could not perswade them that their Liberty and propriety would be lost with his Prerogative both ensuing the ruines of the Church So in the State also the King of GODS own institution became layd aside and a constitution of humane wisdom set up in his Place and Power For no man can affirm that GOD whose are all the Kingdoms of the Earth The ruine of the Church more afflictive to the State then to in self and whose Prerogative it is to set up and pull down his own Deputies did ever constitute any other Government but Monarchicall And this no man can deny that GOD is able hath promised yea performed an hundred fold compensation to each man who in obedience to his Ordinance hath suffered as a Christian That for his Churches sake He hath reproved even Kings much more will he those who assume that power which is sacred and his to themselves without his Commission That the Church in the Red Sea is in comfortable safetie persecuting Aegyptians are drowned in it Yea that under CHRIST we owe the Religion which we have unto the sufferings of those whose doctrine discipline and worship the world now accounts folly so far forth that it may be doubted whether if the Church had wanted persecuters it had not now wanted Members And certainly he is a very evill man whom the badnesse of the times hath not made better And surely it concerneth the glory of GOD to meet with man in his own kinde and to make him to see to the full the folly of that wisdom which makes him esteem himself never free enough till he have cast off his yoke whose service onely is his perfect freedom Which now he may if he will One yeer of this Jobilee having cost the Land more beloved pelf then all it's Kings have drawn from it since the Conquest So that in this place it is considerable whether or no our present misery was not then enacted when the King by humane ordinance The first foundation of these our miseries but never by Divine was debarred from looking into his Subjects purses without consent in Parliament By which means Kings especially usurpers for such pottage as hath been presented to them have been necessitated to sell their Birthrights originally GGDS Which the present King in part denying was enforced to break off a former Parliament and to Declare against the usurpation irreligion and injustice thereof And withall to make use of a small part of the Prerogative which God had given him Which the Factious having blasted amongst the generality too well loving their purses their policy was by sinister means at home and abroad both in Scotland France to bring him into such streights as might force a Parliament from him for them to play their prizes in But now the truth of this late unsufferable Court flattery is at length made clear by those who at Present sit at the Helme And now it is no flattery to proclaim for them that where the Soveraign Authority is there the lives and livelihoods of all must be at command And yet still the question sticks whether the wisdom of GOD or Man be best to be trusted In order to these followed on The peoples surprise the universall bent of the people in many places blindly led on by those whose spirit of opposition commended for the onely Patriots to choose none but such for this present Parliament The Serpententine policy diligence and activity of the Faction prevailed against the carelesnesse of the many of the better sort and the few of the best So that in divers places men were elected not so fit for that employment as peradventure for other Advancement So that it is here considerable whether it doth not concern the sleepers to bewail their former neglects and to take care if GOD have not decreed the utter ruine of their ill sought Liberty that they be not out-witted and out-acted by those who are in their generation wiser then themselves Secondly The idle City multitude fitto be practised on this Parliament being met and that in a place fitting for the designes of the Contrivers they had their desire relying upon the multitude of the Plebs urbica whose wantonnesse and idlenesse had made busie-bodies and whose naturall weaknesse or wickednesse had made detesters of the Government and virtues of those whom GOD had raised up amongst them and set in his own place over them The Ringleaders knowing themselves to be thus backed neglecting the busines of His Majesty by whose Authority they met first fell on work against the peoples the Electors Priviledge casting out of doores or out of countenance all those whom they could not bring into the same excesse with themselves though by the people presented unto the King to be by him invested in as high Authority as any of them This beginning with the like continuance hath brought upon you that which you now see and feel which no Chronicle shall be able to represent to you and yours My Letter presumes not on the particulars But yet to some The two Houses whether free it may seem worthy the consideration whether or no the present two Houses be free that is free from force If they be not why without more ado are not we free from them Sit liber Dominus qui volet esse meus And it is an heavy judgement of GOD that Servants should rule over a People If they be at this present to let passe former writings why is not the History of Independency confuted Sundry arguments If they affirm their Freedom we have multitudes of Arguments for their solution If they be free and wise why doth one and the same Body alter continually into contrarieties And those in things at least morall whereof