friends and Countrey-men slain by the sword but unexpressible also are the calamities under which they groan that are yet alive It is with them at London as once it was with Samaria the Metropolis when time was of the Kingdom of Israel They trusted in the Mountain of Samaria a strong place and being in safety and plenty themselves they took not to heart the affliction of Ioseph that is the miseries of their Brethren and Countrey-men that lived abroad in other parts of the Kingdom and for this cause there is a sharp judgement woe be to them denounced by the Prophet Amos 6.1.6 There is no place so strong that woe may not enter and therefore O God that art the God of mercy and delightest in the prosperity of thy people give unto our Parliament a desire to be like unto thy self and to put on bowels of mercy both towards themselves and towards their miserable yea now gasping Countrey that we may accept of and be contented with and thankfull for so much as we had under the Reign of Queen Elizabeth rather then out of a desperate resolution of having more to lose all and bring a totall desolation upon the whole Kingdom XXVIII Whether they that hold the head The head of the body politick and the head of the body mysticall are justly to be persecuted by us Iob saith no These are his words Ye should say why persecute we him seeing the root of the matter is found in me Job 19.28 Nay we should say why persecute we him that is the head of the body politick and holds the head of the body mysticall the root of the matter that is the profession of the true Christian Faith being found in him The true Circumcision that is the true Children of Abraham as the Apostle doth declare Phil. 3.3 are they who worship God in the spirit and rejoyce in Christ Iesus and have no confidence in the flesh And this is the Religion professed by the Church of England this is the doctrine of the Church That for salvation they depend onely on Christ Jesus and have no confidence in their own works And as for those Ceremonies used by them in the externall worship of God they have no confidence in them neither nor reckon them a part of the worship This may well be esteemed to be the root of the matter though Iob indeed applies this phrase peculiarly to the faith of the Resurrection through Christ which as being a particular is comprehended in this generall of imbracing Christ by Faith with all his benefits and to slur this profession the root of the matter with the odious imputation of Popery what is it lesse then Blasphemy and to pursue the professors of this Religion with the sword as Papists though neither Papists nor Brownists for their Religion are thus to be pursued what is it lesse then a bloody prosecution of the truth XXIX Whether in the sight of God and all indifferent men they are not to be accounted factious and seditious who by the power of the sword endevour any where the subversion of the Ancient government and known Laws contrary to the will and liking of the Supream Magistrate Indeed among us at this day they that are for Peace are esteemed factious and they that are for innovation even by the sword are accounted Peaceable the strangest paradox that ever was heard of But the counsell of the Holy Ghost is this and good it is for Christians to follow his counsell Fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change Pro. 24.21 The knitting together of these duties in this place is very observable for the Holy Ghost hereby shewes That they fear not God who fear not the King that one evidence of the want of the fear of God is to study or endeavour any innovation without or against the King with such he wishes us not to joyn and a reason he addes in the next verse for their calamity shall rise suddenly c. To the like purpose is that in Eccles 10.8 9. If this Scripture be Scripture still we know not how to joyn with the Parliament for an alteration against the Kings will nay besides these two places the Scripture doth frequently require subjection and forbids resistance who knows not those eminent places Rom. 13.1 2 5. Tit. 3.1 and 1. Pet. 2.13 14. We have all protessed to defend the priviledges of Parliament but that the Parliament hath any priviledge more then private men to walke contrary to the word of God or that they have any dispensation granted from walking according to Scripture rules is not yet made evident if this priviledge were once cleerly manifested we should never make any more doubt at all XXX Whether to have such thoughts as this I will go on in the way I have chosen even to the effusion of Rivers of blood though I see so many doubts doubts that seeme unanswerable though my conscience have no warrant out of Scripture for it whether this be not the resolution of a man whose salvation is desperate For the Apostle tells us that whatsoever is not of faith is sin Rom. 14.23 and whosoever doth wilfully continue in any sin is not yet in the state of Salvation for the Lord will not be mercifull