoning them by Writ at such a time to such a place to debate the Affairs of the King and Kingdom This being granted and the Parliament at WESTMINSTER thus met what is wanting then to make it a full and free Parliament As to their want of freedom due to the Members of a Parliament and forced as they urge from those assembled now at OXFORD when they sate at WESTMINSTER Forced they could not be force is a fruit of power and deparibus in pares non datur potestas solicited and strongly wrought upon they might be according to their several tempers They accuse themselves and abate much of that courage required in Parliament Members when they complain they were forced fellow Peers cannot enforce each other without a previous disposition and compliance in those who are forced to be forced If any force and the same not offered by an higher power it might be in a close and clancular way by Proxies and Solicitors they know where the power rests of Punishing and Pardoning Proscriptions and Proclamations are Acts of Power no strength in equals to work a force Besides how cometh to passe that those at OXFORD Pag. 23. contending by the enumeration of those lately dead at WESTMINSTER or else departed from their fellow-Members thence to make them a few and inconsiderable part themselves the greater and more valuable number should be forced by those
at WESTMINSTER being the lesse One other kinde of force is urged of sitting at un-Parliamentory Pag. 7. hours or else to lose their Vote There must be to answer the other Member of of this distinction some Parliamentory hours appointed which no Laws hath yet assigned sitting still or going away relates commonly to the necessity and exigent of the matter in hand which haply will not admit delay or a second meeting but may require their sitting up till ten eleven or twelve a clock in the night and may again their meeting at six five or four or sooner in the morning If they please to abate so much of their own repose and rest by their pains and Industry their Countrey is so much the more beholding to them many of the Countries have in their * See the Petitions of the several Counties Petitions taken notice of and thanked them for their indefatigable pains The reason of the small number at WESTMINSTER wherewith the Assembly at OXFORD chargeth them is obvious to each mans understanding They make them thin and then upbraid them with their thinnesse T is as if Friends and Companions in a Journey shall see their fellow Travellers in danger to be robbed and ride away without assisting them in danger whose fault is it in case they are robbed the failing of those who might have helped or the paucity of those who are robbed this in respect of the other is a remote least principal and accidental cause T is easie for a Prince to confer Honors upon men so to fill the House of Peers divers wayes also to increase the number in the House of Commons to His party but for the one party to make the other thin and then to undervalue the power of them becoming so is like one impoverishing another by forsaking him in those duties of friendship which he owes and then contemning him The next odds observed by the Assembly at OXFORD between the Parliament at WESTMINSTER and themselves is the Kings presence with them at OXFORD and a major part of the Lords therefore out-weighing the Dignity of those at WESTMINSTER Which exception as to the Kings being there is answered by the Law of not Dissolving or by His Majesties being Virtually although not Personally present In that the greater part of the Nobility are with the King His party therefore the more Honored 't is answered without Disputing the Dignity or Preeminence of either part as which the more valuable in Birth or Breeding those which went away or those which staid behinde Comparisons are unseemly and forbid what this Discourse doth aim at Reconcilement Union It was not so at the first entrance into this Quarrel the King withdrawing Himself from the Parliament many of the Peers thought themselves by duty of their place obliged to attend on His Majesty and might have power it is like to prevail with some other of their fellow-Peers Besides the Nobility are to be considered as in the next Classe and Attendant on His Majesty some by their place others more remotely Interested wherefore seeing Safety and Preferment are the Stake which most men of all sorts contend for let the World be made believe it is Conscience Loyalty the King the Fountain of Honor in whom to Reward and Pardon they who are nearest Him hope first to gain by applying themselves to serve and please Him All men know the Proverb No fishing to the Sea nor service to the Court which was only in those days true when a just and uninterrupted Peace did flourish no man but could perceive through the Prospect of this Discord that Peace Plenty and Liberality in Rewarding would all be lost in a Civil Destructive War The Question was at the first much controverted which the more just or rightful Cause the Kings or the Parliaments divided from the King Many of the Grandees adhering to the Court and more Loyal in an implicite faith adhered to the Kings no more marvel then that Servants immediatly attendant on their Master should venture their obedience and assent unto him because their Master without examining the Reason of so assenting and then engaged pursue their undertakings or be meanly thought of in case they shall renounce the same the credit whereof is discerned in the quality of the Cause undertaken not in the resolvednesse of the Servant undertaking it Princes can and often do reward their Friends and Favorites the Parliament cannot or seldom doth it is besides their usual course to give besides their Friends expectance to receive other Salary then the redemption of their just Liberties for which they fight the maintenance of their ancient Birth-right conveyed unto them by the known Laws saving in some few particular cases where the Parliament shall meet with a desperately engaged and restlesse Enemy of great Power and Estate to fight and foment the Quarrel against on the other side some Friends Eminent in Desert of smaller Fortunes to fight for them In such a case to disseize their Enemy to diminish his power to invest and gratifie their Friend to augment his Fortune seems not unjust nor unreasonable But to return The distinction of Virtual and Personal seems offensive yea the Declaration calls it Trayterous which no indifferent man will judge until Victory by nature insolent makes every thing displeasing to the Conqueror Criminal As when those on the Kings side hoped to have over-run and conquered all no man wishing well to the Parliament durst name them joyntly whereas simply and univocally to hold for King and Parliament is the surest and most Loyal tenure Howbeit nothing can be with more anger and displeasingly received by the more perverse and insolent amongst His Majesties party then for them to hear those on the Parliaments side say that They are for the King and Parliament So the Quarrel hath several overtures of increasing the Parliament party taking it indignly at the Kings party's hands to be thought Disloyal False Dissemblers as the King 's expresse their anger with the Parliaments for saying They are for King and Parliament To believe or say that the King is seduced by evil Councel is in their heat and anger a wounding His Majesty through His Councels sides which exception of theirs must render Him infallible in judgement or so singular in wisdom as to be above or to stand in no need of Councel for if he makes use of Councel and erres by their Advice the Error is His Councels or must presume in Him such transcendency of Goodnesse in not inclining to any evil motion as is not competent to a Creature An impartial looker on will rather judge the words of His Majesties being seduced by Evil Councel to be a degree rather of Dutifulnesse then Disloyalty as freeing Him from Misdoings and laying the Charge on His Evil Councellors His Majesty is happier if free from these stiled by another * King Iames in His speech in Parliament 1609. calls them Traitors vipers c name then His
THE REASON OF THE WAR WITH The Progress and Accidents thereof Written by an English Subject VVherein also the most material Passages of the Two Books printed at Oxford in which His MAJESTIES party do undertake to justifie their Proceedings are briefly examined VIZ. The Declaration entituled Tending to Peace The Relation of The Passages at the meeting at UXBRIDGE Imprimatur July 1. 1646. NA BRENT LONDON Printed for Iohn Field and are to be sold by Stationers 1646. READER THere were some parts of this Book published the last year but passing from the Author in much imperfection and some baste it is revised and augmented according to the Progresse and Occurrences of the War Many of the Passages therein are his own Collections observed at single hand the rest produced through the Arguing and Discourse betwixt some opposite in opinion to him and himself a lover of Learning although of ordinary and too mean parts to Discourse it as an able Schollar for he cannot but acknowledge that the subject of this Treatise might have been managed by a more learned and elaborate hand The greater part thereof was begun about a twelvemoneth since in the turbulent and divided times by way of an Animadversary of the War of the Occasions and Accidents thereof and had been printed a good while since had not an unexpected chance crossed in the very instant of putting it to the Presse Now if in these more quiet and composed times the Beams of Peace seeming to shine out again it should give offence or in the least way interrupt the happy and hoped for Reconcilement which it doth not in the Authors sence and to his best understanding his heart is against the publishing the Discourse relating rather to what is past and may serve for future times It is probable that in these times of Conflict this Discourse as milde and plain as it is may meet with rough harsh answers and unkinde censurings as that the Author is an Ambidexter Neutral that he cunningly carries himself betwixt both parts sometimes and in some things for the King at other times and in other things for the Parliament Whereunto he replyes and ingenuously declares himself both for whom and against whom he is For whom For the King and Parliament Against whom Against the Disturbers of the happy Peace having long since been the authors and now the promoters consequently of this horrid War and that there are and have been such a woful and sad Experience doth manifest A favorable and upright interpretation is all the Reward the Author either looks or wishes for next unto That His Majestie and His Subjects may reciprocally enjoy and hold firmly and entirely their several Rights The Reason of the VVar with the Progresse and Accidents thereof TO describe the Power and Dignity of a King the quality and several formes of a Parliament is not the purpose of this discourse Or what Esteem a Parliament in other Kingdoms carrieth That is left unto the curious Pen of a more learned Antiquary In this Kingdom breifly In the ancient and usual acception it is an Assembly of the Nobility and Gentry chosen by their Country and solemnly called together by the King his writ to such a place at such a time to debate the affairs of the King and Kingdom The manner of being called is by * See the form of the Writ in the Crown Office Writ directed to the high Sheriff of every County as to the chief Magistrate of Burrough Towns to return Knights and Burgesses for that service so Habited viz. with swords girt on their sides c. Which habit a Note and Embleme of the valour in them required the Object to do and go on with Courage and Magnanimity in discharging their trust which their Country hath repoâ—ed in them against all Forces opposing And no Question if former Kings have deputed none to place of Justice but menltz valianntz as King Edw. 3. expresseth them none but such are to defend and serve their Country in the high Court of Parliament which controules and is to give Laws to Justice The end of their Assembling is to determine Ordain and provide for the peace Justice and safety the supreamest Law of the Kingdom called thereunto by his Majesty Entrusted by their Country Whose Councels and Ordinances become Laws Or in case of variance in Judgement that so many as are there met cannot all agree in the same opinion that passeth for a Law which the major part concludes on so it fares in every body Politique and Aggregative And those the Parliament Orders and Ordinances are binding to the Subject as Orders in Inferiour Courts of Chancery Common Pleas c. untill decrees and Judgements passe to confirm the same which decrees and Judgements in those lower Courts hold Analogy with Acts and Laws in the higher Court of Parliament The work and end of the Parliament being consummate the Laws enacted the Parliament then determining the King governes onely and supreame binding himself to observe those Laws by a double Oath Tacitely as being a King and so bound to Rule and govern according to the Laws Expresly by his Oath taken at his Coronation To speak in a plain grammatical and obvious way the Latine Etimon directs the duty of a King Rex is so called à Regendo Government is dispenced in wisdom and justice * From which text the Kings Party do contend that Kings are immediatly from God no more then as follows in the subsequent verse Nobles do Rule and judges of c. By me Kings rule saith the wisest of Kings and Justice exalts a Nation insomuch as when commands shall prove irregular either wanting the one or exceeding the Limits of either of these they provoke the people free borne Subjects to a loose obedience and the consequence commonly becomes dangerous The Peers and Gentry thus assembled and the Parliament now in being the Kings power is not so compleat and total having imparted it self to that Assembly if it be what then is the Parliaments power If they have no power they are assembled to no purpose if a minc'd and diminish'd power in whom doth it ly to lessen or to greaten it if in the King He then may by the same reason rule Arbitrarily and by his own will as well as over-rule a Parliament so whilst the King imparts the power which he hath by communicating it to that His Court of Councel He lesseneth it in Himself or retracts His Grace in assembling them which were a blemish to His Princely wisdom unsuitable also to that common presumption The King cannot do amisse The King as the Head of His People and Father of His Country is by the common opinion of all dutiful and sober Subjects to be obeyed simply in all things Lawful and Honest when there is no Court of Parliament in Being when there is a Parliament the Heart of that Body whereof the King is the Head betwixt whom an unity of Coalition is presumed
