and open violence upon many of the most cordiall and truly Godly Members of the House of Commons by which the Priviledges and Freedome of Parliament were transcendently broken by you Besides this I say and your intentions by force to put a speedy period unto this Parliament I beseech you search into your Consciences and seriously examin your selves whether you have not a more sinful and sacrilegious design against the Parliament having forced them to rob and ravish them of their Coercive power in spiritualls in things pertaining to Religion though you doe pretend that you have faithfully remonstrated your Grievances with the Remedies yet your dissimulation is without comparison in that though not a word in your Remonstrance concerning Tolleration as declaring it to bee the rise or ground of these your present Commotions yet is it evident by your present agitations That the Magistrats of your making shall neither have Coercive or Restrictive power in matters of Religion and that by Club-law you would deprive this present Parliament of the fame which I beseech you to weigh seriously and consider the guile and the guilt of this design which is aggravated by what you doe acknowledge page 20. Your Remonstrance That it is the Parliaments interest in plaine english that which doth belong to them To protect and countenance Religions men and godlinesse in the power of it to give freedome and inlargement unto the Gospel to take away those corrupt formes of an outside Religion and Church-government All which by the abuse of that power they have put in your hands you would now wrest out of their shires which with many other sinnes against the Parliament in that horible contempt that you have cast upon them If but brought home by a sound conviction must needs make you acknowledge in this respect there are with you even with you sinnes against the Lord your God in relation to the Parliament 3. But thirdly are there not with you even with you sins against the Lord your God in relation to the whole Kingdom Besides the miseries contracted upon the Kingdom since your refusall to disband at the command of the Parliament in the extream expences and charges you have drawn upon them by taxes and free-quarter wherein you have shewed but little publick-spiritednesse or love unto the Common wealth Though you have pretended to a great deal of bleeding of soule that you should be forced to take Free quarter for want of pay But that your dissimulation is great in this particular and so your sin answerable against the Kingdom You have almost doubled the burthen even upon those that would willingly have paid you the States pay per diem either for horse or man to be freed from such troublesome and uncomfortable Guests But alas what is this to what you have done against the whole Kingdome in your late transactions How doth this Remonstrance demonstrate that there are with you even with you sins against the whole Kingdom You doe pretend unto Salus Populi and that extremity of publich danger hath put you upon these extraordinary wayes you have taken But hath the Kingdom sensible of this their Publick danger invested you with any power to stir up these commotions in their behalf Are you in the condition of Representatives for the Kingdom Why then doe you so deceitfully pretend unto publick danger when as that by your walking out of Gods way you are like to be the only instruments of danger unto the Publicke as well as your selves Hath the Kingdom called upon you in their Names to cry out for Jastice to interrupt the Treaty to muster up so many Arguments against the goodnesse and safety of it which you have presented in so many sheets of paper in your Remonstrance containing more of the Serpents Subtlety then the Doves Innocency Are your Proposals therein for the altering the fundamentall Constitutions of the Kingdome are these injunctions laid upon you by the Originall of all power as you pretend the People of the Kingdome Alas they know none of these things so as to approve of them not one of a hundred will own what you doe set down for the Publick Interest Nor subscribe unto that Agreement that you speak on pag. 66. And yet such is your Arrogancy Injustice and sublimed Tyranny that though but an inconsiderable part of the Kingdome and that a diseased one but a Member of the body Politique in comparison of the whole and that a dislocated one yet how cruelly would you indeavour to force the whole body of the Kingdome to an agreement with your dis-joynted part to rack and torture their consciences with a subscription unto your intended Tolleration and Confusion And yet without this Subscription though none can take away the Kingdomes liberties without their personall or represertatives consent yet have you so proposed or rather imposed it upon the Parliament in your remonstrance that none shall either elect their Representatives who shall not joyne in agreement to this settlement page 66. or be Elected unto any office or place of publique trust without expresse accord and subscriptions to the same page 67. Certainely Sirs your injustice and cruelty to the Kingdome will cry loud in the eares of God against you Especially considering the aggravations of it even in relation to the Kingdome that you deale so injuriously withall That when a Kingdom by the first Remonstrance of their Representatives in Parliament made sensible of their danger both in regard of Spirituall and Secular Interests and withall assured in the same of the reallity of their intentions to prevent it without the change of the frame of the civill Government or letting loose the golden reines of the Ecclesiasticall and upon satisfaction given by the Magistracy and Ministery of the lawfulnes of opposing the Kings Arbitrary power without the breach of the Oath of Allegiance unto his Person as is evident by the first Protestation May 5. 