the times of Popish Egyptian darkness shall any pretending to true Protestantism which severely declaims all such perfidious Antichristian courses be found to be so far approvers of such infamous actions as to commend them for examples to others to tread in the same steps Can Subjects combining and swearing together to extirpate the legal established Church-Government of a Nation as Bishops were and are still here though the leg exercise of their Coercive power in the Star-Chamber and High Commission Courts was taken away by the Act in 1641. to prevent the subsequent Rebellion and Jesuitical-Combinations of Leaguing Presbyters and vowing to assist one another in their Covenanted Rebellion with their lives and fortunes against the express command of the supream Governor for the attaining of their Leaguing ends be called and stiled Commendable by any one pretending some affinity to Loyalty or Christianity which are inseparable and the constant attendants upon a true fearer of the Lord It 's a brave time with Rebels when their Treason and disloyalty are enrolled amongst the Records of Fame and Honour and their obedient opposites to the commands of their lawful Prince are in the very act of Loyalty tearmed and Recorded for terrible Delinquents against the thing which Nick-named it self so often A Parliament Halcyon daies for Sacrilegious Schismaticks when that which is condemned by the word of God nothing more shall be garnished forth with an Epethite of Commendable though what the Prophet by God's express command said so long ago that do I say now unto these strangers to Truth and Loyalty b Isaiah 5. 20. Wo unto them that call evil good and good evil § 2. They tell us too It was according to the practice of Gods people in other Nations Aha! What Gods people and Covenanting Rebels too What Reformers and swearing Extirpaters of the Episcopal promoters of the Reformation Saints and yet Schismaticks Christians and yet Traytors Surely our Covenanters were put to extream hard straits to make lies their refuge for their carrying on of their extirpating Reformation No other way to catch people into the black Road with them but by blinding their eyes with Errors and Contradictions A sad geneneration of Merozians It s true indeed the Guisian Leaguers in France went directly in the same impious courses before them unless they be their Gods people I know none for they alone were the Monsters that our Leaguers could properly say they were imitators of because they went to their hellish work with an Oath like ours and yet Guise himself like ours too had the face to tell his Prince That he was his faithful subject for all that Who as the Translator of a Parisians Work tells us living under c See the right of Kings and duty of subjects Pref. a milde and peaceable Prince slandered their King that he was an enemy to the Roman Catholick Religion as our Covenanters did the late Carolian Martyr to be an enemy to the Protestant and under the fair pretence of Religion screwed themselves into the favour of the Common people who are usually deceived by such pretences raising a strong party against the King by the name of the holy League which caused much confusion in that kingdom as by too sad and lamentable experience we have found to be the effects of our English Leaguers in this And now I appeal to the conscience of any man living whether they that can first Rebel against their d For so they swore the King was only Supream Governour and then have the confidence to tell us of a thing which never was like that of the man in the Moon and set it down with such a positive Asseveration as making it a pattern for their illegal traitorous undertakings and stile that Commendable which if any such thing had ever been ought to be abhorred as much as hell by him that desires the Rules of Christianity I say I appeal to the Conscience of any man living who desires not to be ensnared and kept so with the e See Mr. Reynell's Panegyrik intituled The unfortunate Change Caledonian Boar which was the cause of our distempers whether they that speak these lies and juglings these palpable falshoods and deceits could possibly have according to their assertion Before their eyes the glory of God and the advancement of the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ whose f See Mr. Quarrel 's Loyal Convert P. 5. glory will not be vindicated by such unlawful means and unwarrantable proceedings and whose kingdom is endeavoured to be pulled down by such a peerless Covenant But what 's it they swear that must have a juggling Preface to set it forth Why they tell us in their first Article That they will sincerely really and constantly through the grace of God as though that would ever square with such proceedings endeavour in their severall places and callings the Preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the word of God and the example of the best Reformed Churches § 3. What have I to do with the reglement of Foreign Churches * See his Fair warning P. 1 said the Reverend Primate and so say I too What had English men to do to swear to preserve the Doctrine and Discipline of another Countrey Let them stand or fall to their own Master Ay but here was the Mystery We have an earnest longing desire to have Bishops extirpated and we having followed the pattern of our dear Scottish