if one be good the other must of necessity be bad At the beginning of the Parliament Scandalous writings and Petitions were justified by a Decree Petitions and free writings that it was Parliament time and all Petitions were to be received and all free writers protected But now it deserves death to Petition and little lesse to use that conscionable advice which the Laws of GOD command us for the snatching our of the fire those whom we see in danger If the former was Liberty what by the Rule of Contraries is the latter And what is become of the resolution of holy Job If his Adversary should write a book against him to binde it to his Soul But by this they have hindred many wholsome Books from being written more from being published 2. But not to mention the multitudes too well known to the most At first Arbitrary Power was declared against and the Noble Strafford put to death Arbitrary power not for acting but for a surmised intending of it Now nothing but Arbitrary power is practised yea and that in the hands of such Committee-men as shame it self is ashamed of 3. At first the Birthright of the Subject the Laws of the
this Divine Authority unto Kings and unto none else The guilt of Blood where upon Record in his Registry Then it appears where lyes the guilt of all the Blood spilt in the fields or strangled upon the Tree in these dayes of calamity If they have any plea in this particular let them produce it We find the Power of the Sword throughout the whole current of holy Scripture committed unto Kings and to none else If the Scriptures be silent concerning their claim then it appears who are the usurpers upon GOD to take the Sword which must be given or not medled with Then who are the Blasphemers of GOD and the King who the miserable Sheme'is that curse the Lords Anointed David with the loud crying imputation of being A Man of Blood If these things be so then it behoveth every man timely and sadly to bethink himself how far he hath been an agent assistant or consentient herein Who Incendiaries yea how far he hath not been an opposer of this wretched Sacriledge committed against the Almighty Creator yea Redeemer of mankind who is able to punish all that rob him but will most severely those that rob him of his Prerogative But especially those who stile themselves the Assembly of Divines and their subordinate Pulpiteers who as Rabshekah did lead on all these mischiefs with The Name of the Lord. But chiefly Mr. Marshall who led on the Cause but seems to take no care for the bringing of it off And if this be not the Case they may not be accounted worthy of any crumme of their own much lesse of other mens bread if they do not vindicate the two Houses clear themselves from the imputation of being the publick Incendiaries and free themselves from the generall curses of the poore suffering and exhausted people But in the next place If the Mr. of the House be called Belzebub can or may the servant think to escape If GOD be usurped upon Vsurpations on the Church shall any man marvell if his Church be so used in the prophanation and robbing of all the Houses of GOD in the Land But will they indeed cause that which we suppose to be the daily Sacrifice to cease And in the roome thereof set up the Abhomination of Desolation Are not they of the other belief bad enough to be supposed to have tender Consciences And will they not vouchsafe to justifie themselves or to rectifie us The English Liturgie for whom also CHRIST dyed Let their Rabbi's to their Honour shew us who never heard that ever there was untill these dayes a Church constituted upon the face of the Earth without a publick Liturgie That ever God was so dishonoured as to have his publick worship entrusted to the weaknesse or wickednesse of all presumers It will be supposed till the contrary be made apparent that the present out-cast Liturgy contains the Flowers and Marrow of all the Liturgies of the pure Primitive Ages cleansed from the weeds and rottennesse which the envious man in the worlds declining times had powred forth into the Earth Otherwise why do they not cast out of their Creed the Article of the Catholick Church if we have nothing to do with that which was before us And why do they not satisfie the poore offended people Directory Religion complaining that their whole Religion is now become ridiculous or odious As being turned into Pulpit-justlings or else praying or giving of thanks for the effusion of the blood of their Christian Brethren and for the encrease of Heresies Schismes Rebellion Robberies c And that it is now come to passe that we have such a Religion as we should have weather if every mans wish might be heard and every Almanack-maker made a true Prophet yea that they put upon GOD such a Service that it is impossible for him to remain One and the same and to accept of it That were he never so gracious his Almightinesse cannot grant all their requests For that there is not one Congregation whose prayers if it were possible for them to be all of one minde are not contrary to the prayers of many For GODS Cause let there be something wherein all Israel may which they ought as one man The Communion of Saints and the Lords Prayer joyn in the worship of the One GOD otherwise why do they not put out that part of the Article The Communion of Saints But since the Lords Prayer is reprobated what can be saved Did not he who is the wisdom of the Father know or would not he whose charity dyed for his Enemies take care for what was absolute when he appointed