him only whose right it is and was yet afterwards when things are setled disturb the publique to set up his private interest It is folly to dream of such a groudlesse suspicion Goe on therefore undauntedly most Noble Commander Right Honourable Lords and deserving Senators perfect by Gods help and assistance the Nations happiness fill up and compleat the measure of our joy Oh! restore to us our long exiled Prince and our martyrd Kings whole Princely progeny God hath given you an opportunity his providence hath held forth to you ample incouragement all the good men in the Nation in deep sense of our past misery with longing expectation yern forth their desires Oh blessed and happy Parliament called in a good time blessed and happy if you doe it Restore our King Oh delay it not doe it early Words spoken in season are like Apples of gold in pictures of silver such were the happy words of the Generall in that memorable day of the first beginning of our deliverance promising a Free Parliament How did the Bonefires that night in every Street and lane seeme to scare the â—ight from overclowding our joyes Trust me seasonable Actions are no lesse welcome Hope deferred is the rack of the Soul whereas the accomplishing of it before the spirits with long expectation faint is like a tree of life Bis daâ— qui Cito dat Long deferred hopes are interpreted most unkind next to flat denyals We have a long time been hopeless and desperate and now the day of our deliverance begins to dawn we count the minutes and long to see the rising Sun Most Hnourable Patriots The miseries we endured under the Rump together with their betraying the trust reposed in them by the people their perfidious breaking the true Parliaments solemnly ingaged publique Faith their base evading and violating all Articles of War and surrender their unjust causing Irish adventurers to double or lose their lent moneys with several scandalous villanies in the name and under the title of Englands Parliament and Supream Power their frequent long winded interruptions The calling and breaking in the intervals of time so many mock-Junctos named and stiled Parliaments with a thousand other such odious things which in these twelve last years Villanous usurpers have done and the people suffered by and in reference to nominall Parliaments have made the repute of them so contemptible and their esteem of so little value That the honour which you have in the hearts of all men upon expectation of good and this good from you by your means will soon with many be turned into a light esteeme ne quid asperius should their earnest desire be delayd But as the old men said to Rehoboam If your wisdome God blessing your Counsailes find a speedy way of answering the Nations earnest hopes and almost impatient expectation your name will be not only famous but your Persons admired even almost to adoration and you will wipe off all that dirt which lies upon and hath long stuck to the name of Parliaments Then the Nations eyes will be opened to distinguish clearly a true English Parliament from a domineering Rump or the mimicall mock Parliaments summoned and pickt to serve an aspiring Vsurper Betimes therefore Noble Patriots begin in Gods name to make this Nation happy That is Oh! restore unto us our King Then shall the Murther of the Father lye at the offenders doors and the sinne of rebelling against their King be wiped from off our English Parliament otherwise not It was the Parliament began the warre with the King which notwithstanding al Pretences according to the Kings propheticall prediction Ended in the Murther of Majesty and extirpation of Monarchy under the retained name and perpetrated by some Members of Englands Parliament who stiled themselves the Supream Authority of England Though I am confident that the Warre was begun by means of a few Incendiaries who did ill offices on both sides misrepresenting the King to the people and the People to the King A distance being made by the same Art and pernicious industry the breach was made daily wider the Contrivers aiming at a warre and in it the totall Ruine of Majesty and his posterity which the King foresaw but most of both Houses keeping to the truly loyall maxime that the King can do no wrong Endeavoured only to rescue the Kings person from bad Counsailers And when the Warre in earnest began they made a Vow and Protestation as also a League and Covenant which they took and entred into and set up in all Churches as a witnesse against themselves of the sincerity of their intentions as to the King and his Royall branches gave thanks solemnly after Battailes for the preservation of him and his Children owned all their Armies raised for his defense and his name and commissionated them for the mutual defense of King and Parliament for the maintenance of the Liberty and Priviledges of the people and their represetatives in Parliament as also the true Protestant Religion And when in zeal they had been incensed against his Majesty whom pestilent prevaricating Rebels had represented as obstinate and stubborn and had been too exacting upon his good nature and were unsatisfied with his concessions which were even