Brethren in rising up in arms against our King for that purpose and being not well able and sufficient of our selves to carry on our design against them we must call in the other to our aid and they will not come to us unless we will swear to set up their Church-way amongst us and therefore rather then Bishops shall stand we will do it For as the late Martyr said upon the Covenant nothing will induce them to engage till those that called them in have pawned thier souls to them by a solemn League and Covenant I am verily perswaded that there was not one amongst a hundred that swore that League to preserve the Scottish Discipline that knew no more what their Discipline was then a horse and so they swore with a blinde implicite faith to preserve they knew not what themselves Pure good swearing is it not Was this sworn in Truth Judgement and Righteousness as the Prophet saith an Oath should Jer. 4. 2. If not as it was not Is not therefore such mens swearing unlawful and so to be renounced and repented of Is it not an abominable wickedness in any one to swear to preserve the Scottish Discipline or when sworn to keep such a wicked Oath when the Reverend Primate hath made it appear by such cogent and undeniable Arguments of truth and sound Divinity beyond the reach and power of a Crofton or any Presbyterian adversary to answer without palpable
his lawful Sovereign to pray that God would be with him were not a Petition but a Presumption for though it be true that Almighty God doth sometimes suffer for reasons best known to himself such wretches to prosper in their wicked ways yet they cannot either justly expect or religiously desire it and by how much the more devoutly they seem to undertake such attempts by so much the more abominable they are in the eyes of God who never more abhorreth Rebellion then when it is masked with Religion and Devotion Do they think it was no sin in them for to make such an horrible conclusive prayer as that which is here made for a close to their Covenant If they say no then a pack of thieves who lye in wait for to spoil men of their goods and estates and sometimes of their lives may pray to God too for prosperity in their pilfering courses that is in plain English to bless them in their disobedience to him with success for it and count their prayer in such case lawful too and so Absalom and his deluded confederates might most humbly beseech God to bless them with such success against King David that they might not onely usurp his Authority and cast him out of his Throne but that other of their neighbour Nations might be encouraged by their example to do the like to their own Kings and so of any other whatsoever in the commission of any villany if they can but first have the courage to do the thing without fear of punishment and in expectation of praise for it and then can have but the confidence most humbly to beseech God as our Leaguers Cant it to bless them with success in it if they say yes then I hope their Covenant ought to be abolished and renounced as being what it is undoubtedly sinful in the matter of it I remember Mr. Croftons profound Lawyer Mr. Prynne in his printed Treatises hath told us That the unparallel'd proceedings of those who unjustly usurped the title of Parliament though their title was onely in nomine non re in name not in reality in relation to their barbarous murther of their Lord and Sovereign to whom they had sworn to bear true faith and allegiance and to their traiterous banishing of his incomparable Heir through a quaternary of perjuries have given occasion m See his Republicans and others Spurious good Old Cause briefly and truely Anatomized p. 17. to all our Popish adversaries not onely to traduce deride reproach blaspheme our Protestant Profession as some of them have done in print as a meer Seminary of Treason Rebellion Sedition Hypocrisie Perjury Disloyalty and all sorts of villany but to combine together in a HOLY LEAGUE to extirpate it and all Professors of it out of the world And n See his True and perfect Narrative p. 55. to massacre eradicate them as a company of Traitors Antimonarchists Regicides Hypocrites Rebels and seditious persons And made it great matter of lamentation as it is undoubtedly to every good Christian that men pretending to fear God should ever give such an irrepairable scandal to Christianity And I have no sooner set down that Gentlemans words but I presently finde that there was occasion enough given by their warlike Covenant to turn the edge of these Covenanters words upon themselves for they having rebelled against their Sovereign as it were for Gods sake for the further strengthning of themselves in their wicked courses combined by League and Covenant not onely to proceed on further in their rising up in Arms against their supream Legislator for the glory of God a practice as a loyal Scotch Minister o See Scotlands late misery bewailed p. 14. saith inconsistent with sound divinity against all orthodox doctrine a practice contrary to Scripture contrary to the doctrine of the ancient Church and their practice contrary to the Confession of Faith No King upon the accompt of his intellectuals morals or religion being to be suspended from the exercise of his Government or denied submission too by his Subjects but also to continue therein all the days of their lives