Selected quad for the lemma: law_n
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A47818
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A caveat to the cavaliers, or, An antidote against mistaken cordials dedicated to the author of A cordial for the cavaliers.
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L'Estrange, Roger, Sir, 1616-1704.
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1661
(1661)
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Wing L1214; ESTC R230800
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18,489
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42
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A Caveat to the Cavaliers OR AN ANTIDOTE AGAINST Mistaken Cordials Dedicated to the Author of A CORDIAL FOR THE CAVALIERS Sic Vos non Vobis c. LONDON Printed for Henry Brome at the Gun in Ivie-lane 1661. A CAVEAT TO THE CAVALIERS c. Sir THat Love which Covers many Faults may be allowed to Commit some they say a man may be kill'd with Kindnesse but we all know he may with Physick unlesse a strict accompt be taken both of the Quality of the Disease and of the Temper of the Patient Give me leave then to tell you Sir that tho' I do not rank my self among those Worthy and Deserving Gentlemen to whom your Cordial is particularly directed yet you may find me among the Poor Cavaliers to whom your Loyal Charity appears to extend and with great Honour to your Care I must be free to acquaint you that if the Party be not either Chameleons or Book-worms to live upon Ayre or Paper your Cordial will not do their Businesse It troubles me exceedingly that You and I united by a Common Sense and Tye of Duty should so far differ about the manner of expressing it as to dissent in Print yet since we both proceed upon one honest bottom a Zeal to serve his Majesty and his Friends we may without Dishonour to that Noble end or the least injurie to our selves debate the several wayes and means that lead to 't I said we May I might have said we Must we Ought to do it for as the case stands if either his Majesty mistake his Friends or They the King If Honest men either mistake their Enemies or one another the least weight on the wrong side Hazzards the main and Casts the Ballance I come now tho' unwillingly to examine your Cordial which I shall take in Sections as it lyes with due Respect to your Person and exact Justice to your Meaning A CORDIAL FOR THE CAVALIERS Worthy and Deserving Gentlemen 1. IN the Affairs and Traverses of this life it is a true rule and 't is a comfortable one That He who dischargeth a good Conscience hath enough of his Own wherewith to reward Himself though he receive no compensation from any where else The World knows and Envy it self doth acknowledge That in the late Confusions which were of that length that might have shaken the firmest Spirits in their Loyaltie you have discharg'd a Good Conscience three wayes towards your Creator towards your Country and towards your King your Religion bound you to the One Nature to the Other and your Allegiance to the Third And although many of you have not yet receiv'd what you expected for the two last yet touching the first whereunto the other also conduce you are sure to have such a Reward one day that will not only be above all Merit but beyond all Imagination in the Kingdom of Eternity 1. The Cordial Sir of a Good Conscience we carry in our Bosomes for we have not stood out a Twenty years persecution to Blood Beggery and Bondage we knew not why Nor are we Fainting yet wherefore this Drop of Comfort might have been saved Should the same Fate call us to do the same Part over again as things look scurvily we would as chearfully lay down our Rags and Carkasses to serve his Majestie in Being at the same rate as we have Hazzarded and wasted them First to Defend the Murthered Father and then to Restore his Royal and Banish'd Successor This we would do upon a single and changeless Principle of Loyalty and Honour without the aid of Borrowed CORDIALLS And yet we thank you for supplying us even with what we did not want Your next care is to divert us by the Rewards of the next World from attending our Disappointments in This. It is a Christian Care and we acknowledge it though possibly our Misfortunes might have brought us to That thought without the help of a Monitor Thus far as Christians You are now pleas'd to chear us up as Patriots and Subjects 2. Adde hereunto that I hold your Condition to be far from being desperate but that you may receive Rewards at least some Consideration from the other Two viz. from your King and Country for the