Birth-right of the English Gentry a supine and carelesse Ignorance let in in stead of the vertuous Emulation which they have alwayes studyed Seeing then Peace and Justice are the Blessings which the Subject lives by both Issues of Religion when to expect a blessing on a Kingdom The Kingdom of Heaven must first be sought Gods Worship especially provided for to be built on firm unshaken Pillars when the care thereof principally resides in those chosen men set apart for Gods and their Countreys service Their endeavor is to be fully ascertained of their Princes inclination thereunto that by His Countenance and Authority the love of Gods Honor may like the pretious Oyntment on his head run down to the skirts of his lower garments and so seated in his heart as all Jealousies to be abandoned all Evil and appearance thereof to be abstained from and the Parliament not to leave that in suspence or doubt which they would have provided to make more sure for it is not a transitory matter of Arbitrary Event or Chance to be or not to be performed but most weighty of great concernment and whereon the prosperity and welfare of the Common-wealth depends whether the Laws shall be kept entire and God certainly and constantly honored or whether the Laws shall be in danger to be broken his Name to be prophaned The main Jealousie grows by reason of an Army under the Conduct of Papists which no man will imagine is raised for the defence of the Protestant Religion for howbeit that there may be peradventure Papists in the Parliaments Army when as the number of them hath been great their Presumption increasing more and more the chief and eminent Commanders Papists are in the King 's And which is to be observed few of them miscarry in the Quarrel as not exposing themselves to the danger and hardship of the War as if they did hope through the effusion of Protestant blood and lessening their number under the name of Rebels to make unto themselves a Province yet both parties the Kings the Parliaments do professe the maintenance of the Protestant Religion And the Kings recriminatorily chargeth the Parliament with a Design to subvert the same The reason given is because Schismaticks or other the preciser sort relishing not the book of Common-Prayer are adhering to the Parliament Answ That Prayer is but a Form and humane Constitution although anciently received and of use directing us to pray blesse give Thanks c. And alterable by Authority upon devising a better Form But the difference betwixt Protestant and Papist is in Fundamentals as in Doctrine and Points of Faith so opposite as no man will judge that the parties on the one side will fight to maintain the others Cause Popery and Schism opposite in themselves agree in this that they both do undermine and seek the rooting out of the true Protestant Religion This participatively and by secret wiles That privatively and by open Enmity the one may be an aberration from the other is Idolatry and opposition to the true Protestant Religion What upon an upright discussion that is whether we take it in point of Manners or of Doctrine the one enjoyned by and comprehended in the Decalogue the other set down and fenced in by a moderne and learned * Mr. Rogers his 39. Articles Writer against the force and wiles of Popery and Schisme both parties the King and Parliament do contest for and protest to maintain the Protestant Religion so whilst there is no equivocation in the word Protestant Religion a divers acception may be in the extended sence the aforenamed Writer hath by his industry composed the difference in determining what it is and that agreed upon the contention as to that particular may cease Truth and Uniformity in Religion which cannot be without Accord without a distinct and certain knowledge what it is is the foundation and corner stone of Peace If in this Contention the Kings Army shall prevail many Papists engaged and Commanders in it what is like to be the sequel Those Papists and their followers will hope and challenge it as a condign Reward to have an especial interest in His favour because they say it was their Sword their Arme that got the victory so the King must tread a slippery and narrow path either to desert His friends who have assisted Him in this War or disabling Himself to make good His often Protestations for the maintenance of the Protestant Religion And if in this Quarrel Popery shall be let in when Justice and Law shall fail when every one given up to his own heart's Lust the Papists and other the Parliaments Enemies will in an exprobratory way thank the Parliament as the cause thereof It is true it may be said so accidentally and very remotely but neither the Impulsive Formal or Efficient cause rather if Logick will bear such a member in the division of causes a deficient cause as the absence or rather the Ecclipse of the Sun the cause of Darknesse their endeavours having failed of successe being interrupted by a strong and countermanding Power opposing them In a more fit resemblance if a Band of Souldiers should be sent out to guard a Town and a stronger Power then theirs to be imployed to oppose and master them in whom lies the fault in case the Town be lost in the watchmens deficiency or in the stronger Power opposing them so Popery and Treason the Parliament are guilty of alike and what other contumelies the wit and restlesse malice of their Enemies accuse them of And unlesse to every objection this opposite observation be applyed that in the whole course of this Quarrel there be a distinguishing between what hath been Intentionally and Principally aimed at and what hath accidentally and through necessity fallen out there can no clear judgement be given in deciding the Question How the War began who have been the Cause and Authors of these Miseries It may be as well objected by malitious and cruel Enemies that His Majesties Clemency and goodnesse have been the cause of so much blood already spilt for that he hath not put those whom His party call Rebels to the sword or hanged them to teach others their duty of Submission such Doctrines are spread abroad to foment the War when the Doctors themselves are the incendiary and impulsive means together with those Soldiers now in Arms which incites the surviving suffering people to make resistance least if they submit also as in many places they have done they are undone by it No marvel if Subjects be called Traytors and Rebels if resistance against opposition and violence be Rebellion the often Robbing and Spoiling used in the Kings name and for the King which were wont to be conservative and saving terms tending to peace and security but now grown destructive as the Souldiers use them to the Subject are able to turn him out of his natural and accustomed Frame Oppression saith the wise man makes wise men
mad violence and oppression practised in the Kings name and by His party and by degrees wrought to the destruction of the Subject diverts and alters His wonted course and may make him Rebel as it were against His will when as He is frightned driven from and threatened out of His obedience If on the other side the Parliament shall prevail those Enemies to Common-Prayer advers also to what Government the Church shall appoint may be easily over-ruled by a Parliamentary Authority The Authors and Fautours of those Before this time of War there were no such Schisms or Heresies Tautum res nobis saith learned Iewel cum quibusdam satellitibus Pontificiis c. and it is requisite that Vnity and Peace be setled in the Church as well as in the State for suppression of these Schisms and Heresies God delighting yea and requiring it to have Order and Truth in his presence chamber the Church as in his larger courts the Common-wealth The Authors of the War have been the Authors of these Heresies which side Schisms being few and inconsiderable their Tenents newly sprung up and apt to vanish both through the insufficiency of their grounds and multiformity of their Sects wounding and weakning one another and in the main the Common cause For it is the firm and Orthodox Protestants which are the Parliaments firm friends whereon to trust yea and their constant friends also whilst the Parliament goes on in an entire solid and joynt way and are as the Exigency of their Affairs shall suffer them constant to themselves whereby and by which way alone they are inabled to defend themselves to protect their Friends Which side will prevail God only knows who can dispose of Victories at his will If the Parliament shall the King neverthelesse could not but assure Himself that He should be entirely King howsoever part of His Estate be by reason of these Wars diminished and the Parliaments Protestation taken 1641. together with their late Covenant two years after for the maintenance of His just Power and greatnesse were good security until themselves were reputed Traitors Rebels their worth in like maner undervalued and scorned by His party for so the Protestation and Covenant both may lose their efficacy and intent if He for whom they do Protest and Vow shall by opposing disable them in the prosecution of their Vow To that Objection That the Parliament have contrary to such Covenant Usurped and Intrenched upon His Regal Dignity and by seeking to hinder His Power have lessened His Honor in passing an Ordinance against His Majesties creating of Lords c. in seeking to have their Friends Invested with Honors and Titles answerable to their demerits To the first it is confest an Ordinance is past against all such Acts as may inure by vertue of the Great Seal and Barons being made by Patent under the same Seal which being a necessary Instrument of State which the Parliament represents being surreptitiously taken from them contrary to a Trust they have consequently passed an Ordinance against the Creating of Lords ut Supra For the Contention betwixt Him and them being grown extreme the King striving by all means to lessen their Power and Credit using all ways to advance His own their Enemies they knowing likewise the Seal to be made use of to their Detriment as if that the Kings conferring those Honors were not so much an augmentation of His Dignity in granting or in the created Lords in receiving those Honors as an intended diminution to the Parliaments Dignity had reason to provide for the time against all contingent Acts tending to the lessening their Power Admit it to be as the Objectors give out which neither the Kings party do prove nor the Parliaments do grant as in other Acts done by the Parliament An Usurping in them Usurpation may in the strength of policy prove a benefit to the Subject in that Usurpers do commonly Establish the best Laws to redeem their Credit lost by the Injury done in their Usurping If the Kings party shall prevail the War being between Him and His People the Parliament rather an Umpire in the Quarrel to do right to the wronged part there will be two things considerable The means whereby He doth prevail The end of His prevailing The first means not primarily as in the strength or greatnesse of His party yet consequently in that His party do undividedly retain and keep up the Ancient and setled Form of Government without contesting or dissenting in opinion about the Establishing any new As on the other side the Parliament hath thrown down the old without for a long time setting up any other Form or Constitution It was a learned Fathers Observation Augustine Ipsa mutatio quae utilitate adjuvat etiam novitate perturbat And it will require a most exact deliberate Wisdom to suppresse all Inconveniences which may arise on Novity Hence it hath been that the Parliaments Friends have grown lesse zealous to their side more troublesom to the Court it self by requiring and seeking a new and certain Form Which may admit a twofold Answer that the Parliament interrupted by a powerful Enemy hath not a full measure of Efficacy to conform and compose every collateral difference happing either in Church or Common-wealth when as their Task is hard enough to maintain and keep a work more necessary Their own Power Secondly In that they have for a time abolished those ancient Forms and constitutions finding haply some present reason for so doing whether they will forthwith establish some other Forme as it is probable they will having long since promised it or reassume the Ancient when time shall serve there being no substantial difference betwixt what is now abrogated and what is to be Ordained is left to their wisdom besides it is presumed in point of Judgement and of Policy that they will have such respect unto their Predecessors Acts as not altogether to raze out to abrogate for ever their ancient Constitutions least succeeding Parliaments should do the like by theirs and so the Courts of Parliament which have been instituted for redresse of Mischiefs and Grievances c. should become See Statute Edw. 3. the Scene and Seminary of inconvenience and disturbance by introducing still Novelties and alterations in the Common-wealth The third is in that His Majesty keeping His residence in a lesse Town of Garison Oxford can more easily conform and subdue a few unto His will then the Parliament can in a more greater place London The multitude in that City the supplies and Ayd afforded by the City to the Parliament can counterpoise such odds The event of His Majesties prevailing is alike considerable and two-fold also first in that the Parliament Members already proscribed and charged with Rebellion are exposed to contempt and ruine in them a great part of the Subjects of both Kingdoms when as the cause wherein the Publique good is so much concerned is by idle and abject Fellows called
of a Traytor the Kings party calling him a Rebel who disobeying the Kings Commands resists The Parliament calling them Traytors Vipers and Pests to their King and Countrey who perswade and assist him in exceeding the limits of the Laws It is King Jame's In the same Speech in Parliament 1609. definition and who these be Peace only and a setled time for Judicature can try The Kings party accuse the Parliament of Dissembling and Hypocrisie and with that earnest Calumny as if they did exceed all others in that sin How easie a thing it is for either part to rail or scoff to call the advers part Rebel Hypocrite How easie also to stain the best and most honest Intentions with the nick-name of Dissembler Hypocrite Envy and ill-will can revile and accuse the best purposes and Goodnesse when it is quarrelled with must be mistermed otherwise the quarreller would blush to oppose or wrong it Nay a bare censuring serves not it must be aggravated to higher terms as never so notable and artificial a piece of Dissembling to contrive and compose Treason to palliate a Rebellion which is granted and as much confessed if a Rebellion if a Treason Malice and Contumely are of an ambient and large Circumference and Interpretation it is within the compasse of their liberty to give out in Speeches That the Parliament is the certain and only cause of these Distempers that every one well-wishing to that Court is a Rebel to the King that he who fights not in a present and impetuous way for the King is a Neutral that he who soberly discoursing what he knows or hath observed concerning these Distractions if it hath not made altogether for the King against the Parliament is a Malignant an Incendiary or hath any way assisted the Parliament or his Countrey to defend it is lyable to the censure of a Traytor In which Crime there being no Accessaries he is a Principal Doubtlesse very few have demeaned themselves so warily but shall finde an Enemy to accuse him were it but for hopes to purchase redemption to himself the Accuser as guilty as the Accused Some neighboring Counties fearing that the like Calamity might fall on them as on other parts of the Kingdom agreed like firm Friends and Servants to their Countrey in a joynt and mutual League to defend it against all formidable Force which might infest them To this mutual defence divers Gentlemen and Free-holders subscribed their Hands in nature of Associating the better to maintain their strength Others refused to subscribe as being discouraged from subscribing by the more able sort of Gentlemen of the Neighborhood engaged for the King at which time the King had an Army abroad wherefore whosoever offered to resist and repulse that Army might come within the compasse of the Statute of the 25. Edw. 3. An ordinary and competent foresight might have prevented many and imminent Mischiefs when as if other adjoyning Counties had in like maner mutually agreed as it was proposed unto them they had not been so harrassed and spoiled as now they are But as the case now stands what is to be done The Associations are entred into the hands of the Subscribers to be seen or inquisition to be made for all who did Subscribe whether hopes of Pardon to be procured by Price or Friends or to stand to the innocency of their own hearts If by Price who then the gainer Informers Promooters Witnesses shall get more by Pardons Fines and Forfeitures then the Exchequer or other his Majesties Courts of Revenue can If by Friendship the extremity of these false and desperate times will break through such Obligations of Friendship Truth or Consanguinity that few either can or will assist each other the Enmity having been for the most part between those of the same blood and every kindenesse prove mercenary if not counterfeit when as to Truth the maners of most will through the Falshood and Licentiousness occasioned by this War grow so corrupt as every man will be apt to learn the close and subtile posture thence be indeed thought politique of carrying as the Proverb is Two faces under one Hood that is of complying outwardly with that side unto which he is most advers As to Friendship each mans carriage to his friends like Caius Cotta's whom the Orator describing a cunning Craftsman in Ambition observes him polliceri omnibus praestare ijs tantum apud quos optime Cicer. Orat. poni arbitraretur beneficia that he gave good words to all men translated rather into all mens humble Servant good turns only to those from whom he might expect the most profitable return of such his Benefits But to look back to the present subject of this Quarrel and the several charges wherewith the contesting parties stand accused The substance of the charge wherein the Parliament are called Traytors by the Kings party is their opposing his Crown and Dignity yea some go farther their purpose to destroy his Person wherefore as guilty of such Treason to be opposed and fought against The Argument it is hoped and prayed for is from flalsly suggested premises unknown ungranted which Arguings are Fallacies and may be invented to divide the King and the Parliament for the Reasons before expressed so to engage the People to take part with the Accusers yet no question the Quarrel is grown so full of bitternesse and Malice as if the PARLIAMENT be born down there will not want Witnesses to prove such Treason The OXFORD Mercury indeed makes himself and his Readers merry with this Calumny he Jests and sayes They discharged and levelled their greatest Canon at the King to preserve his Honor and Person The PARLIAMENTS sad thoughts take no notice of his scoffing humor they leave him to make himself and his Friends merry by his Jesting 'T is true the King hath in his Person shewed himself in several Battels much against the supplication and importunity of his Subjects If two Armies do pitch a field the one earnestly disswading the approach of some eminent person in the other for fear of danger to that person if notwithstanding he shall unnecessarily expose himself to hazzard and look that the advers Army shall forbear to defend themselves in respect to that persons safety so to lye themselves at the mercy of the Enemy or not to fight at all no man in this case will think they intend to fight against that person From such reproachful Observations as that Mercury suggests and the Enemies to the Parliament may invent the Court must deeply suffer censure if born down under some ignominious attribute even to posterity as that Parliament in Henry the fourth's time branded with Indoctum another with Insanum as an * In a Book of an unknown Author printed at Oxford 16. 4. called The true Informer who by a Prosopopeia makes himself a Traveller and not to return untill the King shall have recovered His Scepter and the People their Sences Author already stiles