against all lets and impediments whatsoever for the peace and safety of the three kingdoms which as they are notorious contradictions in themselves like the rest of their Jugling League by being instrumental to the dishonor of God in the horrible breaking of his Laws and directly opposite to the peace of this kingdom as well as all others where such Antichristian prayers are put in practise in being acted so rebelliously to the praise and glory of the man of sin to the pulling down of the kingdom of our most blessed Savior and to the everlasting disgrace of true Christianity even of the true Protestant Religion which vehemently exclaims against all such seditious Antimonarchical ways and principles So with every rational man that knows there must be a flame kindled before a house can be burned that the King had never bin murthered by prosperous Rebels if the flame of Sedition and Treason had not first set the kingdom a burning and for a man to make a flame in a house and by that flame at length that house is burned and destroyed and then to say he never intended the house should have been destroyed savours of little less then frenzy and will hardly ever excuse his innocency in it These Leaguers had first raised a war and vowed and swore the prosecution thereof against the Martyr and the sword-men taking advantage of the Military power which by the Covenanters means they had obtained executed their villany in their villanous act of Regicide and yet the former would perswade the world that they never intended it which if the rising up in arms had not first bin practised the murther would then have never bin heard of which being so evident to any mans understanding this conclusion naturally flows from the premises That their rebellious Actings against the King in the behalf of a Faction of the Two Houses that had renounced all allegiance save in order to that which they called Religion do give as great occasion as the murther to foreign Princes to extirpate as much as in them lies the professors of the Protestant Religion to prevent them from rising up in arms against them lest their prosperity in such ways of darkness should invite them at length to attempt to serve them ☞ there as the renowned Martyr was here after he had been by vertue of this hellish black Covenant fought against and all his Forces overcome and as the immediate fruits issues and effects thereof first sold then imprisoned and afterwards delivered to his perjured Subjects to be crucified Finally for a conclusion to this Covenanting Prayer which the famous University of Oxford affirmed their hearts trembled to think that they should be required to pray it I shall here subjoyn the judicious and memorable thoughts of that then loyal conscientious University which I finde expressed in the following words
imposers thereof are guilty of the highest crime Now can that oath be said by any man in his right wits to be warranted by the Laws of the Land which is directly opposite and contrariant to them and for which the imposers may be hanged at Tyburn for the gallows have commonly been the immediate fate and consequence of that highest crime of Treason This Covenant was thrust down the Throats of many people not by an Act of Parliament which must have been made as the Petition of Right and all other Laws and Acts have been by the King and all the Lords and Commons but by an Ordinance as it was called of a packt black faction of the then never to be forgotten two Houses which serves for nothing but to * p. 84. record to posterity a lawless distemper'd time A thing so far from being warranted by the Laws of the Land that such a thing was never heard of till these latter times of Treason and Sacriledge Rebellion and Confusion when mens brains began to be possessed of the effects and virtues of a Midsommer-moon Again can that be warranted by the Laws of the land which is so far a breach of those laws as it s esteemed high Treason u p. 22. 40. Arising to alter religion established or any Law is Treason saith the reverend Judge And did not the thing which Crofton will needs have to be a Parliament arise to alter the religion and was not this league devised to keep men under an oath for the doing and assisting of them in it Let Jack Presbyter deny it if he can In the second Article of this Covenant the takers swore to endeavour to extirpate Arch-bishops Bishops c. which is absolute contrary to Magna Charta which in the 25th of Edw. 3. chap. 1. 2. is declared to be the common Law of the Land chap. 1. and the last Salvae fint Episcopis omnes libertates suae That the Bishops shall have all their whole Rights and Liberties inviolable and this great Charter the Judge tells us p. 62. is confirmed by no less then 32 Acts of Parliament and in the 42th of Edw. 3. The first chapter enacts That if any Statute be made to the contrary it shal be holden for none and therefore their impious lawless League in this respect is far enough from being warranted by the Laws of this Land being so notoriously against the very Charter of our Liberties Again the Leaguers declared as Crofton himself told us lately for I am scarce old enough to remember the doing of it That they Abolished the Common-prayer Book in pursuance of their Covenant Very good This very book which they pretended to abolish with the power of an