they groaned under and though not sent by particular nomination as Moses was yet questionlesse by the immediate designation of the Almighty above ordinary providence for if we observe his various and marvelous progressions in his military imployments who from a common Commander within a few Summers for his stupendious Victories was made Commander in chief and from that dignity above his own ambition or humane calculation Resque fide major was advanced to the Supreame power of these three Nations how can we but acknowledge that it is the Lords doing and that it is marvellous in our eyes who raiseth the poor out of the dust and lifteth up the needy out of the dunghil Psa 113.7 that he may fit with Princes even the Princes of the people The second way by which the just power of Government is gained is bello Victoria Chyl rud Fo. 16. by Warre and Victory for as Master Hobbs saith it is a Corollarie in the natural state of man that a sure and unresistable power conferres the Right of Dominion and ruling over those who cannot resist of which before sufficient hath been said A Title also to which his Highness may justly lay claim for after the Victorious and invincible Army under the Command of Sir Thomas Fairfax and his Highness had layed the Royal part in the dust and trampled it under foot the Enemy which was vanquished in the Field had recourse to subtile practises to corrupt the Parliament and City of London upon the specious pretences that there was no Enemy in the Field and therefore no more need of any Army to continue the heavy and unnecessary charge upon the people by such Arguments as this the faction prevailed to vote the disbanding of the Army and vast Summes of the Commonwealths Treasure were wasted in raising Forces and entertaining of Reformadoes to beat the Army and thereby to make way for the readmitting of the then King to the reexercising that power which had produced such bloody and fatal effects and that without any just satisfaction given for the same to the people or reasonable provision for those had Faithfully engaged in the maintenance of them See the Declaration of the Parliament of England dated 24. of September 1649. insomuch that the Army presaging what dangerous and bloody consequences might ensue to the reinslaving of the people and to make void and irrite all their former and glorious Victories and that the Commanders and Officers of the Army might become a prey to the Royal party and the Enemy whom they had with great difficulty and much effusion of blood subdued and that their own honor and safety was now in dispute they of necessity were justly instigated by the principles of nature and self defence to oppose their bloody inhumane and ungrateful designes in attempting to supplant and cut off those had been the Patriots and Champions of their Lives Liberties and Fortunes and by the power of the Sword to force them to Victorious conditions which having obtained by the Right of Warre the Supreame power divolved on them because they were in an Hostile manner unjustly invaded and inforced to defend themselves from imminent destruction And that this was a just Warre Cic. pro. Milone let Cicero and Aristotle be Judges Illud est non solum justum sed etiam necessarium saith Cicero bellum cum vi vis illata defenditur that is not onely just but a necessary Warre when inforcing force is defended by force And Aristotle to the same effect injuriam Passos oportet pro seipsis Arma capere Arist ad Alex. it is not onely just but it behooveth those who suffer injury to take up Armes for themselves or to defend their Kinsmen Benefactors or Associates affected with injuries as the Commanders and Officers of the Army did neither is the objection of any force that in Civil Warre where the people is divided into two parts that part which conquereth the other cannot challenge conquest over it by Right of Warre because it is one Nation and a Nation cannot conquer it self to which Grotius gives this satisfactory Answer Grotius 16. l. 2. c. 18. that in such a divided State Gens una pro tempo re quasi duae Gentes habentur One Nation during the time of those civil divisions is accounted and esteemed as two And therefore one part may claim Title of Conquest over the other as one Nation may do over another So Henry the Fourth with one party of this Nation Heywards Hen. 4. conquered Richard the Second and his party after which conquest he was made King of England and did not claim that by the Title of Inheritance for as Mortimer said he was Haeres Malus but first by conquest and then by consent of the people which commonly follows the conquest as Praemium Factorum a Reward of his Valour which all men naturally applaud and honor And so Henry the Seventh with one of the party of this Nation conquered Richard the Third and his party neither did he lay claim to the Kingdome by proximity of blood for there were others nearer then himself but the first Title he had was in Bosworth field when after the conquest of Richard the Third Bacon and Bakers Hen. 7. he was by publick acclamations saluted King of England And such Conquerors for right of War may as Alexander saith in Curtius Leges Victis dare Give Laws and Conditions to the subdued party and as Ariovistus said to Coesar Imperare iis quemadmodum vellent Caesar de Bello Gallico To rule over them as they please And so did the Commanders