present Parliament which represents your whole Country being compos'd of so many Wise and well weighed Gentlemen whereof divers have been Co-sufferers with you will as it is well hoped out of a sense thereof have such reflections upon your Sufferings and Services both Active and Passive that they will enable his Majestie whom the Law stiles The Fountain of Honour and Bounty and whereof indeed no other Power should partake with Him I say it may well be hoped that this Parliament before their Recesse will put his Majesty in a Capacity and Humblie Advise Him if not to Reward you yet to Relieve your present wants in such a measure that the Steed may not starve while the Grasse growes 2. I think it would as well have suited the quality of our Pretenses if what you call Reward had been stiled Bounty or Benevelence for the best Actions of a Private person toward a Publique good are no further meritorious than by Imputation As to the major part of the Two houses we are as sensible of their Affections as of our own Distresses but so Discreet withall as not to hope for Matters Impossible nor to ask things unreasonable and That 's our Choyce unless we much mistake the present state of this impoverished and exhausted Nation But Much Little or Nothing our Duty is still the same and our Resolves to Dye as Loyal as we have Lived without gaping after Diego's Legacies and building Castles in the Ayre to entertain our wavering or shrinking Spirits From the Two Houses your next motion is to the King 3. You know well that the King hath been among us but a little more than the compasse of one year And his Grandfather Henry the Great of France was above seven years which is an Age in our Law before He could requite those who stuck to Him not much above twenty months in making Him Master of the Flowerdeluces You know the vast debts his Majesty hath payed both by Sea and Land which yet were not his own nor his Kingdoms but of that accursed usurping Common-wealth which exhausted more of the Publique Treasure than all the Kings of this Land since Gold and Silver were first coyn'd in it You know He is so shortned that He hath not yet provided bread for all of his own House He is in such a Condition that He cannot give his Royal Aunt that treatment which might be expected He hath not wherewith to go his Progresse Consider what vast expences his Fleets at Sea his Lifeguard with other Garrisons do stand Him in As also what debts He drew upon Himself so many years beyond the Seas for his necessarie subsistence c. 3. So far are we from comprehending either the Need or Reason of this Argument we dare scarce ask
Comforters that tell us 't is not Time yet This to a company of wretches that can stay no longer then they can Fast yields little satisfaction Are we such Owles as not to see the Sun at Noon 'T is time Enough for some that tell us these fine things even before the Kings Revenue is setled to beg their Fourty Fifty nay their Hundred Thousand Pound a man and when the Nation shall be drawn so low that every Tax runs Blood 't is then Prognosticated that something shall be done for us That is the Honour shall be ours to finish the undoing of the Nation and furnish Argument for another War This consequence looks not much wide but to prevent the worst rather let us Resolve to suffer any thing for his Majesty then cause him to suffer in the Least for us Having hitherto discours'd the high Necessity of a right understanding betwixt King and People Our next concern is III. Not to mistake our Enemies To prevent mistakes by Our Enemies we intend only the Kings IT was a Jolly saying betwixt Jest and Earnest of a Presbyterian to a Cavalier You told us Wee were Rebells once but wee 'll make You so now before we have done with you and That 's one part of their Design If they can neither Sink nor Scatter us then to Transport us into undutifull distempers by that which makes the Wise man Mad Oppression Rather then faile they shall Vote Loyalty Rebellion and charge the Author of this plain and honest Pamphlet with Treason But other Treason then Adherence to the King the Law Conscience Honour and Reason they shall never bring us to They do wisely therefore to give the main Attaque where we are Weakest and to attempt first upon our Necessities for they know our Honesty will hold out longer then our Fortunes By this Course they purpose to lessen both our Credit and Number for Poverty is a fair step toward Contempt and they think want will drive men any whither to seek their Bread They are not Ignorant of the Likelihood of what they more then Covet a Forrein War from whence how fatall