to them that offend of malicious wickednesse XXXI Whether it be not more suitable to Christian Religion safer for a Christians soul upon these grounds even to suffer under the King if he should prove Tyrant or persecuter which upon many evidences we have good cause to hope he never will and should with our Prayers endeavour to obtain he never may rather then upon no grounds but bare feares and jealousies taken up by an implicit faith pinn'd upon the sleeve of a few men not priviledged from error contrary to Gods word to Acts of Parliament to subscriptions Oathes and Vowes to Rebell against him Vpon these considerations and such like many have fallen off already from the Parliament and unlesse some cleer satisfaction be hereunto speedily given if at least any satisfactory reason may be given how we should break all these sacred bonds and not be guilty it is to be thought many more will fall off Great is the truth and will prevaile And O thou that are the God both of truth and peace direct our hearts that we may understand the truth and incline our mindes to follow those things that make for Peace yea Lord grant unto us all with setled purpose and serious resolution to walke in those wayes that are most suitable to the Gospell as knowing that those are the wayes that make most for the glory of thy name and most for the comfort of our own otherwise erring and indanger'd soules Turpe haec opprobria nobis Et dici potuisse non potuisse refelli Satius est de media via recurrere quam semper currere male Be not deceived God is not mocked Gal. 6.7 FINIS 1645.
are all bound not only to the present Liturgie but also to the present Government both by their subscription and also by a vowed promise with a calling of God to witnesse and help thereunto As for the Act of Parliament whereby the Liturgy is confirmed in which Liturgy the Bishops by a prescribed Order more then once or twice are appointed to be prayed for it binds all the Subjects as well as Ministers It is the Law of the Kingdom established by Soveraign Authority and this Authority the Apostle saith we must be Subject unto both for fear of wrath and also for conscience sake This doth concern all the Subjects of the Kingdom but the Ministers Assembly men and all are yet somewhat further bound For at their Ordinations they have put it under their hands and that willingly and ex anima as they professed at least that the Book of Common Prayer containeth in it nothing contrary to the word of God and that they themselves will use the form in that Book prescribed and none othen And to this they have subscribed not once onely but again and again some of them when they took degrees in the Universities all of them when they were admitted into Orders both of Deaconty Priest hood and also at their severall Institutions to their Livings and admissions into Lectures as appears by the 36. Canon forementioned yet besides all this they made a vowed promise at their Ordination for a question being thus demanded of them will you reverently obey your Ordinary c This Answer was returned by them I will so do the Lord being my helper Now whether men that have so often bound themselves willingly and with all their heart and have lived accordingly some of them 20. some 30. some 40. yeers may lawfully endevour by the sword to free themselves from this bond or encourage others by the sword to procure a liberty for them or enter into a Covenant quite contrary to this bond is a case of conscience so deservedly considerable that all who have any conscience or do beleeve there is a Heaven or Hell to go to hereafter cannot but startle at the very first hearing of it that so much the rather because all Mimsters of the Kingdom have yet besides made another solemn Vow to their power to maintain quietnesse and Peace for at their Ordination this question being demanded of them Will you maintain and set forwards as much as lyeth in you quietnesse peace and love among all Christian people c The Answer they have all returned is this I will so do the Lord being my helper O God that art the helper of all them that do not forsake thee make them all that fear thee mindfull of their Vowes and carefull to perform them XV Whether the tampering so much with Oathes undertaking to dissolve some and impose others viz. new Covenants contrary to our former Oathes whereby the consciences both of Prince and people cannot but be insnared whether this doth seeme to argue any sincerity of zeal and purity of Religion or rather whether it doth not argue a wilfull purpose and resolution to compasse our own ends if possible though it be with the wrack of mens soules as well as of their Estates and Lives XVI Whether there be any reason or conscience the Clergy onely among all the Subjects of the Kingdom should be excluded from Voting about those Laws to the observance whereof it is expected they should be bound as well as the rest of the Subjects What a singular encouragement is here to be a Clergy-man