1641 the chief Subject of it being to maintain and defend Religion his Majesties Royall Person Honour and Estate according to the duty of our Allegiance as also the power and priviledges of Parliament with the lawfull Rights and Liberties of the Subject And the ground of it being but a suspicion of endeavours to subvert the fundamentall Laws and to introduce the exercise of an Arbitrary and Tyrannicall government by most pernicious and wicked counsells and plots amongst which is instanced their jealousie of being forced by that English Armie then on foot Which were then strong Arguments to incourage the Kingdome generally to enter into that ingagement and after that to proceed further to the opposition of the Kings forces in a defensive wat which in the second vow was clearly expressed to be their intent of raising Forces Viz. For the defence of the true Protestant Religion and Liberties of the Subject against the Forces raised by the King That now the Forces so raised by the Parliament for the Kingdoms good should after crowned with successe
have taken without any Commission but the abuse of that power put into your hands Set the King at liberty deliver him up into those hands out of which you took him I know that this may be recented as a Malignant motion but having given you my ground for it and answered yours against it it will appear otherwise As for your arguments against the Covenant in that part of it as not perpetually obliging the taker to endeavour the preservation of the Kings Person and authority I must confesse that having seriously weighed them I find them to be but as broken reeds that will peirce those with perjury that lean upon them and therefore I dare not Whereas you say that this Covenant as it is drawne hath not left the takers without an honest way out page 54. I grant it if you mean only of this Article in relation to the preservation of the Kings person with the restriction that is expressed in the same Covenant to preserve and defend the Kings Majesties person and Authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and liberties of the Kingdome But not to preserve and defend the Kings person and Authority when he is in the way to all these as was implyed in the last free vote of the House in reference to his last Message but rather to make him vile and seek the destruction of his Person Is such a breath of Covenant and dis-loyalty that the world that we call to witnesse with our Consciences of our loyalty and that we have no thoughts and intentions to diminish his just power and greatnesse must needs take notice of our perfideous treachery as men to be abhorred But now as you affirme p. 54. that if the Covenant had not been drawn up that yet through the providence of God the snare is broken and they may escape Though it be a very strange thing yet I doe not much wonder that you ascribe perjurie unto Gods providence Saying the snare is broken by the providence of God or as God hath ordered the businesse pag. 51. it doth not now obliege you before God or Man I say I doe not much wonder that you should grant a dispensation for perjurie calling it an honest way to get out of an oath which is the maine pillar of humaine society with securitie and safetie when that to procure a Toleration for sins as grieving to the spirit of truth you care not for shaking the pillars of the land and breaking the beautifull staves of magistracy and ministry asunder As for your argument of nulling the Covenant as to the preservation of the Kings person upon his refusall to take it there being no mutuall agreement It may have an easie inervation If it were as you suppose nay confidently affirme it to be a Covenant between man and man in the civill parts of it pag. 57. there were some strength in your argument but it is clear that the Covenant is between God and man for it was with a hand lifted up to the most high God that wee did swear and not unto man that wee did ingage our selves and therefore there is more in it then the calling of God to witnesse the truth of our intentions pag. 59. For it is not said that we did swear with our hands lifted up before the most high God but to the most high God hee it was to whom we did sweare and with whom we did enter into Covenant and that in the civill parts of it that we might be the more strongly ingaged by Covenant to doe what wee were bound unto by the law of God which warrants every article in it and this of the preservation of the Kings Person with the restriction And therefore the Kings not taking the Covenant or agreement with it is of no more force to absolve the taker of it from perjury and breach of Covenant with God Then if a person sencible of strong temptation to take away his fathers life should therefore make a Vow and Covenant that he would according to his duty preserve it and yet after the same to conclude dis-ingagement in the sight of God upon his fathers not agreement with him in the same