Art and might nothing left unattempted to awe and conquer them and which they judge most hard that Proclamations forbidding all Traffique unto the place of their sitting that other Messages some requiring Obedience others threatning and sent them where they sit to be debarr'd the publishing their Reason and Answer of not obeying which they cannot communicate thereby to satisfie the Kingdom in that all commerce and intercourse betwixt the King and them is inhibited by those his Proclamations Fear of a Prince's displeasure is a note of a Peoples subjection no lessening their just courage the Parliament have manifested both Submission Courage Courage in not yielding when they were weakest Submission in not refusing to Treat when strongest Former Princes have been best pleased to own such Subjects men of Valor and Constancy not terming those vertues Rebellion Treason when as Rebellion rightly understood may be against a State as against a King it may want a proper appellation otherwise King James as wise and discerning a Prince as the latter times have afforded throughout the Christian Empire erred much in delivering his judgement How he sets forth the Enemies to a State and the unhappinesse of that King who admits such his above recited Speech in Parliament 1609. hath mentioned in several passages thereof Misdemeanors intended and committed against a State are done with an high insolent hand and deserve an answerable punishment as well as against a King the State being a firm and well built frame of Government wherein the King and Kingdom is conerned The King although a Supreme Person yet a Subject to Infirmity The several threatnings published and violence offered the Houses of Parliament may well grow thin when those of the Kings party contend to make his Power absolute and unlimited thence in him to Punish Pardon and Reward at pleasure In him also or in themselves to Judge alone the consideration whereof might invite many to his party who at first deliberatively upon advice and best judgement promised their duty and affections to the Parliament since finding their strength decreased by the departure of many their fellow Members might think it unsafe to stay themselves They could not but foresee that the King offering to remove the Houses of Parliament to some other place the City of LONDON would be quarreled with as harboring those whom his Majesty calls his Enemies and from whence he was driven away as he and his party do complain by seditious Tumults Whether those Tumults were the true or suggested cause of his removing thence or the Letter written to disswade him from any compliant way with the Parliament but rather to betake himself to some remoter place elsewhere c. 'T is true there was at that time which his Majesty speaks of a great concourse of people about Westminster and White-hall and the Londoners languishing long as many Subjects elsewhere did under the heavy pressures of Injustice implored his Majesty and the Houses of Parliament for redresse every one being earnest to have Justice done with the first opportunity of the Parliaments sitting They might peradventure press too near and rudely to his presence but whether his Actions after such removing suited with the Instructions of that Letter then sent when the Jealousies did first begin let all men judge The Orators opinion was Nothing so elegant or Cicer. Offie good but words may stain yea and wrest it too to an ill sense The peoples numerous and importunate desire of Justice their pressing near to his Majesty is by the power of Oratory Seditious Tumults On the other side some taking part with the Parliament give out That the Book of Common Prayer is altogether Idolatrous the Church-Government by Bishops Antichristian There may be an Error and corruptive use in this or any Form yet not to be mark'd by such Attributes Nothing also as the same Orator observes so harsh or horrid but the eloquence of words can mitigate and excuse The impetuous coming of great numbers of Armed men with Swords and Pistols following the King when he came to the House of Parliament to demand the six Impeached Members is by vertue of milde language the * In the Kings Answer to the Declaration from the Lords and Commons 1642. single casual mistake of the King the indiscretion of some few rash Gentlemen Which by the way the disaffection born by his Majesty to the City the place of the Parliaments sitting presaged all possible means to be devised of dividing the place and the Parliament met there which could not be better managed then by excepting against that and adjourning to some other place To speak it plainly it was the Cities Assistance and Affection to the Parliament which caused the Anger for be it spoken to their perpetual Glory the happy correspondence betwixt the City the place of security for that Court and that Courts consulting for the Cities and the Publique good hath hitherto next under Gods Protection delivered Both the City and the Parliament It follows next in point of Conscience which is to be obeyed the King divided from the Parliament or the Parliament as the King is the Head and eminent part of the Parliament the Parliament the Heart of the King although the Head may be forceably or otherwise turned then the Heart directs the Heart is neverthelesse the same nor to be thought divided from the Head Wherefore the Parliament residing there where it was first Summoned and the King there vertually * The Commissions cannot otherwise work then to a Parliament wherefore if his Majâ—sties personal presence be a necessary part of Parliament without which there can be no Parliament the Commissions can be of no force his absence making it no Parliament The granting which lets in other inconveniences upon dispute touching the locality of his presence as where whether in his Throne within the walls of the House or in his Court adjoyning The King and his Majesty are as it were inseparable Majesty is proper to him alone only his Attribute somtimes we say the King somtimes His Majesty neither is any mans person any more then a corporeal substance It is the Minde the Soul the Dignity and qualifications thereof which do as the Philosopher speaks inform and give being unto man Neither can it be thought that a personal contiguity is to be required of the King to be within the Parliament walls no more then the Body of the Sun to descend and touch the Earth when as it sufficeth that by its power and influence it gives heat and nourisheth a Commission for passing Bills in his absence and a Law in force for transacting matters when he is absent by Commission to convey his Royal Assent 33. Hen. 8. Obedience is due to the Parliament so considered viz. his Majesty in his lustre power and vertue being there incorporate with those his Faculties and whosoever resists that Court resists the King as Head Herewith suits the * Rom. 13. Apostles
exhortatory command of subjection to the higher Powers Powers they are without doubt high also and eminent otherwise the Countreys made an ill choyce out of eminent persons to elect inferior and mean men to enact Laws The Apostles text forecited intendeth not a King simply in His person only but all powers of governing nor them as governors in whatsoever they do but for the reason there subjoyned Their just demeanors as being the Ministers of God for the Subjects good to take vengeance of evil doers otherwise Saint Peter his peremptory text It is better to obey God then man were of lesse value and might seem to contradict Saint Pauls exhortatory Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers But to the difference in the object of obedience obedience is in common judgement most due to that power which is freest from the possibility of Error A King may sooner erre then a Parliament may no man can simply accuse that Court of permanent Actions of injustice for whatsoever they do Establish or Ordain is made just and lawful unto us in that they do it whilest we live and are born under laws They may by some latter Act repeal or moderate the rigour of an ancient or former Law without Error or injustice doing The managing their course of enforcing of imposing upon the Subjects Liberty and Right of requiring him to contribute to the maintenance of this War may not altogether unfitly be resembled to the course of a skilful Chirurgion who when a Patient's leg being broke is ill set he breaks the leg anew although with torture to the Patient his reason of breaking the same again is to set that right which by ill setting was displaced The Parliament findes the Laws broken justice turned out of it's propper channel they in the prosecution of a War necessarily to be maintained for the recovery and restauration of the Laws to their former state break those Laws again they enforce the subjects to pay the charge of Souldiers raised therefore not with an intent to continue such exactions but only during this time of War which by the peoples free submitting to the Parliaments impositions will the sooner end the one not laying heavier loads then the Subjects can bear nor the Subjects repining at what the Parliament shal impose and all upon a serious and just debate of what may fall out but necessary for a War being to be waged in defence of the Laws Government and Protestant Religion which by subtil and secret practises hath been long since oppugned who is to bear the charges of the War but they for whose sake and safety it is raised Qui sentit commodum sentire etiam debet onus money is the sinews of War War the end of Peace Peace the Subjects Blessing if he voluntarily contribute not and be enforced it is no impeachment of his Liberty and whither a War be to be waged is the result of this Discourse If the Subject by reason of such Tax and Impositions be lessened in or brought beneath his ordinary port of living his hope of enjoying his former Peace and Safety is his relief a litle enjoyed with quiet better contenteth the Subject then a great deal with travel and contention of Spirit whereupon the wise mans saying doth reflect in the comparison betwixt a dinner of hearbs with Peace then a stalled Ox with contention better to live on a morsel for the present with Peace and Right to what a man liveth on then to fare plenteously in fear of strife without the Justice of the Law measuring out each mans portion Again in that some of the * To indure for a time only transient actions of the Parliament may seem harsh and rigid yea intrenching deeply on the private Estates of men as matters now are in these loose and confused times when Law and Justice fail in most parts of the Kingdom yet relating to the publique good and common end of Peace not altogether unjust in the determinate acts of Justice no more then when houses in a street on fire the contiguous house pull'd down to save the whole street can be thought a determinate wrong or any wrong at all except to the private person whose house it is The distinction between Injusta facere Injuste facere is old this commonly and purposely to do unjustly that sparingly and accidentally to do things unjust wherefore the condemning of the Kentish men to dye for the late insurrection 1645. in that County instanced in as an act of cruelty might seem unjust and beyond the letter of the law in that all Rowts and unlawful Assemblies are by the Statute in that case provided construed as Misdeameanors only and punishable by Fine and Imprisonment Ans The Insurrection there was of a different nature in a more seditious and turbulent time the unlawful Assemblies at the time of enacting that Statute were as of a lighter kinde so to be punished by a lighter penalty This when the Subjects Liberty invaded the supreamest Court of Indicature oppugned and a Kingdom hereby divided within it self when for the mutual defence of each other some Counties thereof shall associate without any farther aim then by their joynt strength to repulse an Enemy in case he shall invade Such an Insurrection as was then made to disturb the Unity of such Association is more then an ordinary Rout intended by that Statute and to be tried and punished by the Justice of a Parliament To examine His Majesties demeanour suits not not with the tenour of this discourse whither He be considered in His Absolute quality of Wise Valiant Temperate or in his Relative towards his people as what His manner of Government hath been since His first comming to the Crown God and the Kings own heart can best judge and determine To repeat invectives here neither becomes the Author nor avails the Cause preventives of future evils are a better Antidote then Accusations are a cure for what is past Many passages now extant and in print from LONDON and OXFORD being fully set forth by the one excused and answered by the other side have made known His Government But to what happened since this War was waged which party the lesse unjust which more to be obeyed That which actually did offer wrong or that which being necessitated to raise Arms for their own defence and consequently prove the passive Authors of a Civil War might offer injury The Declarations and Remonstrances published of late with the Answers and Replications thereunto have set forth the matters of Fact and both parties challenging now yea enforcing obedience from the people the Reader is to Judge unto whom it is most due If in His Majesties demanding ship-money He hath lost any of His Subjects affections He may thank them who perswaded Him to the Justice and Legality thereof which whether it were lawful or not is learnedly argued by His * In the case of Ship-money Solicitor General The affections of
the people are for the most part measured by the deportment of the Prince so reciprocal is the obligation so natural the relation betwixt a King and His Subjects and how desirous His Majesties Predecessors have been of their Subjects love is fresh in Memory They knew and were protected by it that Fides magis tuetur quam satellitium their Subjects affections to be a surer Bulwark then their own Guard King James protested In the same Speech the enjoyment of His Subjects love and His possession of their hearts to be His greatest earthly security next the favor of God and so to be accounted of by any wise or just King Queen Elizabeths tender affections and care towards Camdens Annals Her people was expressed in that she took it ill that any man should think a Father loved his Children better then she her People Affections are not to be enforced when they are they turn into fear and are not durable Love hath a univocal generation begetting Issue like it self as the face in water answereth the face so the heart of man to man If Kings love not their Subjects whom God hath therefore made them Lords of their Raign is dangerous and where Subjects return not the like duty the Obligations being mutual their guilt of unthankfulness and disloyalty in infamous where the fault now is Peace only and such Laws as follow on it can resolve the Question But sure it is that the peoples free and unconstrained affections run for the most part all one way their * May 1641. Protestation lately taken binds them to an unity of concurrence they are sensible of the several parts thereof tending all to the maintenance of Gods Honor the Kings welfare the Subjects Right and Liberty no one part crossing or contradicting the other if it should it could not be safely taken and it is strange that in this great and Civil Discord the people being free to chuse which part to side with there should be such an aversnesse and disaffection in them unlesse on most vehement causes of suspition above ordinary Fears and Jealousies descending even to whole Families and Countreys for few or no one Countrey let men frame and flatter what they please more Malignant more Loyal then another excepting where the Kings power hath its residence the Authority and strength whereof subjugating the peoples hearts the Factors for that power pressing and protesting the Justice of their own party so seasoning and possessing the Subjects hearts with Calumny and prejudice against the other party together with some Gentlemen of note deeply engaged and stickling in their Countreys where they have power to