and Officers of the Army of whom his Highness was the Head-piece by right of War rule and order the conquered party as they pleased and caused the City to deliver up all their Forts together with the Tower of London and all the Magazines and Arms therein To disband all their Forces and turn all the Reformados out of the Line to withdraw all their Guards from the Houses and to receive such Guards within the Line as the Army should appoint to guard the Houses to demolish their Works and to suffer the whole Army to march in Triumph through the City as Conquerors and by the same Right did they purge the Parliament of its infected and corrupted Members which power from that time they constantly retained and upon occasions continually exercised and were as Curators to the Parliament and Common wealth to remedy the distempers and rectifie the disorders which the ambition of some and lucre of others introduced And in fine for important Reasons above specified dissolved that long Parliament and that poor men under their arbitrary power were driven like flocks of Sheep by forty in a morning Hen. 4. See his Highness Speech 12 Dec. 1653. to the Confiscating of their Goods and Estates without any man to give a reason that any of them had forfeited Forty Shillings and that no door was
nothing our own and that by his death we hope for our Inheritance with some other Ironys tending to that purpose which becomes the Kings Jester better then a States man as he would seem to be but his Highness may truely and justly say with Titus the best of the Roman Emperors who by such Detractors was reproached in the like kind Seeing I have done nothing worthy of reproach Mendacia non curo I weigh not lyes and that by all peaceable and prudent people and their Representative he is acknowledged to be a true Father of his Countrey and a Deliverer of his people from the Aegyptian bondage of Popery and Tyranny and that by his Paternal and Princely care our Inheritances are setled and protected against forreine invasions and domestique seditions unlesse theirs who through intestine insurrections or publique Rebellions have justly forfeited the same such as this Impostor and his Confederates are or have been And that contrary to this Impostors contumelions suggestion justice is not defined by the will and pleasure of the strongest but other Laws take place as well as those of the Sword which all the subordinate Justiciaries to his Highness will averre that it hath been his principal and peremptory charge to them to administer Justice to all impartially without any respect of persons according to the Laws of the Land and that his Highness upon particular complaints of divers of his people pretending that they have not received Justice by the hands of his Justiciaries hath called them before him and according to Law equity and good conscience heard and determined the same And as St. Paul did so doth his Highness exercise himself to have alwayes a good conscience void of all offence towards God and man where is then the terror of conscience this Impostor would fasten on his Highness is it not fixed in his own heart 1 Tim. 4.2 is not he one of them the Apostle mentioneth who speaking lyes with Hypocrisy having his conscience seared with an hot Iron giveth heed to seducing Spirits and the Doctrine of Devils For who can deny but it is the Doctrine of the Devil who was an Homicide from the beginning to give the Reins of Authority to dissolute persons to wound and slaughter the supream Magistrate to whom they ought not onely to be subject for wrath but for conscience sake And therefore it behooveth William Allen to consider in his own conscience in what a sad and desperate condition he standeth through his Diabolical murderous intention whereby he cannot onely escape the certain doom of Gods vengeance but also incurre the Capital censure of his Vicegerent which to avoid I will not advise him as he did his Highness though it may be supposed that to escape a shameful death like Brutus and Cassius he will perish on his own Sword or rather with Judas frighted with the terror of conscience will be his own Hangman or else with his renowned Sindercombe swallow a Spanish Figge to shun the Triple Tree but why should he be supposed to be so Valiant whose valour like Thersires consisteth onely in braving railing and encouraging others to fight and assault one he dares not himself encounter and what man of common sence will give ear and credit to his exhortations by which he would incite others to Act that horrid Homicide he himself feareth to attempt Howsoever this Impostor may assure himself that his Highness hath his heart and conscience so armed and fortified with Religious fortitude and Pious constancy that no Scuril or popular conceits can deterre him from laying fast hold on his Scepter Virtus repulsae nescia sordidae Intaminatis fulget honoribus Nec sumit aut ponit secures Arbitrio popularis aurae Next followeth his Dedication which is as full of shifts as his supplication was of scoffs Astutam vapido servans sub pectore vulpem Shrowding two faces under one subtile hood Wherein he straineth all the nerves of his conceit to corrupt and debauch the Army and either to withdraw it from his Highness or to divide it to its and his Highness destruction which is apparent in the Title it being directed to all those Officers and Souldiers