beyond what could be in reason expected or without impudence desired and all this done through suspicious fears and jealousies raysed by the Rumpers in order to cut off all hopes of accommodation no sooner did the Cordially loyall discern this but they relented in their spirit towards his too much injuriously grated upon yet patiently long suffering Majesty then loe the rebellious Rumpers unmaske themselves and show themselves as they were Upon this the residue whom false surmises had led aside to uncharitable thoughts of the King now find their error and how they were deluded and then what indignation what zeal what clearing themselves what washing their hands of and protesting against their once fellow members monstrous impieties that in all things they shewed themselves innocent and free from the bloud of their innocent sacred Soveraign However the mystery of Rebellion and Treason began to work from the beginning of that Parliament Session though not perceived by the zealously incensed truly Loyall members whom the underhand pestilent Rumpers deluded by fair words and false suggestions and set against their King as crafty Ziba by fained accusations and pretenses provoked holy David against good Mephibosheth to the unjust giving away from him all his land to this false accusing Servant However the dark-sighted vulgar cannot see this nor will they ever come to be convinced of the truth of things herein unlesse your honours make up the breaches which the Rumpers made by that practicall argument convincing the people that you disown their Tonents My Lords let the dignity of the thing it self prevail with your Noble Spirits Mr. Milton to vilifie Regall Government is so bold as to affirm That a KING if good can doe no more then another man When
admit many they fear would dwell among them who might make a Conscience of keeping Allegiance inviolable and would urge against their Protestanisme that ungospellike rejecting their lawfull King although provoked by persecution and would cite the practise of the Primitive Church unanswerably discountenancing and their profession and Doctrine loudly and openly condemning the same by which means the multitude might be brought about to be undeceived and willing to entertain or at least desire their former Loyalty So that Policy not Conscience excluded from among them the Popish and a sordid desire of Gain set open the Flood-gates to all other Religions Among which if that may be accounted a Religion Athiesme is not excluded but findes its Sanctuary Now I pray you Sir where is the Magnanimity of Spirit that you boast of herein When nothing that bears the face or carries the name of Religion is disallowed but that only which is the only publique Religion of their former Prince lest by entertaining it his Friends should be let in therewith to the shaking of their new layd foundation the chief security of which seems to consist in their Nationall abjuring their formerly sworn to Soveraign not minding in the mean while the dishonour done to Gods name by those multitudes of abominable heresies yea damnable blasphemous Doctrines which swarm in those Countreys Amsterdam especially as Frogs swarmed in the Land of Egypt and yet they the more the pity are not at all troubled thereat because they bring profit and commerce along with them but I wish they do not hereby heap up to themselves wrath which may be powred forth upon them in the day of Gods Vengeance When no King was in Israel and every man did what was good in his own eyes then Micah made his graven and molten Image his Ephod and his Teraphim and hired a Levite to be his Priest Then was every man at his liberty what Religion he would follow a King only being so generous spirited and noble as to Engage that Religion publiquely to be professed which appears to him and his most learned Divines the true and most agreeable to the pattern and precepts of Gods Word and prohibit whatever strikes at this foundation nor to suffer any Rents or Schismes in the Church the inlets generally of farre greater mischiefs both in Church and State whereas a Common-wealth being but a puny Authority is compelled to tolerate this and that and twenty Heresies because some rich men or other are Favourites to all and nothing keeps the most rustick Peasant from being created the Greatest Heer or Lord among them but want of a competent quantity of Silver Gold or Merchandise Kings therefore in Scripture are promised to be nursing Fathers and Queens nursing Mothers to the Church but no such Promise concerning Republican Lords let them be never so high and mighty Nor is this degenerate basenesse of spirit visible only in Religious but as well and as much in Civil yea Ordinary concernments and there is a naturall reason for it since according to the Proverb According to a mans meeting so is his greeting Vulgar deportments find but vulgar respect nor is it fit or likely that he who puts little value upon himself should have greater put upon him by others that are about him Majesty and state may be kept without adoration but not without humble and due submissive respect Too much familiarity in all relations breeds Contempt The state and