make good that part which they take for their own sake and safety and those few have some Followers Tenants Servants or Mercenaries Nor one Town more Loyal then another or more Malignant taking the Malignancy against which side you will saving where some obnoxious persons of Eminency or Power hath Pre-eminence above the rest or where a chief Town in a County since this War began hath a more stout and expert Commander in it to Govern and keep the same against all Force opposing it wherefore what a mistake it is to call this Countrey or Town more or lesse Malignant more or lesse Loyal when as all men in a natural duty do and desire to serve the Countrey wherein they are born and live The Orator excepting against the ease and quiet Cicer. of many men did long since direct them in the gratitude which they owe unto their Birth and Breeding distributing their Duty and Endeavors into several portions Partem Parentes Partem Amici Partem Patria vendicat what their Countrey is what the Representative Body is already declared The King as Head thereof whilest joyned to the Heart and Members is implicitely meaned * Partem Patria One part the Countrey is explicitely set down Which terms of Malignant Loyal unquestioned before this War began hath much distempered the Common-wealth and set a difference even between the nearest Friends where Nature and Desert hath put an Unity Malice and Mistakings hath made Dissention that it falls out in these Kingdoms as in Israel and Judah two parts of a Nation we are no longer a Tribe and a Tribe but we are divided Kinred against Kinred Family against Family Son against his Father a Daughter against her Mother and a mans Foes to be those of his own House Nay it is a more intestine Discord betwixt a man as it were and himself the Body and the Minde between the outward Estate and inward Conscience When a man to save his Estate shall expose his Conscience having premeditately and on judgement resolved to betake himself to one side soon after for fear of losing his Estate or upon the turn of Victory hath submitted to the other against the consent of his own heart and conscience The prosecution of which War hath had several rises and beginnings many passages to increase and adde fuel to the Contention the Kings party always crossing and altering even in matters Arbitrary and Indifferent what the King and Parliament did on good reason institute Others of more moment as namely His * See the Articles of the large Treaty pag. 16. Demand 4. granted by His Majesty August 1641. Majesties gracing and preferring to His nearest secresie and trust a person whom His Majesty and Parliament did accuse and Proclaim guilty of High Treason Divers other matters of debate might happen to inflame the Discord one more particularly and remarkably concerning the Earl of Strafford who in the Dispute whether he should suffer or not had gained the most powerful and eminent Members as he thought of both Houses of Parliament on his side and the King to intercede as far as he might with Justice to acquit the Earl A sixth part at the most of the Members against the Sentence of his suffering might be peradventure troubled that their power and suffrages were over-matched and thinking much that they could not prevail to acquit the Earl have probably nourished thence an emulous spirit towards their fellow-Members the Debate whereof could not but adde unto the fuel of these Dissentions and so prove a prosecution of this War Thus the fire of War being kindled two principal parties have appeared in a martial posture And which first began unto whom was violence first offered in robbing and spoyling and the like is reported severally according to the affections of the Reporters a just estimate without varying in matters of considerablenesse is hardly to be had The King and His party say he intended no War the Parliament sayes Their's is defensive only the Proverb is The second blow makes the affray the first it is sure gives the offence The Kings coming in a Warlike manner attended with so many armed men to demand the six impeached Members resembled as much as for that present might be a Warlike act But a Warlike act and a War differ not much more then
a disposition to a habit and a habit to it self 'T is true there wanted time and preparations to make it a perfect War and neither WESTMINSTER nor LONDON were a fit scene for War the preparations were elswhere made in many parts of the Kingdom by men who have been active for His party and large contributors to this War against the Parliament have evidenced the symptomes of a War and their assistance whensoever it should be waged To prove the Kings assertion that He in His Person intended no War divers of His Nobility then attending Him have * See their Attestation at York Iune 1642. attested it under their hand writing which the Court of Parliament urges as too light a proof to discharge their Trust or to secure three Kingdoms by a Civil War being then in agitation the seed already sown Who may they say can witnesse or be security for another mans intentions for what another man doth purpose in his heart or who being present with the King dare call in question His sincerity t is all one to tell Him He is false or wicked a Kings anger is as the roaring of a Lyon If two or three begin what third fourth or more will refuse to joyn in the attesting it being present there His Majesties heart may be peaceable and sincere but a Certificate from those Lords is no Medium to prove it so Those Lords it 's like had a cheap esteem of their fellow-Lords and Commons and might well think fit rather to be quarrelled then joyned with if the Parliament the supreamest Court of Judicature and Trust shall so slighly discharge their Trust as to place the Peace and security of three Kingdoms on so easie a proof as a few though very Honorable Gentlemen to deliver what their opinion barely was concerning the Kings intentions a discord arising and a Civil War in view His Majesty exasperated as it was feared a party ready to joyn with Him some whereof having taken part with Him in His first assault others of the like condition to assist Him on pretence of Loyalty the Parliament Members many of them being accused of high misdemeanors and few scarce free from the incursion of His Majesties displeasure the debate concerning the Earl of Straffords trial being scarse wiped out were necessitated as well in their own defence as in the peoples involved in theirs to take up Arms to keep off those storms already acted and attempted which if they had not done and timously provided a face of War appearing against the like assaults it would have been thought a weaknesse of spirit or want of prudence if they had desisted besides the happinesse as to us which probably might have accrewed by the assembling a Parliament must have turned unto much unhappinesse by the affronting and overthrowing this as to the Parliament how incompetent it had been to their judgement in case the Trust reposed in them and the important Affairs of the Kingdom the end of their Assembling should have miscarried through their credulity to have made no better return of their wisdom the peoples trust then for them to have excused the same by saying We had not thought it would have so faln out As to the Acts of Violence and Injustice practised by the partakers in this War as of Robbing Spoyling and the like who first began the Kings party or the Parliaments They accuse each other of the first breach of Justice The Kings party aver The Lady Savage's House in ESSEX to be the first which was assaulted and spoyled of much of her Goods and Houshold-stuffe to an exceeding value Whether so or not or the Earl of Stamfords House in Leicestershire as the Parliament party urges the case is of a differing quality For howbeit there may be Injustice in the one as in the other act of Pillaging The Lady Savage being a known and convict Recusant a Law in force for disarming Papists and His Majesties Proclamation of Displeaâ—ure published the year before against Recusants c. the people suspecting their strength and opportunity to increase and supposing her preparations might be therefore made the better to enable her self against the Law remembring also His Majesties Proclamation did in pursuance of such Law and Proclamation without any Superior Warrant assault and Pillage her as is urged These particular acts could not but foreshew a war which since hath happened and setting those aside the Question is on which side the offensive is The extreme terms and parties in this Quarrel are a Delinquent party on the one and a Parliament a Court of Judicature on the other side or if the King will against His Subjects will and their humble importuning Him make himself a party betwixt a King and the greater part of His Kingdom the Parliament only the Umpire to judge and moderate the Quarrel A War thus happening and parties thus engaged 't is not now who first intended an Offensive who a Defensive War but who first executed a Warlike act or appeared modo guerrino which the Laws do forbid to Subjects and the King the Defender of those Laws to make the offended party provide for themselves the King against the Parliament or the Parliament against the King The Parliament to bring offendors unto Tryal the end and reason of their Assembling to sit as a speculative and ignavous Court or to dissolve as having nothing within their Power to do could not in an ordinary and usual course summon and reach offendors Themselves proscribed and proclaimed against as Traytors were enforced to take up Arms as well for their own as the peoples safety which if they did not and in time provide against their Ruine they had had no other Reward for the present but pity from their Friends and scorn from their Enemies The future inconveniences might have been as fatal like a Consumption leisurely to spend the body or as a Civil War like a burning Feaver suddenly to kill it They then upon foresight of what they could not avoid but either to pursue the Justice of their Cause by Arms or to desist and submit to the mercy of their Enemies provide and send forth an able faithful General proved by his Prowesse in rescuing and relieving a besieged * GLOUCESTER stoutly and like an expert Commander relieved without as vigilantly and valiantly defended by the Governor within Town or Fort when the Enemy had well nigh prevailed Next after him they send forth another Puissant and Dexterous in his Atchievements with other Officers and Commanders belonging to an Army hazarding their own persons and Estates to try whether the Countreys which have chosen and sent them on their work would now defend and assist them in imminence of danger in the Cause of maintaining the Laws the Subjects Liberty the Power and Priviledge of Parliament In the Interruption of whose Endeavors a War is waged a Conflict entred into two parties opposite engaged and the Victory hath been therefore doubtful by reason of
the equal strength in the one for the King and Parliament with the other for the King against the Parliament both sides equal in degree and worth The odds only in that those for the King and Parliament contend not peradventure in so temporary seeming and immediate a way of Service as those for the King against the Parliament in their impetuous and inconsiderate heat amongst their own party best accepted as having at first sight a more seeming test of Loyalty more dreadful to the advers part as being the more full of cruelty Those for the King would not be thought Adversaries to a Parliament in a direct and immediate opposition to that Court for all seem to reverence the Law and the Law makers but consequently and forseeingly what course the Parliament did take to suppresse Abuses and Exorbitances in the Common-wealth which haply those advers persons might be guilty of The Adversaries to which Court are branched into several sorts the Verses found at their first fitting declaring what Members were competent alone for imployment in the Parliament glanced at many of those who were likely to prove advers thereunto No Church-Papist no Court Atheist No Fen Dreyner nor Lords Reteiner No man commended from the Lawn Sleeve Nor Ship-money collecting Sheriff out of which some chosen have approved themselves firm Friends and Patriots to their Countrey Besides these recited in these Rimes are First Obnoxious and guilty persons corrupt in place and Office therefore troubled to be overlook'd by a Superior power who might examine their Demeanors Amongst which numbers some not from the first or habitually offending but for some later and particular act of Inconstancy having erred persist therein in forsaking the trust in them reposed 2. Others of ambitious and aspiring thoughts or of a proud conciet or envy scorning to partake with others their Equals in opinion thinking withall that it smels too much of the Yeoman of a Peasant and vulgar quality to take part with or serve their Countrey 3. Some through Levity and Humor of a crosse and advers condition affecting Paradoxes venting thence the strength of their own wit and boldly descanting on the Court of Parliament their actions as if the more Honorable that Court is the more fit a Combitant for their great wits to foyn and fence with 4. Others from an ill will and disaffection to some person of the Parliaments side which the disaffected hope may prove Rebellion in such person have therefore adhered to the King against the Parliament 5. Others not much differing from these who seeing their immediate Ancestor Father Brother or some other unto whom they are next in Remainder or near in Blood to have assisted the King and Parliament therefore in danger to be questioned and knowing it to be in the King to Punish and Reward hoping for Reversion of such Estate upon their Ancestors Attainder have therefore assisted the King against the Parliament 6. Others of the like mould dividing as it were by contract and suiting their affections as the father to the one the son to the other side so the one is to be a saver by the bargain let the victory fall out which way it will This is the easiest and uncertainest way of Policy if there be any who practice it if I had said the worst way to it had been no wrong done to the Contractors because the War hath been by no means so much protracted as by the Collateral interests Conscience and Judgement being excluded 7. Others who having lived in Forraign Countries of a more free and absolute Government then this mixt Monarchy is deeming all manner of obedience due in whatsoever a King commands because it hath been paid to the King where these persons have lived and seeing That universal obedience denied to our King as matters now stand have therefore settled their affections to His party and having so setled think it now an undervaluing their Judgement to alter their opinion 8. Others of an easier Temper yet as obstinate as any of the rest from somelight courtesie from the one or discourtesie from the other side have taken parts and taking it on trust that all maner of obedience is Loyalty all disobedience Rebellion have been through such opinion drawn unto His Majesties party and reteining still the impression wherewith they were first seasoned think it now shame to quit the same unto whom notwithstanding the terms on which this division grows have been so doubtful that the very first impression hath alone weighed in guiding their Affections for the peevish pride and folly of making good their first impression on no others grounds then because the first which they think scorn to alter hath strongly wrought upon many in this contention If any the Inhabitants in or about LONDON doubtful at first which side to take and since the time of the Proclamation set forth against that City be advers to the Parliament some through pretext of Duty to the King many upon the hopes of gaining pardon when He shall have prevailed others upon other grounds as having debtors in His Army and Quarters wish well unto His party in hope to receive their debts others not so much out of Loyalty to the King as discontented and displeased with the Parliament for imposing payments towards this War finding withall a discontinuance of their usual trading to defray this new and unexpected charge and ready to believe that His Majesties distance from White-Hall and His other adjoyning Palaces together with the peoples absence from the Courts of Judicature are a detriment to their present trading and that the Parliament is the cause of all These men are sensible only of a present pressure at the instant not looking to what is past or future like impatient and peevish patients who think no pain comparable to what they at the present feel But how to avoid the charge of the above recited Proclamations leaving none unpardoned of the city these men may imagine that they play their game most cunningly and trusting on pardons underhand may prove Enemies to their fellow-Citizens who joyntly acting for the Cities good these men it is to be feared do countermine and work against the same For admit in a corporation or society opposed by a powerful Enemy some few of the society shall upon suspition had that some of the same fellowship do covertly serve the Enemies turn by givnig intelligence or otherwise assisting him and in so doing provide for their own safety in case the enemy shal prevail wherefore those upon such suspition shal conclude to be as wise in providing alike for their own safety also By such divisions sinister suspitions the Unity being disturbed a way is consequently prepared to the ruine of the whole at last Others there be more danrous then these who having some special Friends in the Quarters or Army of the Enemy are Factors where they live for such their friends who preferring their private and ambitious ends before