Which I humbly conceive is the case of our pater patriae de jure though not de facto And that the state in the drawing up of that part of the said Covenant were not either without a sense of some strong temptation to disloialtie Or more then ordinary carefull to prevent the scandall of it from the world is evident therefore did so draw it up as more solemnly to ingage the taker to the preservation of the Kings Person and authoritie with the restriction then to anyother part of the Covenant and they adde that by keeping the Covenant in this point according to the restriction we may satisfie the world which they imply was jealous of them and therefore in the Covenant it runs that although the world bee not called to witnesse for us in relation to any other article in the Covenant yet to this of the preservation and defence of the Kings Majesties person and authority in the preservation of the true Religion and the liberties of the Kingdome we appeale to the whole world That the world may beare witnesse with our Consciences of our loyalty and that we have no thoughts or intentions to deminish his Majesties just power and greatnesse Now before I leave the Covenant I shall onely be your Remembrancer once againe of your owne Chaplaines opinion in this point of breach of Covenant who having charged you with it in relation unto the Kings person pag. 39. hear what he saith of you just Remon pag. 41. That you are not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 accusers and at this you are exquisite But Truce-breakers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against accommodation no Treaty nor agreement or breakers of Covenant and he addes Solemne Oathes and Covenants are able to hold most mens consciences but men heightened by Religion into the formes of the spirit doing things by immediate direction from God carrying a glorious presence of God before them affirming that they are called by God to do some especiall worke in the world these can easily mount above the highest sorts of oathes Men that have tasted of these high things and begin to make them serviceable to worldly ends they are such cunning Pick-locks that they can find the way through any doores to come to the treasures of power and authority And then he goeth on in the same page lines 30. Such wicked spirits are now abroad like those Ezek. 21.31 Brutish men skilfull to destroy Brutish spare not the holiest nor honourablest things Kings Lords Ministers Scripture-Ordinances Oathes Covenants lay all waste and yet in the greatest brutishnesse Skillfull though there be the most sensuall and beastly Confusion yet they shall doe it artificially skilfully say t is for God Justice Religion and that they doe it by the power of Christ and the power
others you provide it and store it up for your selves But besides this abuse of Mercies Victories and successes are there not with you even with you sinnes against the Lord Are you not distrustfull of his powerfull and providentiall care for you Is it not your unbeliefe that gathers strength in Christs absence that hath set your sinnefull feares on worke your corrupt selfe-love and carnall policy Why else have you taken hold of such ungodly meanes as now you use though covered with specious pretences in your Remonstrance You there pretend unto justice and that against the Kings Person as the most Capitall Offendor But let me be your Remembrancer of what is said to it by a Prophet of your owne Justice on Rem p. 42. 'T is not Justice you desire it appeares so to your blinde and deceived hearts but in the face of God it appeares farre otherwise But the searcher of hearts will deale otherwise with you and shew you what is within you and discover the falsehood and injustice of your spirits 43. Your Justice 't is but a bare name or a Heathen covering borrowed from men to hide your shame your malice your unbeliefe feare and such like monstrous lusts A cunning way to remove adversaries to take away those that stand in your way and paint them over with the names of Justice security to the Publique Interest and so Act them in the face of the Sunne For the Lords sake ponder this seriously with his instance following and be not deceived for God will not be mocked Oh take heede you that professe the knowledge of God in his Attributes and should hold forth a conformity unto him in your conversations to those that are communicable as his justice and truth how you plead justice for a cloake of maliciousnesse and to sinne so against his providence as to make it to be the Father not onely of your former perfidiousnesse and treachery against the Person of the King but of your present intentions to doe justice upon him which will appeare pag. 24. where you say God hath given him so clearly into your hands to do justice upon him when the world knowes you have perfideously and treacherously taken him in a snare will you make the righteous Lord such a one as your selves in whose essence or providence there is no iniquity Did God give him into your hands when you without the consent of both Houses tooke him away from Holdenby and after your tampering with him at Hampton-Court and possessing him with a false and notorious lye to make him in a wet and tempestuous night to leave that place to run into your Mouse-trap in which very act was such a concurrence of falsehood and perfideousnesse as never was committed by any Professors