distance which Solomon kept between him and his subjects we finde registred by the Penmen of Sacred Histories as part of his magnificence and no small portion of Gods temporall blessings cast upon him as an additional Supplement to that for which he requested to wit Wisedome And I finde Paul the famous Apostle appealing to Caesar from Festus who was a subordinate Deputy to the Emperor hoping for greater shelter as to Religion from the Head of all Majesty Caesar himself then from an inferior Substitute or Lieutenant unto him And we read in the last Chapter of the Acts how long and how free he lived considering him in bonds at Rome being arrived in prosecution of his Appeal an evident argument that he expected and doubtlesse found more freedome under the Wing of Majesty then probably he should have had from an Inferior Governor neerer allyed to the common rank of men And as in the persecution of Religion the greatest favour is to be found in probability from Majesty it self so in the protection incouragement and advancement of Religion Kings and Emperors are unparallel'd Fathers and Nurses thereof Witnesse of old David Solomon Hezekiah and Josiah with many other godly pious Princes And of late since Christ Constantine and Theodosius with severall glorious truly Christian and famous Emperours And among us Edward the sixth Queen Elizabeth King James and without regard to your rayling black mouth our unparallel'd Martyr King CHARLES under whom how glorious was our Church to the admiration of many and envy of some of our Neighbours During whose pious Reigns if we will be poring only upon what was defective and whining after what was to be desired in our Church Discipline we shew our selves very ungratefull to God and men but if with thankfull hearts we could have enjoyed and prized what really was our Lot beyond all who were about us we might have said truly Our lot was fallen to us in a pleasant place and we had a goodly Inheritance God not so dealing with every Nation as he had with us who therefore might be named the darling of the Lord. It is the glory happinesse and true beauty of a Nation professing Religion when the face of man is not feared but God is so far exalted that none is acknowledged beside him King in the Church and therefore not only Caterpillers and Locusts are destroyed and Cattell which browse upon the Vynes kept out but the Foxes the little Foxes are taken that spoyl the Vynes they having on them tender Grapes How glorious a thing is it for a truly zealous and pious Pâ—ince to countenance and encourage the Priests and Levites such I mean who oversee and manage the service of the Lord that out of the Church may be excluded not only the abominable and the unclean but likewise every thing that offendeth What more dangerous in the Church which is the Garden of the Lord then Factions and Heresies but what so fatall as the plucking up its Hedge and throwing down its Wall which is not as many imagine a foolish agreement or Covenant of the people one with another but a Christian and conscientious submission for the Lords sake to those who by Divine right are appointed and set over them to maintain which pale inviolable the King when a true nursing Father of the Church as blessed be God we had many such is next to God the greatest defense on earth on which score not without cause our Kings have had and deserved the name several of them of Defenders of
THE DIGNITY OF KINGSHIP ASSERTED In Answer to Mr. Milton's Ready and Easie way to establish a Free COMMON-WEALTH Proving that KINGSHIP is both in it self and in reference to these Nations faâ—â—e the most Excellent Government and the returning to our former Loyalty or Obedience thereto is the only way under God to restore and settle these three once flourishing now languishing broken almost ruined Nations By G. S. a Lover of Loyalty Humbly Dedicated and Presented to his most Excellent Majesty CHARLES the Second of England Scotland France and Ireland True Hereditary KING London Printed by E. C. for H. Seile over against St. Dunstans Church in Fleet-street and for W. Palmer at the Palm-tree over against Fetter-late end in Fleetstreet 1660. To the most Illustrious for Vertue Constancy in Religion and Heroick Patience under the most sharp Tryals and extraordinary Afflictions wherein in imitation of his truly Magnanimous Royall Father he hath appeared more then Conqueror To the Glory of God Honour of Religon admiration of Strangers joy of Friends confusion of Enemies silencing of Scandals and the Heart-reviving refreshment of his truely Loyall and for his long pâ—st and present Afflictions cordially Afflicted SUBJECTS CHARLES the Good Hereditary KING of England Scotland France and Ireland Most Gracious Prince THat I so mean and unworthy a Subject yet a Cordial wel-wisher to your Royall Majesty and who is one among many thousands of your faithfull Subjects who dayly pray for and constantly hope and expect to see your restitution should address my self thus to Majesty I neither know well to apologize for nor yet to omit It is not most Illustrious Soveraign that I either account my self a competent Champion to mannage your most just