of the Army that remember their engagements and dare be honest hoping at the least to gain the honest party to his Devotion But I wonder much that he should have such confidence in the honest party having so little honesty himself for what honest man would attempt to divide but unite and especially the Army whereby it might be decayed or ruined which under God was the principal meanes of procuring our Liberty and of preserving the same but what cares William Allen if with Phaeton he fires the world so he may have his will to wit the ruine of his Highness which is the fatal close of his Dedicatory Epistle This the Levellers aimed at in the year 1649. and the fifth Monarchy men in the year 1654. See the Declaration of the Parliament of England dated 27. September 1649. And the Case of the Commonwealth c. Dated 1654. See the true Case of the Commonwealth c. Dated 1654. by the division and alteration of the Army to suppresse the Generals but his Highness and the Army are in one Body so naturally and affectionately incorporated that no Command or divice can dissipate and separate them no more then the device of Pompy and the Commande of the Senate could Caesar and his Army at Rubicon But to weigh his wily Arguments by which he cunningly goeth about to seduce the Army from his Highness the one and the Prime one is that the Officers and Souldiers of the Army which were raised to defend the Priviledges of Parliament his Highness hath made to dissolve Parliaments This is a fallacy from the cause a non causa ut causa for the raising of the Army was not to defend the Priviledges of Parliament but to bring Delinquents to condigne punishment the maintenance of the Laws and Liberties of the Land and of due successions of Parliament which did not intend to quarrel with the Kingly Government but to regulate the disorders and excesses in the Government And the Army never took up Armes against any particular form of Government nor ever fought against the King as a King nor for the Parliament meerly as a Parliament as appeares by all the Papers and Declarations have been published in the beginning of these Warres and therefore was the long Parliament justly dissolved by the Army because it exceeded the due time of successions of Parliaments which should have been but triennial not perpetual as they would have had it besides many other enormities did concurre to its dissolution which in the true State of the Commonwealth Stated Dated 1654. Fo. 11.12 are amply declared so as when that was dissolved there was not so much heard as the barking of such a Dog as the Impostor is or any general or visible repining at that and the Souldiers therein were not made
the Instruments of slavery and establishers of Tyranny as he saith but the Restorers of our Liberty and Instruments of Justice No-other Parliament I know of but that it did continue out the fixt period of time according to the first Institution And as concerning their engagements the Parliament being justly dissolved the engagements concerning the Priviledges of the same are also justly dissolved for all promissory Oaths as engagements are but Political ties grounded upon Political considerations for Politique ends and binde no longer then the particular Politei and State standeth for as the Civilians distinguish in such Oaths Tholosa Syntag 49. c. 4. apposita clausula censeatur promissionem valere rebus sic ut tunc erant extantibus in eodem statu permanentibus an annexed clause or condition is to be supposed that promise to be of force things standing as they then were and remaining in the same State so as if that State be changed and ended such engagements as reflect on it are determined which distinction this Impostor might have learned of his Master Suares Suares resp ad apologiam projure fidelit 409. Quod sublata materia Juramenti consequenter obligationem auferri necesse est that the matter of the Oath being taken away by consequence the Obligation of necessity must be taken away as if a King saith he be deposed he ceaseth to be a King and in that respect no obedience is due unto him and forthwith the Oath doth not binde à fortiori if the Government be determined and the matter of the Oath dissolved the Obligation of the Oath is ipso facto exstinct for as Master Askham possession is the great condition for our obedience and allegiance how unjustly therefore doth this Impostor call these distinctions prevarications to piece up contrary Oaths which are grounded on approved Authority and his own Masters opinion The other reason on which he groundeth his seditious desgne is that the Officers and Souldiers of the Army are employed to force Elections that is as may be conceived to seculde such as are turbulent and factious from being Elected and admitted members of Parliament wherein we are to distinguish between a quiet and setled State and a Commonwealth which is distracted with factions In the first a free Election of Knights Burgesses and Citizens in Parliament is requisite and ought to be as Plato saith Libere incorrupte in the second a free Election is altogether inconvenient and dangerous for otherwise that great Council may be distracted and overruled by turbulent Spirits and nothing by it resolved for the publique good A pregnant Example of which we lately had in the proceedings of the late Precedent Parliament See his High 22. Jan. 