and yet this must be fathered by you upon your God who loveth truth in the inward parts You saying God having given him so clearly into your hands when as the world knowes you have taken him worthy Sirs I beseech you consider this least God say unto you These things have you done and I kept silence you thought that I was altogether such a one as your selves But I will reprove you and set your sins in order before your eies Psal 50.21 Having thus propounded Odeds question are there not with you even with you sins against the Lord your God against his truth against his mercies and against his providence immediatly or absolutely I shall but propound Odeds interrogation Are there not with you even with you sins against the Lord your God Relatively And that first in relation to the King I speake not of any thing here that you have done as Souldiers in the subduing of his forces for which you were raised and in which had you rested you had been the most renowned Champions in Christendome But in referrence unto what you have acted out of your places and so without Commission and under this consideration in relation unto the King 1 Aske your Consciences this question are there not with you even with you sins against the Lord in relation to the King who are the Causes of hardning his heart but your selves when you permitted his Chaplains to be about him with the Service in its superstitious formality to be in use after so long a weaning from them by the wisdome of the Rarliament who hath hardened his heart against all that do professe Religion and strengthned him in his own way But you with whom he hath conversed and hath found to be so treacherous perfideous and unconstant At one time crying Hosanna another time crucifige At one time moving for the Restitution of his Majesties Person his Queen and Royall issue to a condition of Safety Honour and Freedom Proposall 14. 1647 July 2. Another time moving for the execution of his Person that he may be brought to tryall for his life when some of you perfideously got him under your power under the pretence of the preservation of his life from the Levellers Oh Christians will not this bee required at your hands 2 But in the next place Are there not with you even with you Sins against the Lord your God in relation to the Parliament if your Consciences be tender they will accuse you to purpose Not to speake largely of your former violence offered to the Parliament which you made to vote and unvote at your pleasure in those days Oh blush and be ashamed at the comparing of the preface to your Remonstrance and your following practises You there professe your tender regard to the Priviledges and Freedomes of Parliament on which your hopes of common Freedome and right do so much depend And yet your practises immediatly declare the greatest breach of both that ever was under the Sun Oh deare Sirs consider this seriously are there not with you even with you sins against the Parliament who put the Sword into your hands What is the Kings abuse of trust to yours For first you not onely by your expressions in your Remonstrance make this War for which they raised you to be offencive pag. 27. When as the Parliament by severall Declarations and in particular in a Covenant which they took and ingaged mee with others in it do propound this as that which we should be perswaded or beleeve in our Consciences That the Forces raised by the two Houses of Parliament are raised and continued for their just defence of the true Protestant Religion and Liberties of the Subject against the forces raised by the King But this is not all the wrong you have done them for as you would pervert their sence in raising you so likewise their End which was to subdue the forces raised by the King but not to force and subdue themselves and to bring them under the power of the Sword and that in such a way as the Sun never saw nor would those dismall days of the 6 and 7 Decemb. being as darke and gloomey as the worke it selfe But besides that execrable force
as shew your selves to be despisers of Christ by despising his Messengers and Ministers Are not you such as by your mockings and scorning of the Prophets have provoked the Lord even till there be no remedy What meaneth the horrible contempt you have cast upon them both by your words and actions I speake not of the Prelaticall Clergy but of the Ministers who have now suffered both from them and your selves and find their last wounds deepest because received in the house of their friends Doe not you show your selves to be apostatized from them both dogmatically and morrally both in your judgements and affections How are those Ministers in which many of you delighted and rejoyced in their light now fleighted by you are you not being puffed up with spirituall pride and conceitednesse ready to thinke your selves so full of knowledge so rich in gifts and parts that you can reigne as Kings without them 1 Cor. 4.8 and are you not so taken with the Priests of your owne making of the lowest of the people and so enamered with your owne Buffe-coate Chaplaines that the Black-coates the Priests as you frequently in dirision call them such as have the truth of their calling sealed by the conversion of soules are now decryed by you as Antichristian Oh that you could but see how wofully Satan hath beguiled you by this Stratagem and brought you to bite the brests that have suckled you