and Princely quarrell nor yet that I think your cause in it self considered to need any defense much lesse so weak as mine for whom God protects he certainly needs none of mans Patronage nor that I account the Authors scurrilous impertinencies so far as immediately they concern your Sacred Majesty worth the Answer nor is it an itch or ambition of appearing in publique that hath ivited me to this Reply least of all is it any esteem of or conceit of worth in my self that could make me presume to present this inconsiderable mite of my Service to your Princely view or that I should dare to imagine your Majesties present Afflictions so to concerne your esteem and Royall worth as that any of your Subjects might presume more now upon these exercising Tryalls of God upon your Majesty then if you were seated upon your Hereditarily due and justly deserved Throne in magnificent Splendor God forbid that my Breast should Harbour such an unbecomming thought to Majesty yours especially which by your Afflictions hath beene really made and apparently is seen more glorious as Gold by the fire is purified or a pretious Diamond upon the wheele is polished and made sparklingly resplendent Since then Royall Sir It hath beene none of the mentioned Considerations give me leave with your Pardon to shew your Majesty the true Cause First of this undertaking and next of this boldnesse of Addresse in it self a Presumption not to be pleaded for but only through your Princely goodnesse pardonable How your Majesties Royall Father was dealt with all is Englands ignominy your Subjects infamy Religions Scandall and the wonder amazement and astonishment of Europe and the Actors eternall reproach among all Naions the Abettors Confusion the punishment of all our sins and the inlet of a floud of miseries upon us ever since This detestable execrable Murther committed by the worst of Parricides accompanyed with the diselaiming of your whole Royall stock dishinheriting your Majesties self and the rest of the Royall Branches driving you and them into Exile with indeavouring to expunge and obliterate your never to be forgotten just Title tearing up and pulling down the Pillars of Majesty the Nobles garbling and suspending from place of Power all of the Commons House that had any thing of Honesty or relenting of spirit toward the injur'd Father of three Nations and his Royall Posterity Acts horrible to be imagined and yet with high hand most Villanously Perfideously and Perjuriously prepetrated by Monsters of mankind yet blasphemously dishonourers of God in making use of his name and usurping the Title of Saints in these never before parallel'd nor ever sufficiently to be lamented and abhorred Villanies this Murther I say and these Villanies were defended justyfied nay extolled and commended by one Mr. John Milton in answer to the most learned Salmasius who declaimed against the same with most Solid Arguments and Patheticall Expressions in which answer he did so bespatter the white Robes of your Royall Fathers spotless life humane infirmities excepted with the dirty filth of his satyricall pen that to the vulgar and those who read his book with prejudice he represented him a most debauched vitious man I tremble Royall Sir to write it an irrelegious hater and persecutor of Religion and Religious men an ambitious inslaver of the Nation a bloudy Tyrant and an inplacable Enemy to all his good Subjects and thereupon calls that execrable and detestable horrible Murther a just execution and commends it as an Heroick Action and in a word whatever was done in prosecution of their malice toward your Royall Progenitor and his Issue or Relations or Friends and asistants he calls restoring the Nation to its Liberty Yea to make your illustrious Father more odious in their eyes where he by any means could fixe his scandals he would not spare that incomparable piece of his writing his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but in a scurrilous reply thereto which he intituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he would not spare his devout Prayers which no doubt the Lord hath heard and will bear in all which he expressed as his inveterate and causeless malice so a great deal of wicked desperate wit and learning most unworthily mis-bestowed abused and misapplyed to the reviling of his Prince Gods vicegerentâ—on Earth and the speaking ill of the Ruler of the People Now although your Majesty nor your Royall Father neither of you need vindication much lesse that elaborate work of his nor doth any thing he hath written in Aspersion of his Soveraign deserve Answer absolutely considered yet forasmuch as he hath in both shewed dangerous wit and wicked Learning which together with Elegance in expression is alwaies in some measure at least perswasive with some and because in these last and worst daies those dangerous times are come in which many account Treason to be Saintship and the madnesse of People like the inundation of waters hath for many years overflowed all the bounds of both duty and obedience to Superiors and Subjection with Loyalty to their Soveraigns but especially because in these your Kingdoms by due title and birthright Allegiance conscientiously adhered to is reputed malignity and treachery only and rebellion hath for many years been the badge of a confiding man or