Divers also of a luke-warm temper not Moderate but Neutral rather Issachar like couching down betwixt two Burthens reserving the tribute of their affections for the stronger side their condition not unlike to Water-men in a rough Tide Rowing for safety from one Shore to another yet discerning the difference of the Cause in question and in their judgements satisfied which is the more just do weigh withall whose Actions the Kings parties or the Parliaments are the more Cruel and for fear of that which is the more cruel betake themselves to that presuming upon the Lenity of the more milde and merciful as not likely to exceed the Limits of Justice in their punishings Others of mixt affections adhering to the King in some of His Tenents to the Court of Parliament in some of theirs and none so sure a lover to the Parliament or Adversary to the King but will think that the Parliament in some of their transient Acts may deviate and go astray The Kings party may in other things maintain a probable right yet that doth not distinguish these mens affections or make them lesse vehement to the party they affect For the extreme and adequate terms in this Division are an actual invading the Subjects Right setled by an Ancient and Fundamental Law on the one and an endeavoring to maintain and preserve the same on the other part The other Disputes between the King and Parliament concerning Church-Government and the manner of Divine Worship are collateral only and incident to this contention and might have been left unquestioned and intire had not this War touching a more principall object happened and may soon yet be reconciled when as little different in themselves And these men mistermed luke-warm or neutral will approve themselves as affectionate and constant to the Parliament as any of those who misterm and censure them And of this sort many there are who have wisely and warily carried themselves with fervour and constancy to that part although commended in a malevolent envious way and taken notice of by their enviers repining at their well-doing for playing their game so wisely Divers also of the other side to comprehend them all in a few words ignorant peevish and currupt in manners as in judgement as Schismatiques and Sectaries snarling at and despising all Government are seeming to adhere to the Parliament against the King it is sure against His Government no friends to the Parliament but instruments and glad at these Distempers whereout they suck no small advantage and certain Enemies when time shall discover them to the peace of the Church and State The Quarrel would end the sooner if all men who partake therein would deliberately and seriously examine within themselves on what grounds and for what respects they have wished best to the one or to the other side and if they have in a hasty and precipitate way erred in point of judgement to retract their Errors the two known premises of * Secunde cogitationes sunt sapicutores the second thoughts are commonly the wisest and no * In sapientem non potest cadere injuria Senec. injury can befall a wise and resolved spirit afford one safe conclusion that it is no injury to the Credit of any man to change his opinion upon better grounds and if it were his wisdom can keep off the injury If Reason Conscience Duty were the rule alone wherby to guide the affairs and mindes of men collateral and sinister ends as is elsewhere set down excluded or the distinction well observed betwenn Time and Eternity and the difference between the dimension of these and the reward due after the fruition of either there had been much lesse blood spilt and the accompt lain more lightly on the blood shedders The Series of the War declared the partakers known who have been the Authors what the Cause of this Contention the Parliament by the event of what hath happened have been traduced and censured the Authors the occasion The proper cause is Injustice and Oppression by whom committed follows if Justice exalts a Nation by the rule of Contraries Injustice must overthrow it T is true this calamity these pressures these divisions and Schisms have happened in the time of the Parliaments sitting yet that Court no more the Cause thereof then Augustus Caesar's Raign the cause of Christs birth He was born in the time of Augustus Raign This Calamity befel in the time of the Parliaments sitting If the Parliament any cause at all it is a very remote and least principal not to be reckoned positively a cause No man can reasonably think them to be the cause that when as Discord doth waste and rend the strength which they have gained by Policy and friends they will endanger the losse thereof by the weaknesse of Dissention In a serious and Christian apprehension of these Calamities the supreme and original cause is our National Iniquities Pride Falshood Luxury contempt of Gods Word and His Laws and the like drawing down the Anger of a just God but that His other attributes of mercy which is over all His works His long-suffering and plenteousnesse in Goodnesse can cancel and supersede that of His justice if the fault be not supinely ours when as if the commemorating of His readinesse to forgive be no Doctrine of presumption to embolden sinners He often spares for His elect for a few righteous Mens sake the rest In the rank of natural and lower causes Injustice as even now spoken of in the subordinate Ministers of justice which grindes the face and adds to the number of the poor hath been the proper and certain cause although the * Mr. Jo Heywood on the life of Hen. 4. Historian stateth it plainly against a King Himself to private men saith he it is sufficient that they do no wrong but a Prince must provide that none under Him do wrong for by the winking at the vices of His Officers He makes them His own One other sin of a latter date may be added to the number of the causes of the continuance of this War for which God is justly angry and hath severely threatned the faint and perfunctory keeping of the Protestation and Covenant entred into rather of not keeping it at all in many of this Kingdom for whilest in the close of the Protestation we shall vow to endeavour by all honorable and just ways c. In which words some measure of Activity at least is requisite When thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord thou shalt not be slack to pay it and wherein many have not Deuteron 23. only deserted this their vow but endeavoured against the same Others contemplative only and remisse as not endeavouring at all but with cautious reservations and forbearances keep off their endeavourings believing as the Lazy Souldiers whom the * Livie Historian noteth to have dreamed their Enemies votis sedendo debellari posse Wishings and sitting still are no sufficient discharge of the
other Acts in several Counties for raising money c. or otherwise for discharging some Trust to them committed when as themselves the more eminent the more aimed at by the Enemy and the nearer to danger cannot appear with safety to execute the same Let any man suppose it to be his own case then he will not blame them for absenting themselves and substituting others in their room Many are the objections in this kinde which beget Disputes many accusations had against either part What the Parliament findes and complains to be practiced in opposition to them by their Enemies they observe most sensible presumptions for no one thing in bar to such presumptions to make up one tittle of compensation in lieu of the dangers which might happen or to give any the least satisfaction for removing the imminency of the same The vulgar and common salve used by His Majesties party of His passing bills since the Parliament began for the relief and ease of His Subjects as a pledge of His Princely goodnesse and care of His peoples welfare His often and deep Protestations for the maintenance of the Protestant Religion and the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom yet as matters now are these Acts of His not compensatory to those hostile Acts practiced by His party against His Parliament and people Besides those Acts of Parliament passed by His Majesty are in His and a new Parliaments power to retract or repeal them at pleasure For let it be granted that they were Acts of Parliament which His Majesty hath thus passed in that the Members of both Houses at WESTMINSTER are by His party denied to be a Parliament yet sometimes called a Parliament sometimes Rebels there is like to be little stability in what they have enacted neither is that which is contingent and possible to be altered to be adjudged compensatory to what is certain and actual The difference of times that they were reputed a Parliament when those Acts passed but since reputed Rebels or the distinction into persons that some are reserved to be a Parliament others Rebels will breed a greater confusion then help to frame an Answer by those of His Majesties party who object this favour of His Majesties passing divers Bills for the welfare of His Subjects c. That they may be repealed altered in part or all dissolved or want their vigour in execution it is probable when the persons who have and are the chief assistants in this War are the greatest Losers by those Acts recited Next as touching His Protestations His frequent Declarations of manifesting His intentions His late actions of Clemency and Pardon shewed to those whom he calls Rebels when they were taken prisoners at a late Seige by His Majesty His releasing and setting them free when He might have detained and proceeded against them as Traytors and Rebels in the judgement of His party These are to be acknowledged indulgent and merciful Acts becoming a just and Christian Prince yet they may be two wayes understood First in relation to the good of His own party prisoners in the Parliaments power and in danger to have suffered the like in case the King should have punished theirs Secondly those His Acts of releasing of His milde using of those His prisoners it is possible might be construed as present Acts of Clemency to endure only for a time and that He may be perswaded afterwards to punish them as Rebels These are times of wit and jealousie and the same Reasons which have occsioned this War even His peoples Jealousies may continue them without abatement there is no lesse cause of fears and dangers His party having tried every way by traducing the Parliament at home by attempting to set them at varience with Forraigners abroad having moved every stone as the Proverb is to subdue those whom they term Rebels no way left untried to take away their power and shadow of power no means left unassayed either milde of Inviting or violent in Affrighting and those plausible and gratious Acts used possibly to encrease yet the number of his party may cease from a total pardoning only remitting for a time until a full Conquest be obtained And when the Crown is repossest the Conquest fully had the French Proverb tells us Que la Coronne unifois prinse oste toute sorte de defaults i. e. that when the King shall be reinvested to His former full Power and Regal Dignity the Parliament and the power thereof then laid aside and become void the possessing of the Crown doth as well quit all quarrels and acceptions and cancels all disputes as it clears and purifies all manner of defaults imperfections or exceptions to be made concerning the means whether fair or foul of gaining the Conquest As Jealousies have been the cause of this Contention so what the cause of Jealousies The principal and most certain one hath been in matter of fact namely the infringing the Subjects Liberty soon after the Petition of Right was granted in full Parliament to be omitted here because set forth in several Declarations and Remonstrances One and more universal was that in the case of Ship-money which had it not been withstood by a Gentleman of repute let his Ghost be railed at and a Parliament soon after summoned what had become of the Subjects Liberty If a Writ comes down directed to a Sheriff of a County he bound by Oath or fearful of incurring displeasure in case he refuse to execute the Kings Writ and having the Posse Comitatus within his Office what remedy shall the poor Countrey man have dwelling one hundred or two hundred miles from the Court if he refuse or hath it not to pay against Imprisonment or his Goods taken from him by Distresse Justice hath its boundary and is circumscribed by Law Injury and Injustice like the violent Torrent of an Inundation over-flowing the Banks and Metes overwhelms and drowns as Decency and Order when bound up by good and wholsom Laws if disturbed and broken down falls into Uncertainty Indiscretion and becomes Confused Let men talk of fears and jealousies and in an Ironical way smile at those whose peculiar care is to prevent and remove the same no man knows what the Progresse of that wrong had been had it not been withstood The mention whereof seeing so often inculcated in other Writings can be no pleasing Theme to any Subject And whereas His Majesty hath confessed and retracted that His Error being now condemned to an utter abolition ought to be buried in Oblivion neither doth it become every ordinary Subject to traduce and accuse His Soveraign of Injustice doing it comes too near to what the wise man expresly forbids of Cursing the King in their thoughts as of what the Statute Law provides against Only to satisfie one Objection used by some of His Majesties party in His behalf touching the same Better say they the payment thereof should have continued then so much blood spilt such vast Sums of Money spent in
the maintenance of this War and the Subject thus impoverished The Parliament grants as much that of two evils the lesser is to be chosen where of necessity one must happen as in case of inevitable necessity that Wisdom and Industry cannot prevent if otherwise Necessitas non excusat quae potuit esse non necessitas saith a learned * Tertullian Father of the Church acutely When the Princes Treasure and Revenue suffice not for the Common good as when the Realm is invaded or any notable Rebellion of the Subjects happeneth such an Invasion or Rebellion as is not procurata not simulata but vera gravis manens He may then by the common opinion of the Civilians impose new Taxes in requiring Aid although out of a Parliamentary and common way The like Objection is made by others of His party Better it were that those six Gentlemen Impeached of High Treason should have suffered their Estates and Posteries overthrown and ruined then to have a Kingdom wasted other of His Majesties Dominions destroyed and so many thousands worryed in one anothers blood This is surely the rich mans Argument who by reason of the superfluity and plenty of his Estate can easily bear the Charge and is scarce sensible of the Burthen or that he having a Power and Interest in his Neighbors Assessing him is under-rated and therefore content to pay the Tax not sticking at the Illegality of the same he thinks his Hill so sure that he shall never be removed or his Power so great that the Laws enacted for the relief of the poor the number of which must needs multiply by reason of such oppressions will scarce concern the rich according to the Proverb of Neque accipitri nec milvo tenditur rete One and the same Answer serves both Objections It were better that a man should receive a wound from a stronger then himself and afterwards to be maimed by him a third or fourth time after to endure the like or greater Injury better all this befal him then to be killed for so it happens to him resisting in his own defence it had been better for him to have endured all those Affronts and wounds then by repulsing them to lose his life as the lesse of the two Evils but where the one might have been avoided no necessity of the other to have happened the Objection is invalid But to the subject of this Contention multiplying it self into several forms of Difference the question hath for the most part been about matter of Fact 1. What hath been done what hath been attempted in offence to the Subjects Liberty 2. Touching the Object and Latitude of Obedience what Obedience and whether all maner of Obedience is due unto the Kings Personal Commands for the Subject to perform whatsoever He requires To the object of Obedience it is a commonly received Position That the King is to be obeyed in all things Lawful and Honest as before The Proposition is proved by the duty of Subjection to the higher Powers in the first Verse of