illegal ordinance was not onely compiled by true Martyrs and Reformers and practised in the times of four Princes but was and is still p. 62. notwithstanding their Rebellious Ordinance setled by no less then five Acts of Parliament And therefore their Covenant being in that act also contrary to the Lawes All Ministers and others that have taken this Oath must teach themselves and others according to the exhorters own assertion for I love to take men at their words that such oaths call for repentance and not pertinacy in them it being proved to be so far from being warranted by the Laws of the Land that it is an absolute breach of above 26 of them § 15. I remember The Leaguers in their Disputes and Arguments ☞ against the wearing of the Surplice and performance of other commendable Ceremonies of our best Reformed Church of England do out of their wise Noddles send forth such doughty windy Affirmations as will excellently wel serve to prove the unlawfulness of their Covenant Let a man go and ask them why they will not wear the Surplice and live in conformity to the Rites and Customs of the Church they 'l tell him because they are unlawful and why are they unlawful because God hath no where commanded them to be done in the Scripture though in any wise mans judgement there can be no unlawfulness in a thing without it be a breach of some Law which hath forbid it and where they will finde that Law against the Surplice and Ceremonies its possible they 'l tell us when they are able and their ability for that end will be I believe Ad Grecas Calendas but not well before Now according to their own ways of arguing I shall make this retortion That God hath no where in the Scripture commanded subjects in case of a default made by the Prince or that he will not consent to any Reformation to rise up in Arms and rebel against him and swear an Oath to do it themselves without any Royal Consent at all and let any of the Pack make it appear if they can For for them to set down the examples of the Oaths and Covenants Kings and Subjects joyntly made for a Reformation when they are demanded to show a pattern for their Covenant is no more to the purpose then to say Queen Elizabeth and her Nobles made a Reformation in this kingdom to pull us out of the mist of Popish darkness no more satisfaction to a Quaerist then as the Reverend Dr. Pierce told one of his Antagonists for a man when he is asked what 's a Clock To answer a windmil or a pump for the question is not whether Kings and Subjects may joyntly swear a Reformation of Abuses either in Church or State for there is no body I think wil stand to dispute that but whether in case a King will not make that extirpating Reformation his Subjects would have him whether they may do this without his consent by Oaths and rising up in Armes which is palpable rebellion u See the League illegal p. 17. Where doth God command the English to swear to preserve the Scotch Discipline and Liturgy which they themselves have often varied Or to abjure Episcopacy which was the onely Government of the Church for more then 1500 years and under whose shade Christian Religion most flourished and the Church stretched forth her branches to the Rivers and her boughs to the ends of the earth Where doth the Scripture warrant much less command the association of two kingdoms and joyntly taking up Arms in the Quarrel of the Gospel and defending and propagating Religion by the sword And let them answer that or let their silence conclude their being convinced I say again God never commanded Subjects any where in the Scripture to make a Reformation without their Princes consent by arms And therefore to deal with them with their own weapons according to their own ways of disputations against the Ceremonies I affirm that their Covenant is wicked and unlawful and being an unlawful sinful Oath by the resolution and judgement of all Casuists it ought not to be pleaded for nor taken or if once taken to be kept by any that ever took it because x See The Fair
hath once read and reading well considered the Primates Fair Warning to beware and take heed of this Scottish Cockatrice he will find cause enough to perceive a vast contradiction between the Protestation and this Yea and as different a sound between them both as there is betwixt two bells in a steeple and so by good consequence see too the horrible impiety of their solemn League and Covenant The Protesters vow too according to the duty of their Allegiance to maintain and defend His Majesties Royal Person Honor and Estate without any cursed destructive Limmittation of that defence All which are diminished decreased and taken away by Sir Johns Holy League which therefore can admit of no accord between them The late Carolian Martyr in his discourse upon the covenant professes he could not c See Eikon Basilike See how they wil reconcile such an innovating observe that O Leaguer oath and Covenant with that former Protestation which was so lately taken to maintain the Religion established in the Church of England since they count discipline so great a part of Religion But if all that hath been said cannot which in my weak judgement hath sufficiently prove the opposition of the one to the other That there is a great deal of difference between them may be easily perceiv'd by his Majesties deep silence when the