and being bewitched as were the foolish Galuthians like foolish children know not your own spirituall Fathers by whom you first beleeved Oh that the sinfulnesse of the cause and the sadnes of the effects might affect your hearts for from this corruption in your judgements concerning the lawfulness of their calling you who formerly could have plucked out your eyes for them are now ready to pluck out theirs not only forsaking but opposing them and that the more they show their zeal for Christ and love to you in opposing you in your Errors and these your ungodly and unchristian courses I beseech you Sirs pardon me if I cry out for my Fathers the charets of Israel and the horsemen thereof when you would snatch them away from me and the whole Kingdome in a fierie charet I mean in your burning zeal against Tithes to paid any more which that judicious Patriot in his Reasons against the agreement saith himself p. 12. I beleeve that taking away the Ministry of the Gospel with their maintenance lieth at the bottom of it But admit this should not be the bottome of it this should not lie at the root to root them out as being Antichristian yet this will lie at the top as a visible design to starve them out of their Ministeriall imployment and either expose them with their Families to beggery or else to doe more then leave the Word of God and serve Tables which the Apostles though they could preach extempore did account a great diversion from their Ministry and to goe dig for their living and get it by the sweat of their browes Oh friends weigh these things seriously and consider whether from the aforesaid premises you give not them occasion to conclude that you are very unkind and that you walk not as becommeth Saints in relation to them and withall from what they may fear by the Students you put into Sion Colledge and other of your carriages towards them may bring up the Reer against them for their non conformity to their new Metropolitans Thinke seriously whether you have not given them occasion sadlie to complain That they have nourished and brought up spirituall children but they have rebelled against them But to charge on are there not with you even with you sins against the Lord your God in relation unto all that doe professe godlinesse that are now divided into Independents Presbiterians and Interpendents Have not you cause with that Primitive Penitent having offended the Church of God to cast down your selves in your thoughts at the feet of all Professors of Religion saying with him Calcate me salem incipidum Tread upon me unsavory Salt Oh that God would but give you humble apprehensions of your selves under this consideration as having in you sins against the Lord your God in relation to the Saints indeed that not only those Professors of Religion that dissent from you but even against those of your own party who are not grossely corrupted in their judgements and blinded with self-interests as being in great places of honour and profit but do all look upon themselves as extreamly injured by your unwarantable walkings and must needs withdraw from you as brethren that walke inordinatly It was Davids prayer that none that trusted in God might bee ashamed because of him But have not you filled the faces of Professors of Religion with shame and blushing Because that finding necessity for sinning but a sinfull plea they know not how to use it to their upbraiding adversary either in your behalfe or their owne and therefore because of you must hang down their heads But is this all no you have not by your aforesaid miscarriages filled their faces with shame but made them stink Gen. 34.30 they may truly say with Jacob you have troubled me and made me to stinck amongst the inhabitants of the land and being few in number they shall gather themselves together against me and slay me Oh sirs let this take hold on your hearts the wrong you have done to your brethren by exposing them to danger I doe confesse that formerly the opposition that was made against professors was for their holinesse indeed because that they were such as by their frequent attendance upon the Ordinances their care to worship God in them according to his own will their mortification and contempt of the world their sobriety and not conformity to the vaine fashions of the time and their not daring to do evill that good might come of it did judge and condemne the world even by their actions and therefore though they were persecuted and opposed yet their persecutors either by hand or tongue could not from their exact innocent walking but be convinced in their consciences that those whom they did persecute were more righteous then themselves never did them any personall injury But is not in these times the naturall enmity of the world exasperated through the iniquities of many professors when instead of those gracious effects of the power of godlines which did imbellish adorn Religion Contrary lusts are more visible such as a libertie to follow the vaine fashions of the times to be free and liberall in the use of the creature feeding without feare as Jude speakes to be selfe seekers in time of calamatie unfaithfull in promises and trust and yet for all this to bee exceeding proud and censorious concluding themselves to be the onely Saints and therefore are to have the high places of the earth as the only fit men for places of Government and none so zealous for the