the Chapter the limitation shadoweth forth by the duty also of those Powers to take vengeance on the Evil-doers for as Tremelius notes on that place if unlawful See the Glosse things be commanded us we must Answer as Saint Peter doth It is better to obey God then man Unto which the question touching the Latitude of Obedience hath a reference for as for those who exact and contend for a greater degree of Obedience as to have all maner of Obeying both Active and Passive due unto the Kings personal Commands doubtlesse all of them have not always thought it so but enforce such Doctrine now in these Disputative times on purpose to make the Kings party the stronger by their strength of Arguing If the King hath power of Life and Death as to take His Subjects life in case he obeys Him not in whatsoever he Commandeth then Nature Necessity and Law which allow yea enjoyn provisionary Acts for safety and have endued Mankinde with several habiliments for its own defence seem all to have lost their strength Besides whether in such a case as this here recited of the Kings power of Life and Death if he take away a Subjects life whether he be not guilty of the breach of the sixth Commandment I leave to an humble and moderate Divine to judge To free the question touching the extent of Universal Obedience and close it up with this conclusion The Exactors of this unbounded and immence obedience seem to allow unto Kings a greater Latitude and Priviledge of Power thence a greater of Obedience from their Subjects unto them then unto God Hence is the Inference proved by this Enthymeme That power is greatest which requires the greater extent of Duty wherefore if God neither can nor will command any thing unjust and Kings may both that is they both can and have commanded unjust things If notwithstanding they be to be obeyed both Actively and Passively in whatsoever they do or will command whether just or unjust there is by consequence a more Universal Obedience due unto them then unto God 3. The third question seems to be whether the Court of Parliament being a Fundamental power and all Fundamentals equall all principals alike having protested the maintenance of the Kings Honor Person and Estate may in defence of the King Laws and Government when imminently endangered especially when actually invaded justifie to take up Arms without and against the Kings Personal command if He refuse Whether dangers are imminent is briefly answered The Kings party deny the imminency of danger they say they are but Phantasms and unnecessary fears c. When mischief is neer and threatens opportunity and power serving withal it may be termed danger when 't is already fallen 't is part the name of danger and becomes Calamity 4. The final and casting result of the States judgement what those Laws dangers and means of preservation are reside in the two Houses of Parliament 5. The two Houses of Parliament are alwayes a part in the supremacy of power and in case of the others abserce or refusal as matters now stand Both virtually the whole 6. In the final resolution of the judgement of the State the people are to rest and in obedience thereunto may in defence of the Laws and Government use and bear Arms. Not that the Parliaments Votes and Ordinances are in themselves infallible but to us inevitable nor do we Idolize them or Doctor Fern infers nor think them omnipotent as His Majesty or some of His party do hyperbolically and smilingly object Not to possess the Reader with the Dignity Priviledge of that Court by transcribing here any ancient or particular passages of contest which are not valuable to justifie the Authority therof when as particulars prove not generality in Arguings such particulars especially as are easily answered yet whether the Historian notes it as an evidence of the Earls courage or of the Parliaments
power the passage is short and not unfitly quoted of the Earl of Warwick his contest with King Hen. 6. who directing his Privy-Seal for discharging the Earl of his Captain-ship of CALLIS the Earl refusing continued his office his reason was that it was granted him by a Parliament Whereto it may be objected that might be a personal contumacy in the Earl which proves not the Authority of that Court therefore not binding other Subjects yet this objection may be replyed unto that the Earl knew on what ground and by what judgement his refusing it was granted The Court of Parliament is not hereby so adored or prized nor are they so fond of their own Acts and Ordinances as to think them absolutely pure and unchangeably perfect or to derive the blessing of successe on their designs for the merit of their actions inuring for the present either in abrogating ancient or constituting new Acts and Ordinances which they may retract as occasion shall serve but to the Justice of their endeavourings which were they able to make good their proper and total power they would ere this have terminated and reduced their Acts into established Laws It is probable that many of those ancient usuages and Constitutions which they for reasons best known to themselves have for the present altered will revert and turn them to their former being without utterly abrogating the same To conclude and settle the doubtful and wavering Judgements had touching the power and Authority of this Court the aforecited * Sir Ed. Cook Oracle of Law hath delivered at large in his fourth Book of Institutes who wrote it in a calm and quiet time when there was no need to defend the Authority thereof Besides the preamble to the Statute concerning Parliaments sets forth and confirms the Power See the statute Authority and by necessary consequence the Priviledge of that Court as the only and proper cure of Grievances and remedy of Mischiefs in a Common-wealth The three first Conclusions are evident by what hath been observed before the latter of the three is Discoursed at large by a learned Author in his Book Intituled A more full Answer to Doctor Fern. But to answer one objection concerning the taking up of Arms and that the People take up Arms against their King which the objectors say is unlawful under what pretence soever If the Question be rightly weighed and stated it will evidently appear that this is no taking up Arms against the King no more then a Chyrurgion doth offend or wrong his Patient when to recover and preserve the whole body he cuts and takes away the proud and putrified flesh encircling and infecting the more eminent and sounder part And if in this Quarrel the King shall unnecessarily and with hazard to himself against the advice supplication and importunity of His Subjects expose Himself to danger Gods protection being more immediately seen over his Anointed is herein crossed if not tempted and if it happen otherwise to Him then His Subjects would His miscarrying is of Himself or rather from those who perswade Him to it The Question which hath cost this blood is not now betwixt a King governing according to the strict and precise Rules of Law the measure of each mans Right and Subjects rebelliously rising up in arms against their King and those Laws as some men in their gall of bitternes have given out but betwixt a King transgressing the known Laws as Himself confesseth and retracts His Fault and a Court of Parliament the Supreme Councel of the Kingdom endeavoring in a just and legal way to punish and represse Offendors as former Parliaments have done no other power or force to dispute or emulate a King's and the matter whereon they quarrel an actual invasion made on the Fundamental Laws and a party engaged to imbrace and abet the same whither under the notion of Loyalty or from Humor Ambition and Levity on the one side and the Parliament with a party adhering unto them contending to preserve those Laws with the Subjects Right and Liberty on the other side For the controversie is not immediately and principally in the new-sprung Differences about Church or State-Government as which the more perfect Form in State Monarchical Oligarchical or Aristocratical which in Church-Government an Independent Presbyterial or Episcopal which latter two are not much differing in themselves in their Primitive Institution as anon will be shewed in its proper place All these Controversies are emergent only and resulting out of the occasion of this War which gives occasion and liberty to all dissentions and makes every one a fierce combatant in maintenance of his own opinion But the principal parties are as before observed a party who hath actually violated the Laws by which we are governed and have their partakers and a party who contend and would preserve the same The first abetted under the stile of being good Subjects the latter traduced and inveighed against as Rebels What the Laws of this Kingdom conveyed unto us in these latter times are under which we are born and governed is by an ordinary light of study so figured in all mens knowledge as no man can but consent unto and confesse That to be the Law which the Court of Parliament doth Enact which Court hath power also to Repeal Dissolve Alter or make Perpetual as they please and that to be a Parliament certainly and definitively which is the assembling together of the Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdom lawfully summoned by the King in the prudent and deliberate Counsel of his heart at such a Time to such a Place for Reasons expressed in that His Writ What the Power and Priviledge of that Court in general is is learnedly and industriously set down by the forenamed Author of what power and stability this is whither to continue until their work for which they were assembled be finished or Arbitrarily to be dissolved the King hath by His own Act defined in binding Himself not to dissolve without their consent Wherefore if He shall alter such Act made and consented unto by Himself during the Session of that Court in His * Ira inimica Concilio Cicer. anger an Enemy to Counsel because He may not conform and rule them call and divide any part of them from the place where they were first summoned whither those which stay behinde in the first named place or those which come away to the last without respect had to which is the major part shall be reputed the true Parliament Object And whither that dividing be a dissolving without consent or not 't is no dissolving but a local removing in nature of Adjournment which is peculiar to a Kings power both to Summon and Adjourn Answ The King it is confess'd hath power to Summon and to Adjourn as former Kings have done to other places of the Kingdom as NORTHAMPTON OXFORD WINCHESTER c. but such Adjournments have been on special and extraordinary occasions of Plague
Predecessors were Neither can any man reasonably think that there is so strict an Unity so near a co-incidency betwixt His Majesty and those His Councel whom the Parliament suspects betwixt His thoughts and inclinations to a Peace to be concluded on fit and just terms and that His Councels Desires and Resolutions for such a Peace as may best serve their own and their parties turn but that His Subjects may most truly with much Loyalty and without wounding Him through His Councels sides believe and say The King having been seduced by Evil Councel hath done that which otherwise he would not 2. To assist the Parliament to resist in a mans own defence and to adhere to such a power as can protect him is Rebellion For Neighboring Towns or Countreys to joyn in a mutual Defence and League against any Force which may infest howbeit Nature and Necessity do allow defensive and provisionary Acts for safety 't is wrested otherwise now and termed Disaffectionate Disloyal and adjudged offensive 3. To distinguish betwixt the King His Kingly Office and His person Trayterous A man in Office is distinguished from what he is in person yet no fault or misterming in the distinguisher If A. B. High Constable of an Hundred set an Affrayer by the heels he doth it as High Constable not as he is A. B. If the Lord Chief Justice E. F. being Judge of Assize and Condemn a Fellon he doth it not in his personal capacity as he is E. F. but as he is Judge of Assize And although there may seem to be a nearer Unity between a King who is Natus Rex His Office and His person then there is betwixt a Judge who is Datus or factus Judex his Office and his person yet the distinction may be admitted to the King without being Treason 4. Amongst other Misdemeanors to be exhibited against the Subject the very * See the Articles to be presented to the high Constables in the Westerne Circuit 1643. abode in or repairing to any Town or City after His Majesty had made known His Displeasure against the same is reckoned Disaffection howbeit many being threatned from their Duty and driven from their homes by the rudenesse and violence of Souldiers had no other place of succour for their Protection then in those places excepted against by His Majesties Proclamations So the place and persons resorting to the place lie under the penalty of Displeasure In which the chief City of the Kingdom seems in the accusers eye to be most disloyal Enjoying yet by Gods mercy to his Glory and their happinesse be it spoken notwithstanding the place populous the times contagious and miserable elsewhere a deliverance from the ficknesse besides the Blessing of Peace vouchsafed thereto for their Humanity in harboring the stranger and oppressed in that amidst the Calamities of Plague and War they are free from the Pestilence that walks in darkness and from the sickness that destroyeth in the noon day that a thousand fall beside them and ten thousand at their right hand but it comes not nigh them Summarily if all matters else of Jealousie and Debate were fitted for a Treaty the very Argument concerning what is Treason what Disloyalty were enough to renew the Contention some so pretendingly fond of the Kings Honor as to make his power swell immencely above the Laws and beyond all other Kings some amongst the people so advers to the King as to deny Him the just power and Soveraignty of a Prince There are no question zealous and good desires in many of either party for the maintenance of Justice and the Laws Howbeit the execution of their desires be respited until the prevailing part have gained power to make good the same so there may be also a mistaking and a fault in either part In some well wishing to the Parliament who frame and finde out causelesse Jealousies on purpose to divide the King from His friends as that common and slightest among the rest of Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice ayming at the Crown of England When His Majesty hath a numerous Issue of His own in possibility of more the two Princes an elder an Illustrious Brother Others wishing well to the Kings party of the like dividing spirit contending to have the Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdom think that the Yeomanry and Commonalty frame hopes to themselves of mateing the Gentry in an equal ranke These sinister contemplations of some disaffected and discontented persons are invented on purpose to sever and divide the mutual concurrency of the Gentry with the Commonalty in a proportionable aiding one another How frivolous it is all men may guesse when as the Parliament Members of both Houses are Lords and Gentlemen themselves a Bulwark strong enough to retard and provide against any such incroaching thoughts of Parity If any such there be believing these Inventions there needs no other Argument to evince such sinister suppositions Many the like Jealousies and obstacles to Peace on foot which the Court of Parliament do seasonably apprehend The Assembly at OXFORD seem the first offerers of an Accommodation for Peace But when they set forth Declarations with the fair frontispiece of Declarations tending to Peace and in those writings accuse their fellow-Members with whom they endeavor to possesse the world they contend for Peace of refusing and disturbing Page 23. Peace of being Traytors and Promoters of this horrid War and charge them in those writings or in some of His Majesties Declarations with scoffing the King in their Messages sent unto Him a Crime if they be guilty of most heynous and undutiful these Accusations of upbraiding their fellow-Members may be an outward offering but no inward or real promoteing of a Peace They have deserted their fellow-Members in Parliament and in that a chief Trust reposed in them their very departure without License from the Parliament was heretofore adjudged * 5. Hen. 8. Which Statute they would not all have broken it is presumed through the worth and Ingenuity of many of them had they either timely considered of the Statute or not in a passionate and hasty way departed or could have foreseen the ill effects of their departure penal to depart to contrive and wage War against their fellow-Members in Parliament heightens the offence as it credits the mercy of their * For notwithstanding the unhappy consequences of their deserting the Parliament refuses not to receive them to compound upon their undertaking not to do any thing prejudicial to the State Forgivers in not taking a severe and strict accompt of Inflicting a condign censure on the offendors To correct and sweeten the Malady thereof something must be published nothing more acceptable then the name of Peace but on what terms more then the name of peace in a general word they do not declare A condiscending must be had as well as a meeting for peace those ought to condiscend who are the most certain first Transgressors In the