in the Kingdom of England XVII Whether the Assembly of Divines at London have any lawfull calling Justly doubted for an ordinary calling all the Kingdom knows they have not they were not chosen by the voyces of the Clergy neither were they gathered together by the Kings will and Commandement without which there can be no such Ecclesiasticall Assembly as they themselves have put under their hands compare the third Article of subscription before mentioned with the 21. Article of Religion and it will easily appear and besides there is an Act of Parliament against such Assemblies as have not the Kings consent thereunto in the 25. of Henry 8. An ordinary calling then they have not an extraordinary by any supernaturall inspiration it is to be thought they will not assume to themselves and so they have no lawfull calling at all However the guides of the Kingdom they have taken upon them to be and therefore they may do well briefly and plainly to resolve these perplexing doubts with some Manifesto that we may know it is done or approved by them If we be misled woe be to us we shall perish in our iniquity Isay 9.16 but our blood shall be required at our watchmens hands Ezek. 3.18 XVIII Whether men lawfully possest of temporall Estates and having by their last will and Testament or any other lawfull means bestowed the same to the maintenance of the Clergy with fearfull curses some of them and imprecations on those that should divert it from that use whether those Estates can safely be alienated from the way which the Doners themselves devised without sacriledge True the curse causelesse will not come but that these curses are such who can say nay and if there were no curse yet who can say it is not sacriledge if Ananias and Saphira might not alienate what themselves had given who hath power to alienate that which is given by another man To rob Peter and pay Paul will not be sufficient to excuse the businesse A man had need be sure of his warrant before he take upon him to be a divider Luk. 12.14 XIX Whether we who endeavour to change the government of the Church that we may procure liberty of conscience yet exercise cruell Tyranny upon mens Consciences our selves by requiring them to joyn with us though there be so many scruples of conscience against it by plundering and imprisoning them if they will not joyn with us and by imposing new Covenants contrary to former Oathes whether we seeme not to the Malignants too justly to be guilty of deep Hypocrisie espying a mote that was in the Bishops eyes and not discerning the beam that is in our own XX Whether we that cryed out upon the Papists for endeavouring to bring in the Spaniards and upon the King for intending as we conceived to bring in the Danes be not unexcusable before God and man for doing that our selves in bringing in the Scots which we condemned in others Rom. 2.1 c Item whereas we complained of the Tyranny of the Bishops that many thereby were driven to forsake their Native Countrey and yet we by our cruelty shall do the self same are we not in this behalf also unexcusable many more such Items may be added XXI Whether it can stand with the quiet of Christian consciences to make such an effusion of Christian blood as now hath been spilt and yet is in
spilling meerly upon carnall motives Religion is indeed partly pretended but draw this faire Curtain aside and behind it there stands the carnall care of self-seeking seeking to save our Skins and Purses we are unwilling to suffer for Religion and therefore we would establish a Religion according to our own minds we would willingly prevent Ship-money and other burthens and therefore we desire to have more power in our own hands and lesse in the Kings so this War in the up shot is altogether to save our selves from trouble which we know not whether it will ever come upon us and yet here it is to be considered withall whether the good that is aimed at in it will justifie all the evils that have been committed by it nay whether if all that was feared by our over-forward jealousies had been brought upon us we could possibly have been in so bad a condition as this War hath put us so doth the wise Lord justly Crosse mens carnall proceedings XXII Whether it be not extream rashnesse to affirm That the whole Catholike Church in the point of Episcopacy was in an error all the world over 1500. yeers together That the whole Church was governed by Bishops all the world over till Mr. Calvins time of late at Genevae is known to all and amongst those Bishops to reckon up how many burning and shining lights how many zealous propagators and propugnators of the truth how many learned Professors how many constant Confessors how many glorious Martyrs have been found from time to time though amongst them as amongst men of all callings there have been some faulty were a work large enough to fill a spacious volume and if notwithstanding all this we shall blemish them and the whole Church of God that not