1654. which as his Highness saith wholy spent their time and did nothing And in such cases of extremity where there is no course of prevention otherwise provided by Parliament Expedit principi omnium dissentionum causas in repub dirimere it appertaineth to the Prince to prevent all causes of dissention in the Commonwealth for he is the supreame Conservator pacis and by the advice of his Council may bar and frustrate the Election of those of whose malignancy and disaffection to the State he hath received certain and infallible intelligence and that by way of preventing future discord and distraction and accordingly in the turbulent times of Henry the third when the Kingdom was divided into two mighty Parties That wise King called the best affected onely to Parliament as Master Cambden in his Britannia relateth Ad summum honorem pertinet saith he F. 122. Ex quo Henricus tertius ex tanta multitudine quae seditiosa turbulenta fuit optimos quosque ad Parlementaria comitia evocaverit It was an highly honoured Act in Henry the third that out of so great a multitude which was seditious and turbalent he had called every one of the best affected to the Parliament by whose prudence and moderation the torn Estate of that Kingdom was cemented and setled in an uniformity of peace and tranquillity In like manner did his Highness this Parliament out of a multitude of malignant and discontented persons by the advice of his Council according to the Instrument of Government call and admit those onely who were best affected and well disposed into the Parliament House by whose wisdom and advice with little disturbance and contradiction the three main Pillars of the State which were then tottering were firmly fixed and established by Act of Parliament to wit the supreame Magistracy was confirmed in his Highness the succession setled and the Liberties of the people were Ratified and secured by his Highness according to the advice and Request of the Members of Parliament and were not as he impudently saith Pimps of Tyranny onely imployed to draw the people to prostitute their Liberty How unworthily and injuriously therefore doth this Impostor brand that pacifique and prudent Parliament in divers passages of his Pasquil with the strange name of a Junto with whose sound he is as much pleased as children are with the strange noise of a Rattle because it was purged and cleansed of such malignant and factious spirits and not virtuous as this Impostor saith who would have fomented discord and dissentions among them By which means the distracted State of these Nations is happily united to the content of his Highness and satisfaction of the People And that with the approbation and applause of the Religious Zealous Faithfull and Couragious Officers and Souldiers of the Army as he stileth them notwithstanding his conjuring imprecations who for their fidelity upon occasions are deservedly advanced exalted by their magnificent victorious Prince General not ruined by him whom they raised F. 15. according to this Impostors Machiavilian rule which he saith Princes observe when they are in power never to make use of those that help'd them to it unless they be such as this Impostor is Seducing Mutineers who are justly purged and cast out of the Army like dung and like cudgeled hounds lye lurking in their kennel bawling barking and catching at flies and are not like to rise or be exalted unless it be as Haman was and as he divineth be hanged up like bottles Qui male dixerit pejus audiet His Preface now ensueth wherein like the Fox though he seems to change his hair and outside yet still retains his nature and manners according to the Proverb Vulpem pilum mutare non mores and pretendeth that it was not instigations of private revenge and malice though it may be conceived manet alta mente repostum that his publique disgrace doth still stick in his stomack but indignation did make him break that silence prudence would perswade him to use But indignation and anger saith the Royal Preacher Eccles 7.9 resteth in the bosom of fools And Ira furor brevis est Anger is a mad Pen-man which makes him use such frantick and wild expressions But
never to make use of them that help them to it And indeed saith he it is their interest and security not to do it for those that have been the Authors of their greatness being conscious of their many merits they are bold with the Tyrant and lesse industriâ—us to please him They think all they can do for them is their due and still they expect more and when they fail in their expectations as it is impossible to satisfie them their disappointments make them discontented and their discontents dangerous His Rule is experimentally false for Princes whom he stiles Tyrants when they are in power make use of those and prefer them that helped them to it until they grow insolent in their demands and offensive in their discontents But true it is that it is a most difficult thing to please and satisfie those that advanced him Victor Vita Nervae and secure them from discontent which made Nerva to complain after he had taken upon him the Empire that he was not onely subject to many vexations and perils but to the censure not onely of his Enemies but of his Friends Qui cum merere omnia praesumum si quicquam non extorserint atrociores sunt ipsis quoque hostibus Who when they presume to merit all things if they cannot