Act of offering a Treaty for Peace to invent new charges of high Treason of capital Misdemeanors of Injustice is no right way to Peace unlesse the persons charged are guilty of the same as namely they charge the Parliament or their Committees to have imprisoned two Lords for their Loyalty to the King as if their Loyalty were the unquestionable and certain cause of their Imprisonment These Lords might happily shew themselves active against and disobedient to the Parliaments Authority for in these unsetled and distracted times few men do others will not know their proper duty and so come within the compasse of some fault to deserve Imprisonment The High Treason whereof they accuse their fellow-Members is their counterfeiting the Great Seal Page 22. against the Statute of 25. Edw. 3. which whether in this case be to be understood High Treason the Sword must decide the Question The Parliament think themselves not guilty of that Crime by the Verdict of most men nor every thing made to the Mould by which it is made is not simply Counterfeiting the quality of the offence is much discerned in the maner of the offending and every Law-making commonly relates to some preterite fraud and wickednesse Now whether a King and a Parliament since the first constitution of either have heretofore made use of the Great Seal to crosse one anothers Acts be to be found in any Record whereon to ground a Law the Reader is to seek Amongst all the capital Misdemeanors amounting to High Treason recited in that Statute the Parliament making a new Seal being not done against the knowledge of the King and State seems not within the compasse of that Law which in that clause doth questionlesse intend the privy and surreptitious counterfeiting to the private Use and Benefit of the Counterfeiter And whereas in that Statute there may be divers doubtful cases of Treason determinable it is then and there accorded That if any other case supposed Treason which is not specified in See the Statute that Statute shall come before any Justices they shall tarry without giving Judgement of the Treason until the cause shall be shewed and declared before the King and Parliament whether it ought to be so adjudged or not In which determination the King and Parliament are presumed joyntly to Act if dividedly then who to judge the King seclusively without the Parliament or the Parliament without the King which if divided most likely to give a clear and dexterous judgement the King or the Parliament Those words The King Parliament cannot be understood of the Kings Councel and the Parliament it must be of the King himself in which as Treason is here objected to the Parliament the Parliament is excluded from any decisive power of being Judge what is Treason and pronounced guilty themselves of Treason The marginal Note if in that as in other places of See the marginal Note the Statute it sums up the sense of the Statute disputeth many Questions touching Treason to be first decided in Parliament leaving out the word King or presuming as is before observed that He is always there in person or in vertue Take the Accusers the Assembly at OXFORD Page 24 25. their own acknowledgement That the Parliament is His Majesties Answer to a Declaration from both Houses May 19. 1642. not Dissolved that they are far from Dissolving or attempting to Dissolve it Take His Majesties own confessing and allowing to the Parliament a power in a particular doubtful case regularly brought before them to declare what Law consequently what Treason is and the making a new Great Seal the old being contrary to Trust vafrously carried away from them the Representative Body of the State which the Seal is always to attend will not be adjudged a case of High Treason In the controverting this particular case as of the other Crimes charged on the Parliament and the Subjects of this Kingdom adhering thereunto the people may well be to seek when as the learned Sages and other Students of the * The Innes of Court Phrontisteries of Law and Justice seem to be divided in opinion some very active as being peradventure engaged for the King against the Parliament contending with all their might to make good the charge of Treason laid upon that Court and the Friends assisting them Others in the Parliaments account and questionless their Friends as earnest although more moderatly expressing it for the King and Parliament believe it to be no way Treason Which are greater numbers of them on the one side or the other or which the more able Lawyers is not here determined But to the Objection if any such That a greater number of them are within the Jurisdiction of the Parliament in LONDON and other places elswhere wherefore they may seem rather to side with that power The Answer is easily had That their hopes and possibility of being prefer'd by His Majesty were not Conscience Judgement valued by them above Reward or Honor were a more weighty motive then fear can be of displeasing that side in whose Quarters they are which cannot always protect much lesse gratifie them save only with the testimony of what they deserve answerable to their Breeding Knowledge and liberal Faculty One of the learnedst of that Tribe in those days wherein he lived and much Honored for his parts and industry wrote a whole Tractate for the Dignity and Priviledge of that Court in general How this in particular hath demeaned themselves to forfeit their Credit any other way then in maintenance of their power against oppression violence offered to themselves and the Subjects for whom they are entrusted future Ages can Record But to proceed In the same Declaration full of suspition and fraught with quarrelling the Assembly at OXFORD except against the words of a Message sent from the Lords and Commons to His Majesty Dated in the same year March 1643. viz. That His Majesty would not be the least or last Sufferer These words they throughly scanned and presented them to the world as terms of an See the Message of the Lords and Commons sent unto His Majesty upon occasion of a Letter sent from the Earl of Forth to the Earl of Essex high Affront as that Subjects or Rebels 't is all one in their Dialect in arms against their King should dare to send unto Him such a daring and presumptuous Message The words admit a two-fold sense the one of the Parliaments meaning as the Assembly at OXFORD seem to construe it the other more probably of their lamenting and foreseeing in their sadnesse and grief of heart the inevitable and universal ruine which must attend this War For that His Majesty cannot be the least Sufferer 't is too probable whose sufferings can be compared to His in the destruction of many thousands of His people as well in the greatest and dearest to Him as in the meaner sort in all whom consists His Safety This exception
forbear to send Aid to the Protestants there the small number yet remaining of the English and Scotish cannot possibly subsist Who such Authors and Causers of this War have been is long since manifested and resolved by the joynt advice and provision made against them in the Articles of the large Treaty betwixt the Kingdom of ENGLAND and SCOTLAND August Page 16. 1641. in their fourth Demand granted by His Majesty the Kingdoms then and there agreeing to make such lyable to the censure and sentence of the Parliaments respectively c. But to proceed If it be dishonorable to His Majesty as His Commissioners urge to make void that Cessation out of gratitude and favor to the Papists there affisting Him in this War His Commissioners His Friends and His party might have spared to object those Acts passed by His Majesty this Parliament in favor and case to His Subjects when as if this Parliament be born down or dissolved the Acts passed by His Majesty this Parliament are Repealable Alterable in part or in all by a succeeding Parliament by which Acts already passed many of His Friends and party adhering to Him against this Parliament have suffered in their Estates as is before expressed For neither the suppressing of Star Chamber or High Commission Court the granting of a Triennial Parliament which are instanced in as Acts of Grace and the Subjects charged with Ingratitude for not valuing such gracious Acts are no infallible and constant notes of such His Goodnesse and Favor to His people when as those Acts are Repealable at pleasure nor that of the Triennial Parliament unlesse a Parliament be of force to maintain their Power and Priviledges which this hath sought to defend for their own and for succeeding Parliaments As for His Majesties Commissioners to urge excusing in their way the King and His party from violating the ancient and Fundamental Laws That the Parliament and their Committees are guilty of breaking the same and they alone as if no such thing were done by His Majesties party Souldiers and Commissioners employed for raising Arms and Money to prosecute this War Such charge against the Parliament must either be understood of their abolishing for the present some ancient Constitutions or of their compulsory wayes in raising Moneys for the maintenance of this War the reason the means of the one and the other is examined If his Commissioners understood it of the particular and late Robberies committed by the Souldiers on poor Countrymen and Travellers on the road that cannot be charged on the Parliament because it is done against their will and to prevent the like they have according to the Law brought the offendors to condign punishment wherein also the Kings Souldiers are the most offendors when as the Parliament Souldiers are required for their Assistance to rescue from the Robbery and Spoylings committed by the Kings besides it hath been observed that many wishing wel to the Parliament Travellers on the ways having met with Souldiers and doubtful on which side they were being demanded for whom they were have counterfeited their tone and answered For the King as being assured that if those Souldiers were for t he Parliament they should finde lesse cruel usage then by the Souldiers for the King This Experience hath throughly taught and these and the like actions committed by His party hath made His Majesties name the more terrible In that the like hostile and cruel Acts are practised on either part and that the fear of cruelty working more strongly on the common sort hath brought many of them to yeeld and comply with the more cruel part the inequality of the cruelty hath been observed to be great between the one side who to gain or save a Town or for the like advantage sake have burned or pulled down some houses in a sudden and revengeful heat have killed and Enemy and the other side which in cool blood have killed and massacred many hundred of inoffensive Subjects burned whole Towns and laid waste the dwelling places of the Poor and Fatherless For if the one side had wasted and spoyled as the other doth the Countreys had been far more miserable then now they are and the spoyler left destitute of where withal to maintain himself and his Soldiers The Kings party give a reason for such a difference had betwixt the Souldiers on either side alleaging that the Countreys being Rebellious and Disaffected deny unto their Souldiers upon their march and in their quarterings a fit provision and supply for horse and man wherefore the Souldiers of His Majesties party are inforced to rob and spoyl c. The Answer to this Objection is had from a recourse to what is here delivered and the Reader to be satisfied in the Question what Rebellion Treason truly is what the ground and original of the Countreys Disaffection is If His Majesties Commissioners understand their charge against the Parliaments violating the Fundamental because of their abolishing old Laws 'T is answered They have power to Abrogate and Repeal what they finde offensive and exorbitant in a Common-wealth The modern and positive Laws were by Parliament established and quicquid constituitur eodem modo etiam dissolvitur No one Fundamental Law is by them dissolved or by their Acts yet violated unlesse the Constitution of Bishops be held a Fundamental one It was their Quarrel and questionless their Exception to be found both in their words and by their or their Friends Writings That the Parliament have transgressed the Ancient Laws because they have abolished Bishops they make the Law which constitutes them to be of equal time and value belike with that of Magna Charta when as most men know who have lookt into the Records that many Session of Parliament have bin held many Acts passed Excluso Clero It was a cunning Argument and Artifice in the Bishops to incense the people against the Parliament if it were they which give out the Parliament to have violated the Ancient Laws which the people were ready to defend when as upon a through examination of the matter complained of there was no other Law violated but what concern'd the Bishops partial in the Cause To conclude the Question touching the transgressing of the Laws which both sides may seem to be guilty of the matter is not whether the Ancient or New Laws be kept whether those long since made or those of a latter time be broken a War lets all Laws loose but had the Law of not Dissolving without the Parliaments consent been kept entirely and strictly the other Laws had not in the judgement of most men been broken The Parliament may plead Their undertakings and course of Justice cannot be made good by reason of their power opposed themselves confronted The great Law and Charter of the Subjects Freedom is enlarged into Statute Laws all conducing to make up one * Suprema Lex salus Populi Supreme Law The Subjects Safety The dividing of the Parliament Members if
amounting to a Dissolving of the Court contrary to a Law consented unto by His Majesty hath added much to the shaking of the Ancient Laws and this War occasioned as is before expressed hath opened a way to the violating all other Laws The Contention hath since the first beginning thereof devolved to matter of Trust the third of the PROPOSITIONS in Demand how the Soldiery and Arms of the Kingdom should be setled and who to be trusted in the managing thereof The King rather those about Him whom the Parliament suspects or the Parliament and those whom they depute So the Militia the Fortresse and Author of the Subjects Safety when well setled bindes up and as it were doth keep the Peace it hath the turning power and casting voyce upon all emergent differences which may happen The Kings Commissioners propose to have the Power thereof divided into an equal number of Commissioners on both sides which the Parliament Commissioners judge not reasonable for that they being named dividedly will act dividedly on every Debate which happens according to their several Interests and the Commissioners on either part will have partakers in the Quarrel so the Militia thus setled and to keep the Peace may prove the overture of a renewed Contention Besides if the Distribution thereof be assigned to fourty whereof twenty to be named by the King the other half by the Parliament the King re-invested to His former Dignity can easily gain upon some one of those which the Parliament shall make choice of so the Kings part being the major will carry against the Vote and Judgement of the lesser part Thus the Accompt cast up it would be all one for the King to name the whole number of those for the Militia And whereas His Commissioners take it for granted That the Commissioners for the Parliament do admit the Jealousies on either part to be mutual therefore the Militia to be mutually and equally managed Their Argument seems reasonable if true for if the Causes of Jealousie were mutual or equal in degree or time the Reason for so dividing the Commissioners were more important But admit the Jealousies to be mutual Jealousies may be as Injuries mutual yet diversified in degree as some more vehement more certain then others some of a longer some of a shorter date If it were as certain as is before observed that the Parliament did intend or attempt any thing against the King as it is certain the Subjects Right and Liberty were incroached upon no question then but the fault rests in the Parliament and the whole War to be judged Defensive on the Kings part To the matter of Jealousie the Parliament suspects the King to be carried away by evil Councel perswading Him and assisting Him against His Supreme Councel of the Kingdom The King and His party chargeth them with being Rebels The substance of which Charge is as already expressed Their taking up Arms against Him their purpose to destroy Him wherefore as guilty of such Treason to be opposed and fought against The Argument is as before examined hoped and prayed for from falsly suggested premises unknown ungranted That whereof the Kings party is suspected there is pregnant presumption