his Disciples that when ever they prayed they should say Our Father c. Is any thing that is made by GOD himself unperfect or were they while the Bridegroom was with them novices in respect of us Did not he teach them then to pray in the Spirit when he taught them so to pray and bade them alwayes to do so or did he not provide against our pretended Spirits when he forbade them Battologies the fruits of unpremeditated vain bablings And is not this all the hazardous publick Service worse then none wherewith the most high and most deserving Majesty must casually every where be contented or none Must he be forced from all his visible Temples here on Earth into his dwelling place in Heaven Which as it gave the fashion to Moses Solomons and to our materiall Churches So ought it in the daily one Service thereof prescribe unto ours that his great Name may be hallowed and his Monarchicall will so done on Earth as it is in his exemplary Temple in Heaven In a word why do they not Assemble to the Answering of Dr. Taylors Book concerning Set Prayer But yet further then this it is considerable whether or no they take the course as with the souls of many thousands condemned alive so for the strangling before the wombe of all the souls of all succeeding Generations in this Land For if this be a true principle which was delivered for such a one Posterity undone by the Grandees and leading men of that side in the Conference at Hampton Court that no Sacrament can be administred but by the Consecration of a lawfull Minister i. In our English Liturgy Priest Then apparent it will easily be no Bishop no Priest no Priest no Sacrament now little used and lesse regarded And then no Sacraments no Church no Church no salvation That unto the Bishop and to the Bishop alone is committed the Authority of sending Labourers into GODS Vineyard for the continuance of a visible Church of CHRIST upon Earth until his coming hither again That usurping in matters Ecclesiastical against or without them yea when the Ark of GODS Church doth indeed totter is the dreadfull and destructive sin of Schisme which St. Jer saith is more abhominable then Murther Adultery c. That Bishops are the men whose perpetuitie for the perpetuating of his Church the
GOD of Truth hath solemnly sworn will be seasonably proved when GOD shall vouchsafe us a free and lawfull Synod such a one as without the stain of Christianity his people may joyfully own In the mean time why do not our Pretenders afford a Reply to Dr. Edw Boughens Book Will they eat his bread and vouchsafe him neither an Alms nor an Answer The taking away also of Bishops Votes may be taken into consideration Abrogation of Bishops Votes which is looked upon as a taking away of the presence of GOD from the publick Consultations in the persons of them upon whom the glorious character of CHRISTS Mediatorship is enstamped The Tribe of the Lord being not thought worthy to have any to represent them except at a side Table those in a servile condition whom the generall voice cals Priests of Jeroboam Assemblers pluralities Sacriledge of their own Consecration by their filling of their hands even unto scandall unanswerable c. And Schismaticks after the order of Korah As also the sin of Sacriledge which was not by the Apostle thought of inferior rank to the sin of Idolatry It being forbidden in the same Commandment and the positive part thereof viz. Thou shalt not worship with thy body nor serve with thy goods graven images for I am a jealous God they belong and I will have them without any rivall payed unto me And the offences against these to wit the honour with bodily worship or consecration of goods to any false god or the robbing of me in either I will vindicate upon the third and fourth generation of those who shall voluntarily persist in these defiances of me For certainly GOD is not such a GOD as to be jealous over and threaten the want of that which he will not have If as Levit. 27.28 Every devoted thing be in the present tense most holy unto the Lord yea as the Text implyes an Anathema to the usurper of it as was Achans wedge which brought all Israel under the scourge of GOD. And if Ananias and his wife devoting all but keeping back part whereas without sin they might otherwise have kept all it being their own were set forth as deadly examples of GODS jealous wrath in this kinde Then what can be thought of them who fly upon that which was never theirs but consecrated out of the magnificence of well affected Princes And which the Doners themselves might not have recalled So that Sacriledge is a sin generally and highly concernent of a whole Nation The innocent and nocent especially if it bear the face of a publick Act. In which point serious men conceive that we now smart for the violations of the former Age. And truly it is considerable The Spirit of Antichrist that in the times of such generall impiety it is just with God as he had foretold of the last dayes to permit the Spirit of Antichrist which in plain English signifieth an opposer of GODS Anointed Kings and Priests to seat it self in the House of GOD and intermedling in sacred things without GODS Call or Commission to usurp Authority As GOD over all that is called GOD as Kings and chief Priests were sundrie times in the Book of GOD yea patiently for a time to endure their usurpations against himself who indeed is All that ought to be worshipped permitting in his jealousie the trampling down of his Ordinances Who had constituted the King to consult the Priest in all points of his Service and by his designation to Act and Enact And had exemplified this generall and eternall Rule in the story of pious Jehoshaphat 2 Chron. 