extort what they desire are more bitter and dangerous then their Enemies themselves And therefore is every Prince and Emperour between Scylla and Charibdis two dangerous Rocks to wit their enemies and their Friends And though by their Friends assistance they keep their Enemies in aw yet many times their deserts make them to forget themselves and in a most dangerous manner to oppose their Princes if they correspond not with their peremprory vores which hath Moved Princes sometimes to lessen their power and other times severely to punish them According to the degree of the contempt of which a rare Example we have in the uncivil deportment of Sir William Stâ—anley towards Henry the Seventh who at the Battail of Bosworth Bak. Hen. 7. came in to rescue him when he was in danger to be slain by Richard the Third and afterwards did set the Crown on his head which was found among the spoils for which Noble Act he promoted him to be one of the Privy Councel Lord Chamberlain of his Houshold and gave him the Ample Spoils of the Victory and otherwise abundantly rewarded him insomuch as at his death were found in his Castle in ready money Forty thousand Marks besides Plate and Jewels Yet because Henry the Seveth refused to grant him one inconvenient boon to wit to be Earl of Chester which was an Appennage to the Principality of Wales Bacon Hen. 7. and an honour appropriate onely to the Kings Son he fell into a mischievous discontent and began to incline to Perkins and as some say to aid him with mony but certainly to prefer the Title of York before that of Lancaster which appeared by his own confession in saying that if he certainly knew that Perkins was the son of Edward the fourth Bak. Hen. 7. he would never fight nor bear arms against him for which words he was arraigned condemned and beheaded and all his former merits buried in the grave of this conditional treason and in this sense is that true that the Impostor saith that a Prince will never trust those he hath provoked and fears and will be sure to keep him down least he should pluck him down And in such cases a Prince is not at liberty to shew mercy as a private man may for a Prince as Sir Edward Coke is Caput salus Reipublicae Coke l. 5. f. 124. the head and safety of the Commonwealth And as from the head health is conveyed to every part of the body so from the Prince safety is conveyed to every part of the Common-wealth and every private person hath interest in the safety of the Prince because his safety is their safety and therefore a Prince ought not freely and absolutely to shew mercy to such traiterous malefactours because the Commonwealth is intercessed in it Et pereat unus ne pereant omnes It is better that one perish then all suffer And a Prince to use that Impostors allusion may use such friends who abuse their trust and conspire against him and are not onely useless but obnoxious to the Common wealth as Dionysius did hang them up like Bottles and not incurre the title of a Tyrant but be adjudged a wise Prince as Henry the seventh was But now this Impostor is acting the last Scene of his interlude and as in a Tragedie in the beginning or Protafis he was very pleasant so now in the Catastrophe he is very rigid and threatens nothing but death Intentant omnia mortem And verily all his passages would better become a Scenical Stage then a Princely Court wherein he layes his bloody Scene and like an imposthumed stomack vomits nothing but blood Though brave Syndercombes great spirit saith he be suppressed yet there are a great rowl behind even of those which are in his own muster-rowls that are ambitious of the names of Deliverers of their Countrey and do know what the action is that will purchase it Which they all know to the contrary See the Humble Advise fol. 2. that his Highness eminently and the Officers and Souldiers of the Army subordinately have under God been the Deliverers of their Country and Restorers of our Peace and Tranquillity whose saithfulness to the Commonwealth the late Parliament gratefully and publikely acknowledged and that they shall put a just value thereupon to their general satisfaction In vain therefore doth this Impostor go about to fright his Highness with a supposition of their infidelity whose constancy as a rock is irremoveable and with one voice averre Nec feret illa dies ut commutemur in aevo Auso And further with a bug-bear he thinks to fright his Highness as others do Children His Bed his Table saith he is not secure and he stands in need of other Guardes to defend him against his own But those are but Figmenta terriculamenta puerorum Feigned and childish scarre-crowes and are above credulity Nec pueri credunt nisi qui nondum aere lavantur Ju. For he who hath the wisedom to win the affections of a potent Army cannot want the prudence to gain the love of his own Family which as Cleobolus is the best Oeconomy to govern by love not fear Macrob Sat. l. 1. c. 11. as his Highness doth who as a greater Pater familia's as Macrobius adviseth useth his Followers as Familiars and not as Servants but as Fellow-servants And also his Highness Court is by his Virtuous and Religious Example formed and fashioned into such a pious and civil frame Beisius de Nat. Ep. ad Max. as the Emperor Maximilian was that no Christian family can be better instituted and instructed and therefore his Followers cannot be inscious