for yea matter of Fact So the Jealousies seem to be presented mutual although differing in degree of certainty Here then the oddes between the Accusations on either side the Kings and Parliaments that whereof the Parliament stands Accused is uncertain unknown that whereof the King's party is accused there is vehement presumption for Now whether we shall weigh in the same Ballance the supposititious and unknown with that which is certain and evident and Jealousies unequal in themselves whereon to passe a censure let all men judge The Kings Commissioners and His party seem in nothing more to get the start of the Parliaments then by their often speaking and offering of terms of Peace as of proposing and accepting Treaties But it is not who are the first and most frequent offerers but who the most reasonable and equal in the terms of Treating for a Peace The setling a firm and well-grounded Peace by Treaty should be upon a surenesse and equality of terms which if it cannot be had a compliance and condiscending must which is no losse of credit in the offending part To retract an Error argues two prime vertues Wisdom and Humility and all offendors have not erred as of themselves or of their want of Judgement but by the participation of anothers Error and Opinion which they have prized too much What in the Narrative and Circumstance of this War is to be understood of the contrary thereto Peace and how to be obtained is to be enquired There is a Diversity and Latitude in the word Peace If for one part utterly to cease from Arms and quietly to sit down which indeed were one step to Peace and to expect what then might befal on such a ceasing were in the pursuit of Peace required Or whether a Peace in its more proper definition of a Just and Safe Accord a reciprocal Amity and Tranquility established in Truth and Equity not * See the matter means and definition of a Peace and the contrary thereto quoted out of several Authors by Mr. Lambard in his Eyrenarch lib. 1. cap. 2. pag. 9. Union of the mindes that is not for the present to be had but a restraining of the hands So Just and Safe are as it were the specifical differences in the definition of Peace True and Plain might be added too least whilest they speak of Que nihil habet in sidiarum Cicer Peace in their mouthes they have War in their hearts The latter Safe implyed by what peace it self is sometime taken in a great Lawyers sence calling the Kings Writs Brevia de pace so that Safety being Bracton lib. 4. one Justice ought to be another part of Peace which the Orator doth mean where he sets vis and Cicer. pro Sestio jus one against the other To which also agreeth the same Lawyers description of vis in these words vis est quoties quis quod sibi deberi putat non per judicem reposcit c. According whereunto the two old Statutes say Westminst 1. cap. 1. Rich. 2. Let the Peace of the Land be maintained in all points and common Right done to all In the other Let Peace be well and surely kept that the Kings Subjects may safely go and come and abide according to the Law of the Realm and that Justice and Right be indifferently administred to every Subject In the Texts of Scripture Grace and Peace Peace and Truth do go together Peace and Righteousnesse like individual friends kisse each other So safety to perpetuate and strengthen it is requisite to Peace and a restraint might be had of the hands if an Union of the mindes and so on the other side an Union of mindes if a restraint of hands The difficulty then rests only how either or both Unity of
the common good of the place wherein they live do negotiate and privily drive the Enemies interest like a viperous brood eating out the bowels of their parent by whom and under whose protection they live and have their being The mercy shewn to these is Cruelty to the rest and these mens mercies in case their party shall prevail will exceed what is called Cruelty The Concord should be as the Obligation is general and reciprocal for the mutual safety of the whole Body Politique the City hath a long time been as famous as any in EUROPE for their * More remarkably manifested in this instant happy and well framed Vnion and Agreement prudently preventing the mischiefs which might have befallen in case they had not agreed as an entire society notwithstanding the many and several sorts of divisions occasioned by these Commotions wisdom in all things expedient for their state dignity in their mutual traffique with all parts of Christendom and they are unworthy of their protection or to be entertained within their Limits who wisheth not their continual flourishing To divide thereby to lose so great a stake as the Publique good were a blemish to their Prudence Wisdom is more prone then folly to Dissention having in it a particle of Pride and self-conceit and naturally busie and curious in projecting in suspecting when as folly rests and contents it self with its own privations it faring commonly amongst the wiser sort of men as with the learneder of Physitians meeting to consult a Patients sicknesse Nomine eorum idem consente ne videatur Plinie accessio alterius until their dissenting in opinion disturbs and overthrows the Patients recovering hopes The City may differ in opinion about the means without disagreeing in their affections to the end the Common good and their own security involved therein least by crossing each others Acts and Councels they gain that to their Enemy which he thirsting for beyond and above half the Kingdom else cannot by his own wit and power As to their latter reason of these mens displeasure against the Parliament viz. their feeling of heavy payments or of one mans peradventure more heavy then his Neighbors It is a blessing and so it is termed that they and other parts of the Kingdom within the Jurisdiction of the Parliament do enjoy Peace within their Walls and Plenteousness within their Precincts as a Reward due for their Association and Accord although they pay for it whereas many Towns and Countreys elsewhere pay for dearly even to their undoings yet want that happinesse If amongst the rest of the partakers in this Quarrel Schollars the Clergy or a great part of them seem more Loyal more Affectionate to the King consequently the opposition being grown to the height more invective more advers to the Parliament upon a mistake had of the reason and end of the Parliaments proceedings concerning the Clergy the mistake is soon set right The Parliament in their just Estimate of what concerns the Clergy might have promoted the encouragement of Learning in a more equal distribution of Church-Livings then now it is without taking away the right of presentation from the true Patron yet by providing against the Lyon-like fellowship as the Proverb is Some all some never a whit or which is as bad that the more lazy and unlearned may not abound with what the more painful and learned want No indifferent man will think that there can be such an envy and disproportionate dealing in a prudent Laity endeavoring to Reform towards a learned Clergy the instrumental means of Reformation as that the one should check or discourage the growth and study of the other The wise and pious judgement of King James is yet fresh in memory which He left as a Legacy to Posterity of the esteem and reverence due and not to be denied to the Clergy of this Land speaking in His discourse of the Laws of this Kingdom of Gods own Laws which His Majesty did then complain were too much neglected and Church-men had too His speech in Star-Chamber in the 16. year of his Raign much in contempt for saith he great men Lords Judges and People of all sorts from the highest to the lowest have too much contemned them And God will not blesse us in our own Laws if we do not reverence his Law which cannot be except the Interpreters of it be respected and it is a sign of the later days drawing on even the contempt of the Church and of the Governors and Teachers thereof now in the Church of ENGLAND But of these kinde of advers persons last mentioned there be two sorts the one an ignorant and proud which commonly go together the more ignorant the more proud The Gale of their empty Tumour were retarded in their aspiring Course if their Bottoms were Ballassed with the solid part of man Humility The other a learned and judicious sort some of whom also may be Enemies making it a common Cause of engaging all Schollars against that Court on this surmise even now cleared That by the Parliaments endeavoring to restrain the Plurality of Church-Livings and the personal corruptions of Bishops all learning and the Seminaries thereof the Universities are discountenanced If the Universities partake of this adversnesse and disaffection as conceiving the Parliament would have made a more strict Inquisition into their Demeanor then the Visitors of Colledges their remisse Indulgency hath of latter times afforded The corruptions of those Seminaries is not so much of it self as of the negligent and discontinued over-sight in those whose proper charge it is to super-intend their course and maners Their Founders Munificent and Pious care from the first Institution of their benign intendments did purpose nothing more then an industrious and profitable course of life in the educating youth and fitting Schollars for the Church and Common-wealth which if the Founders purposes be through neglect and corruption of times perverted and that many the Fellows of Colledges there degenerating into a lazy and unprofitable life contrary to the Founders intent it were a blemish to the Government of a prudent and wise State finding out the Malady to passe it by without enquiring into the Cure Amongst the number of the parties in this Quarrel all mens Actions or Affections being engaged there be others advers enough although warily carrying it and disaffecting the one side to the heigth yet lying at a more subtile and close lock the Priscilianists Tu omnes Te nemo they know all men no man them and in their own eye play their game most cunningly contented to temper and tune their Tongues suitable to the persons with whom they do converse and to comply for the present with that side which they disaffect yet reserve an advers heart when opportunity shall serve These men should not take it ill if that side when prevailing shall deal with them in the like kinde to give them good words yet know them for their Enemies
the one or Restraint of the other may be had whether by a meeting for a Treaty or by pursuite of Victory by the sword A Treaty hath been had Commissioners of eminent quality met and PROPOSITIONS inter-changeably sent What the carriage and event thereof hath been the Author of the Relation of the passages there hath expressed but whither impartially set down the Commissioners are the onely witnesses whither his relation makes for or against his own party the Reader is to judge The Parliament whither in their proposing or accepting of the Treaty shewed their Inclination to a Peace gaining nothing by the meeting for no one PROPOSITION demanded was granted them save only the credit of their sincerity in really meaning to acecomplish that for which the end of their meeting was The seeking and ensuing Peace is to be presumed to be the fervor and end of their desires Neither they nor their friends shall gain by the protraction of the War It is likewise to be so presumed on His Majesties party save some Officers and Commanders in chief in either Army Forraigners and Out-landish who empty ours to fill their own purses And other Instruments appendent on the War and imployed for raising money to defray the charge may haply be thrivers by the War But for the means of obtaining Peace standers by may be able to discern wise to observe and contemplate on the means Howbeit none are called none sent none on whom the power and authority of managing the Peace is devolved save the Court of Parliament alone in whom we have entrusted all expedients to our Safety If they shall judge the PROPOSITIONS formerly tendred to His Majecty to be the onely and effectual means The Subjects are to abide by their Judgement which PROPOSITIONS may seem in number many in their strict quality extream and harsh especially in the Kings friends eye as seeming to abate His accustomed Regal Dignity Extreme diseases require extreme remedies for their cure and when Jealousies are a long time breeding the task will be as difficult in the means of dispelling them Evils when grown strong multiplied and closely wrought need a proportionate instrument to lance and remove to stop the new springing up of the same or the like The PROPOSITIONS are of two sorts the The PROPOSITIONS to be sent suitable to the present exigent in hand viz. the Preservation of the Honor and just Power of a King displeased the Parliament and people threatned are not of a tumultuary and easie dispatch not to be concluded in haste nor quarrelled with for the delay in sending them when as many interveening accidents may give occasion for altering them Nor can every looker on be a fit Dictator or judge in this most weighty Cause and Controversie touching the quality and fitnesse of what is to be insisted on the Parliaments most choice elaborate and well weighed Councels are no more then needs to deliberate compute and a long time to be advising what is once and for ever to be established that His Majesty may be no more a loser nor the welfare of His Subjects which is the foundation of His happinesse endangered for the future If the PROPOSITIONS be too high His Majesty may think the Parliament to be His King and Himself may seem to stoop too low and beneath His Soveraignty to grant and sign them If they be of too low and short assurance to secure the Subjects peace The Parliaments forepast Acts and Councels are wholly frustrate the labour of their endeavors lost And what is like to be the sequel any man may guesse one a calling Delinquents to accompt demanding Justice according to the degree of their offendings The other of their tendring to the King the Counsels and result of their own experience and maturity of Wisdom for the Government of His Kingdom wherein they only prompt and dictate to His Majesty what they desire Him to assist and joyn with them in the compleating and establishing the same The first of calling offenders to accompt expressely named in the PROPOSITIONS whither they all shall suffer in their livelihoods accordingly as they are challenged Or only some few known to be the Principal and long since contrivers of these mischiefs the subversion of the Protestant Religion and the Laws is left to the Judgement of the Parliament which being a Court of mercy mercy no negative of Justice can in case they are able to maintain their own proper Power make use of what the Heathens Judgement with a Christians spirit hath advised ut pena ad paâ—cos metus ad omnes perveniat Bis vicit qui pepercit and honestum ac nobile genus vindictae est ignoscere to have Cicer. Senec. forgiven or given a longer time for offenders to come in shews their Clemency whether or no the deep lodged envy and discontented anger of many the offenders throughly convinced of their own offending shall apprehend and make use of the Clemency of their forgivers The quality of the PROPOSITIONS thus examined and His Majesty altogether refusing to sign any of the same as judging them unequal and incompetent to His Regal dignity He propounds His return to LONDON there to Treat in Person as an expedient means of Peace But on what terms to Treat is not proposed For His Majesty with His party and the Parliament there to meet to recapitulate and argue the Reason Authors and Accidents of this War were to revive the heat thereof His * See His Letter March 1646. Majesty laying the guilt of shedding all this Christian blood at the Parliaments doors His professing not to desert His friends which the Parliament accompt their Enemies when the persons with whom He is to Treat against whom He hath waged War near four years the place whereunto He is to come against which he hath denounced His displeasure are all considered without any retractation of His former anger without Repealing His bitter Messages expressed against those persons that place and the people assisting them a meeting once had for a Peace made frustrate When those are any way salved any Act passed by His Majesty to remove these doubts and dangers when he shall have changed His inclination to severity denounced against His Subjects when He shall in His serious and sad regard had to His people and their sufferings have His heart turned within Him when his repentings shall be rowled together as God himself by his Prophet disdains not to his people their hearts will fill with Hosea 11. Acclamation and joy to receive and welcome him a tender and nursing Father to his Church and people and the common and easie objection wiped away that whereas the Parliament and people have petitioned and prayed for His return they now shew their Inconstancy in refusing that which they have so earnestly desired The motion of Petitionings doth cease when the end whereunto they move the hopes of a Peace to be had by His Majesties return seems frustrated