Protestation was taken under his nose as we use to say when they were hard by him at Whitehal as well as by his Publick Printed proclamation as far as Oxford against the taking of that Seditious and Traiterous Vow and Covenant as he called it in the day he heard thereof and his prohibition of all people upon their Allegiance not to swear it as ingaging the takers in Acts of high Treason yea and by the late order of the Lords and Commons for the Hangmans burning of it when they did not so much as mention the Protestation which if it had agreed with the Covenant sure enough those Loyal Houses would never have suffered it to have lain still but had sent them both one way together Upon consideration of all that hath now bin said by way of evidence to prove the great contradiction between the two Legal Sacred Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance the Protestation and this jugling League and Covenant for my own part I cannot but submit to the Primates truth d See his Fair Warning p. 31. That this Covenant is neither valid nor lawful nor consistent with our former oaths but deceitful invalid impious rebellious and contradictory to our former ingagements and consequently obligeth no man to performance but all men to repentance And therefore the difference being so great between them I appeal to any Casuist living whether the former must not be kept as well as the latter rejected the one stood to and maintained for fear of its true consequence Perjury as well as the other to be renounced and disclaimed for the very same cause by those that took any of the three former and so according to the exhorting Leaguers own words it calls for repentance and not pertinacy in it which makes also palpable and manifest the great necessity and justness of that memorable Vote of the two now most Honorable Houses when out of a noble disdain to all Religious Rebellion and Seditious Leaguing principles as well as out of a true fear of God and the King they ordered this Presbyterian Scotland whore to be burnt by the hands of Smectymnus the common hangman § 18. Having now gone through this peerless Covenant and proved as far as my poor understanding enables me to see the great sinfulness thereof both in the form and matter of it and also its jugling contradictions in it self as well as its absolute opposition to former Legal Oaths and so by consequence undeniable the great necessity of every takers sad and serious repentance renuntiation and abhorrence thereof I shall desist from saying any more now of it but shall from hence proceed to the consideration and examination of a certain seditious Paper-book entituled BERITH ANTI-BAAL set forth by one ZECHARY CROFTON a Presbyter of the Right stamp whose contradictions and shallow Arguings therein against the reverend Lord Bishop of Exeter made it so much the fitter task for me to set down my Animadversions on it I know indeed the man is looked upon as the Diana of the party amongst the Brethren and the ablest to deal with such unlearned Ceremonialists as the short-sighted proselites Judge the Profound Episcopalians how learned soever they be But certainly they are either deceived in their Judgements of his parts or else the man was so hampered with what the Bishop replyed to him that as he affirmes of the Bishop in this Rejoynder of his e See the fifth side of his preface Having loosed from the Haven of Reason true Religion and the fear of God he runs a drift wherever the wind of his own words can hurry him and leades his Reader into a Wilderness where he hears no sound but the shrieks of Satyrs barking and howling of beasts at best raging and rayling of men or wild and improper discourses that tend to no certain end For in my judgement which is none of the wisest I am sure but nevertheless what I write I commend to the censure of the impartially Judicious this book of his for a great part thereof contains nothing but sedition and justification of rebellion to the debasing of the Regal Supremacy power of making Laws or of giving his consent thereunto for Crof ton tell us the two Houses may exercise their Legislative power without the Royal consent and sneaking away from the question in hand like a meer shifter and acting in some places the part of a pitiful Caviller And by that time I have set down what I have to say of it I leave it to every Readers judgement to make answer whether it be not so in his And to that end and purpose I shall set down what in my short cursory perusal of the Book I found worth taking notice of to be answered He good man in a fit of piety cries out The Lord deliver me from rendring railing for railng And yet to Page 8. give the world a specimen of his breeding and manners and good words in the second side of his Preface he saith he fears nothing more then to be bound to his good behavior for misbehaving himself so much as to answer a fool according to his folly meaning the learned Prelate and to show his meekness humility and aversation to rayling for he tells us p. 8. he doth not delight to rake in that puddle In the very first side of his Preface he compares the Bishop to the Devil in the fifth and sixth to the Heretiques and Harding the Jesuit e Pag. 62. to an envious and cruel Vulture the book he stiles a f Pag. 3. swoln Toad the Bishop himself he calls g Pag. 42. a proud Pashur