19. appointing severally the chief Fathers of Israel the Priests and Levites for the judgements of the Lord and controversies in Religion And constituting over them Amariah the high Priest over all of them in all matters of the Lord As Zebadiah the Chancellor over all in all matters of the King or Kingdom BUT I PROCEED TO THE CAUSES c. And here leaving secret things to God Secret things to God I shall without peremptorinesse of censure onely mention what conscientious men have reckoned as in an high degree contrary to the revealed Word of GOD. As first the sin of Sacriledge acted in the dayes of our Fathers in the Reign of Hen 8. continued and increased ever since Secondly the easinesse of our Princes incited by the fancifull importunitie of this Nation in sending Assistance to the Subjects of forreign Princes up in Arms against their Soveraigns But there is enough visible for the stirring up of this great Tempest of GODS wrath Generall causes of out wo. The proud full Sea of our late peace and plenty One wave raging against another and all of them against goodnesse Wickednesse warring against wickednesses but chiefly against GOD his Church and Religion against Man Society and Honesty The prophanations of Religion and the religionsnesse of prophanation The Angel of light in black and the Angel of darknes in white The Teacher taught and the Feeder starved Sodom brought into the Body of the Land and leannesse into the soul Fulnesse and want at the same instant both in their extremities The generall desolation wrought by Prodigality on the one hand and Covetousnesse on the other both destroying all besides and pining of themselves The naturall unnaturalnesse of hatred and the hatefulnesse of self-love The delicacies and uncleannesse of Lust Fraud and falshood got into the places of Truth and Honesty and they turned out into the others seats The pride of those who knowing not themselves think they know all things and that they may meddle with any thing be it never so sacred The servile and idle bulie-headednesse of this Nation affecting out-landish fashions for their Religion also Without whose Apes and Peacocks we were once unlikely to have had acquaintance with these hard names of Presbyterian Independent or Warre But these things superadded to the naturall incivility of ungovernable Northern robustuousnesse and intractability may seem fuell sufficient to enrage the flame against us And the next conjoyned unto these will bring it home into our Houses The first may seem an universall loathing of the providentiall ordinances of GOD Particularities in the Church and a sensuall doting upon the wisdom of Man which the Apostle cals Divillish Hating of Dominions and speaking evill of Dignities In the Church itching ears and fiery tongues but numbnesse and frost otherwise in the whole Man Every man esteeming himself too good for the rank wherein GOD hath placed him aspiring to teach his Teachers to shear yea as far as the swords of their mouthes could reach to butcher their Shepherds Following and crying up those Hirelings who could with greatest volubility decry those whom GOD had set over them Here as in the weakest place the mischief began First no Bishop then no King But long it was before this Monster durst shew his teeth The deluded People served an hard Apprentiship in unbelief of this The King himself
Turkish mercy we might have been secure for the rest yea and which is more then all the rest the Freedom of our Religion to boot Father forgive them for they know not what they do For the others who are abundantly the greater part my Petition to them is Considerations for the major part that they would not despair while CHRIST is in Heaven his Word on Earth and they have hearts to follow the directions thereof Let no man say it is impossible GOD may be importuned and overcome by many hands by universall prayers and amendment if we can but bring our selves to hate all that stands in competition with him I desire not to represent unto them their miseries and losses which they are too sensible of and too little of the blood wantonly spilt and the deaths of souls more precious I onely tell them how for the present they may avoid the sin and for the future the punishment Which as concerning their earthly estates cannot be compassed while the Houses continue their resolutions So long they must have an Army the Army will be maintained cannot but be insolent while no man can account any thing his own which they can take Covet therefore what cannot he taken And follow the course that may be taken You know From the 2. Houses own Principle As your own duties of Christian Allegiance to be preferred before all that is dear unto you so the principle though in it self most false and blasphemous which being theirs and that by which they have prevailed against you and yours they may not with colour of honesty desert Which is this That the power of Dominion is originally in the People Which is a desperate Assertion refuted by the clear Word of GOD and sundry Books yet unanswered By you they pretend to be entrusted with the government of the Land And if they have not this Power from you they have it not otherwise by any Law of GOD or Man And if as they most falsly pretend you might re-assume the Power from the King then certainly you may from them to whom GOD neither hath nor you