onely tolerated but honoured them if we shall blemish them all with an error about the lawfullnesse of their calling shall we not take more upon us then the Psalmist durst to take upon himself he did not dare to condemn the generation of Gods Children Psal 73.15 XXIII Whether our party being so divided some being Presbyterians and some Independents and both sides contending strongly that each of their severall disciplines is that discipline which Christ hath ordained and appointed in his Church whether it be not apparent to all the world that one of them must be in an error Two contraries can never be both true and while one maintains a dependency and the other an Indepency there is between them a contrariety XXIIII Whether it being undeniable rashnesse to condemn Episcopary as before and an error being unavoydably acknowledged in one branch of our party both branches also being equally confident of their assertions and both introducing novelty whether there be not just cause to suspect them both as erroneous and lesse agreeing to the word of God then is Episcopacy XXV Whether the case being so uncertain and disputable there be any necessity so much blood should be spilt and so many lives lost for the removoll of the old and bringing in of a new government It was Davids Prayer and he utter'd it with some sense oa heavy burthen that was upon him deliver me from blood-guiltinesse O God and he had killed but one Vriah and a few more with him but so many thousand being lost amongst us and so much blood spilt for the change of a government if it be without necessity Oh how intolerable will this guilt be on whom soever it lights whether on the Parliament that begun it or on the assembly that did not since warn them of it or on us all that have been their well-wishers and abettors in it XXVI Whether Christ did ever prescribe such a way as this for setting up his throne viz. the use of the bloody sword Our Saviour doth injoyn his Disciples to take up the Crosse and follow him so far is he from commanding them to impose the Crosse on others and when the Samaritans would not receive him he did not allow his Disciples to execute vengeance upon them yea when his Enemies came to apprehend him yet he forbids Peter to use a sword for his own defence neither will it help to say that our Saviour was at that time to suffer for our Redemption and that therefore he did forbid Peter to use a sword in his defence had our Saviour aimed at nothing else it had been enough to have rebuked Peter for his present action without mention of a rule for perpetuity but when our Saviour doth not onely rebuke him but also as a reason of his rebuke doth annex the establishment of a perpetuall Law all that take the sword shall perrish by the sword he doth thereby shew that not onely at that time but also at all times he forbids a sword to be taken up against the civill Magistrate for his sake XXVII Whether in our consciences we be not perswaded that the State of the Kingdom might without war and with his Majesties good leave and furtherance have been reduced from its deviations unto the happy condition wherein it flourished in the blessed dayes of good Queen Elizabeth About the beginning of this Parliament there was some such thing commended by His Majesty in his speech unto the Parliament for a Reformation not an Alteration and never did any Nation live more happy then the people of England did in those golden dayes which were since continued also though some ecclipses of that happinesse a just judgement upon us for the abuse of our long Peace and Plenty have of late befallen us Religion flourished Soules were saved every man sate under his own Vine in safety and if we might have obtained so happy a condition without War let all the world judge whether that which we desire beyond the condition of those times be worthy of the losse of so much as one mans life or no and if not of one much lesse of so many thousands The Parliament-men were chosen sent up out of their severall Countreys respectively for the good of the Kingdom and Oh that they would seriously consider as they expect to answer it before Gods tribunall seat at the great Judgement day whether would be better for the Kingdom to have been restored to the condition it injoyed in Queen Elizabeths dayes or to be reduced to the plight in which now it stands I but though it be bad now yet it will be better when we have wrought a perfect reformation hereafter Be it so and let us feed our selves with those hopes but yet the question doth still remain The happy condition of Queen Elizabeths Reign we might have had freely the glorious contentment which we dream of beyond the condition of that Queens dayes hath already cost much blood the question is whether that glorious contentment which we think to obtain God knows when will be a sufficient recompence for all the lives that have and shall be lost in the obtaining of it neither is this all the losse of so many thousand