soever it prove to the Publique they may pretend to reap these two Advantages First they may pack their Gang with more Security at home when the Peoples eyes are all abroad Secondly they fore-cast to have the Quarrel fought by the Hands of Cavaliers which is no other then to commit that Businesse to be dispatch'd by Foreigners which they cannot so conveniently do themselves That it will come to this may rationally appear from the Constitution of those Missions allready designed When by the Fate of War or that of Extreme Need some are Destroy'd the Rest Dispersed of the Kings Party and the designing Faction yet entire who is not Prophet enough to fore-see the event This This is the Reward his Majesties new Friends have prepared for his old Ones But Fore-warn'd Fore-arm'd Let not a drowsie mopish Charity betray us into another Opinion Are They Converted where 's the Peccavi and the Thirty Pieces of Silver the Confession and the Restitution where 's the Inseparable Companion of Repentance a Godly Sorrow a Detestation not onely of the Sin it self but even of all their Complicates in so egregious a VVickednesse Their Knottes and their Dependencies are still the same they were They are too Iovial to be Penitent In snmm if they are Penitent where are the Signes or Fruits of their Conversion If not they are Dangerous What doe we see more now than we did in 1641 Or in effect was not the Gospell-Prologue to the Death of the Late King the very Ayre of what we hear at present But that we may not be thought to babble let the whole Puritan Conclave lay their Heads together and bring their Party off or if they do not let them acknowledge that for once a Cavalier was in the right on 't If the People of whom we treat be not Penitent the King cannot be safe in their hands If they be Penitent then are we to seek for a Religion If they were never in the wrong then they 'll use this King as they did his Father TO passe over those properties of Repentance whereof God and their own Souls are the onely Judges namely Contrition and Conversion to God Wee 'll look a little what the Church sayes concerning the Other two to wit Confession and Satisfaction Amesius sayes that a Publique Confession of Publique Sinnes is necessary to avoyd the Contagion of a Scandalous example Preston in his Sermon upon Iudas Repentance reckons Confession a part of Repentance and so does Calvin in his Harmony upon the Evangelists But Musculus upon Matt. 27. 3. most expresly Ad veram Resipiscentiam pertinet peccati Confessio non ea tantum quae deo fit sed quae hominibus quorum id interest c. Confession sayes he is requisite to true Repentance not onely That to God but to Men also such as are concerned in it that is to Those against whom the offence was committed and to such as to whom occasion was thereby given of offending Judas his sinne was against Christ but in Betraying the Innocent Bloud he ministred occasion to the Priests and Elders of Sinning by giving them the means of Taking and Condemning him for a summe of mony so he confessed as well before the Priests and Elders as to God I have sinned sayth Iudas in Betraying Innocent bloud He does not say Peccastis YE have sinned in CONDEMNING Innocent bloud but he complains that HE HIMSELF had sinned in DELIVERING it up Now concerning Satisfaction Non Remittetur Peccatum nisi Restituatur ablatum saies St. Augustine No Restitution no Remission Non-Restitution is Damnation and Restitution is the way to Salvation saies Stock of Repentance p. 102. and again If it be a sin to Take it is a sin to Keep Ibid. p. 92. Non est vera Poenitentia ubi non Redditur quod malè fuerat ablatum saies Marlorat upon Matth. Perkins Dike Calvin all the world agree upon the Necessity of Restitution In fine Non-Restitution is Theft If it be objected well but such and such are Poorer then they were others have gotten Nothing and the rest are Pardoned The Casuists tell us that whosoever Commands Directs Favours or Abets any unjust Action the consequence whereof is Damage to another That Person is bound to Restitution But we might answer that much was spent of what they took from the Cavaliers to bear up against the Independents As to the Act of Indempnity That saves them from the Law but in Foro Conscientiae 't is no acquittal It discharges the Penalty but not the Crime only an effectual Repentance can do that which cannot be admitted without Restitution 'T is not an Act of State that can dissolve a Ty of Conscience that were to argue as if a Parliament could forgive Sins At the last day when Inquisition shall be made for Bloud Theft Oppression c. We dare appeal