could give them and so their whole title against you must rest in force which at first they neither did or might pretend and which every Tyrant would blush openly to own 2ly you know that you are the major part of the Kingdom at least 20. to one whose eyes either Religion or irreligious oppression hath opened Petitions undid us And it is not unknown unto you how in the beginning of this Parliament while you slept in lazy security that Petitions by the restlesnes of a few were extorted or forged and presented in the generall names of the severall Counties and so received as if they had been Catholick and orthodox and from these Players hath proceeded our reall Tragedy But here I do not wish that you should go that way My self dares not so far acknowledge any authority which my soul esteems to stand in armed opposition against GOD and his Ordinances And it is well known how for this thing the Petitioners of Surrey and the compassionate Watermen lost their lives without any inquest upon that blood How the Kentish and men of Essex for the same cause were prosecuted with cruell warre and too bloody for Pen and Ink to expresse But if so your selves be minded and you do conceive the foregoing Proposals worthy of your considerations I could rather Petition you in a Declarative way to take unto you as A Declaration the resolutions of free-born men so chiefly the modesty sobriety and peaceablenes of Christians so farre forth that if it be possible the mouthes of your greatest Adversaries may be stopped and they enforced to blame rather themselves then the meeknesse of your sick liberty breathing out it self in the way of religious charity not of cumultuous and passionate Revenge or Hatred Expressing whether or no you intended or will endure the Arbitrary Power of the Houses their levying men and Arms with Free quarter Taxes Excise c. against or without the King Whether you conceive this fitting to be done or that lawfully you may do it Whether the submission you have hitherto yeelded was voluntary or forced And whether or no thankfully looking back unto the former blessings under Him enjoyed you ought not to Petition the King and GOD Almighty for him that He do not by Treaty or otherwise part with the Militia or any other part of his Prerogative Royall which appearing to be GODS he may not with a safe Conscience by any voluntary Act acquit So also further to consider whether it be not necessary to Petition his Majesty For a Synod that by his Authority A Synod with all convenient speed may be called Such as we may justifie before GOD and Man according to the examples of the ancient Primitive Church for the composing of Controversies and the establishing of Unity in Religion and the publick worship of GOD. And that all sorts of Disputants may be invited yea encouraged with freedom and indemnity to propose in writing their severall Desires and Reasons and those to be entred into the publick Acts to remain upon Record for ever that all men and Times may see not onely what was done but why upon what grounds But in case neither Treaty nor Declarations avail by their default then to consider whether or no it be necessary further to Declare that you do revoke your former Substitutions Revocation of the pretended power of the House of Commons whereby the House of Commons pretends in your Names to sit And to protest against their former Acts and Ordinances And that according to your warranty from the Word of GOD you have taken unto you the resolutions to deny your selves and comparatively to hate wife and children house and lands trade and traffique and your own lives also rather then you will do or have any thing towards the maintaining of any in opposition to the Ordinance of GOD before GOD shall pull down all stomacks against Unity by his plague of famine which he makes apparent that he can do it by this unseasonable weather sent now amongst us Since the floods of our blood cannot effect it As also for the future that if it shall please GOD to continue you alive to make new Election you will be as diligent as others late have been for the choosing of men well affected to the Laws Caveats for hereafter peace and order of this Kingdome and that you will pitch upon none from whom you have not sufficient evidence of their valuing of the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance formerly and at the present of Election No guard but of reputation Innocency to have been and to be by them taken with sufficient Bonds and Penalties upon Indentures between you and them in these or the like particulars and that they will not admit of other Arms or Guards about them except by voluntary order from the King if he finds cause then the protection of their own reputation and innocency whereas nothing but the witchery of that abused Name of Parliament could have abused you into the shame and sin which their force hath brought upon your and whose Arms would soon fail if the fraud of that name was understood THIS he presumeth not to prescribe but with all Christian humility to present unto your considerations Beseeching you not to accept of private whisperings or peece meal Answers but to require publick and totall satisfaction to these and other your just complaints And minding of you that 〈◊〉 had a Clergy whose neglect he forbears to relate amongst the causes of your miseries who would have â—â—â—orred that such things should have been objected for any thing taught or done in their times and nor have been at all or so answered c. FINIS