the Superlative degree appear before the new modelling of the Army True there was no rebelling against all Authority King Lords and Commons at once till that time Sure Sir those Lords who were forward with the forwardest adventured their lives spent their bloud as well as others will have little incouragement to help manage and carry on such another War if we should finde occasion to fight all over again that hath been fought as you after insinuate unlesse they may have more thanks for their labour You must needs grant that the Warre at the beginning was raised and from the first carryed on for the defense of Religion and Liberty or else it was most hypocriticall and barbarous Rebellion and all the bloud shed therein inexcusable murder And if it were for the defense of Liberty and Religion from the beginning without doubt every rationall man must conceive that they who at first acted themselves in the War vigorously and stirred up others to it sedulously and continued constantly in the name of the Parliament of England with the distinction of both Houses did never imagine the Commons alone to be a Parliament But why speak I only of the House of Lords Did the House of Commons abolish KINGSHIP Were not above three parts of four of them not only not consenting to and active therein but protesting against and abhorring it So that in truth it was not only not the Parliament of England that did it but neither the Lords nor Commons House that either acted in or consented to it but a factious Combination of some of the rotten Members of the House of Commons who assisted by the factious and rebellious part of the Souldiery without consent of and in opposition to their Fellow-members contrary to the sense of the whole House of Lords not minding their former sacred Vowes and the scandall which the breaking of them would bring upon the profession of Religion murdered their KING divided his Estate and Revenue among themselves and their Abettors and to secure themselves from justice for these Enormous Villanies Vote down both King and Kingly Government turn out of dores the House of Lords and all their Fellow members and in their places seat themselves and vote themselves the Parliament of England and this they vote as they call it into a Free Common-wealth to which they endeavour by Conquest first to subject and then to unite Scotland and Ireland Now how just and how magnanimous this action was let any rational man judge 'T is strange that if it were so and that those Remnant of Patriots who delivered us from thralldome as you are pleased to miscall them could no otherwise secure us from slavery and bondage but by abolishing Kingship that no more of the Commons nor any of the Lords House could perceive it but themselves And how came they so late to see it Strange that their eyes were not opened so well before Or did they see it before and yet swear and compell others to swear to maintain that with their utmost hazard of both Loves and Fortunes which they had found and experimented to be burdensome uselesse expensive and dangerous and upon just grounds to be abolished Are these things think you consistent Mr. Milton how long experience had they of the dangerousnesse c. of Monarchy before they abolished it be pleased to tell us if before they Covenanted and protested the more Villains they to swear if after it were good to be informed when Were they faithfull Patriots if they knew and had experienced such a thing and yet never disclosed their mindes to their Fellow-members untill upon a Treacherous surprize they were turned out of dores by their mercenary servants the Army Are these the acts of men who are likely to secure our Religious and Civil Liberties Was it a Common-wealth that was fought for or a Free Parliament How then comes a Common-wealth to be the Good Old Cause Was it once in nomination at the first taking up of Arms Was not the thing pretended the removing of ill Counsellours from about the King and was there no way to do it but to send him thither where no evil counsel can have accesse even to Heaven Did they not vow to make his Posterity as well as him glorious and was there no way to it but to rob the Heir of his Earthly Crown that he might have the more leisure to contemplate upon his Heavenly one No way to make him a blessed and happy Prince but by intitling him ipso facto to one of the ten Blessednesses pronounced by Christ among others to those of whom men speak all Evil falsly and revile them Blessed God! if these be Saints where shall we find Wicked men But why Sir do you call Kingship a detested and once abjured thralldome Who abjur'd it and when I am sure that there was searce a Rumper in ten but swore to maintain and defend it besides the Oath taken by all Members at their first admission how I pray then and when was this Oath or abjuration taken and by whom Lately one Prayse God Barebone presented a Petition to that purpose which made his house appear like to a Bawdy house for broken windowes twice in a few dayes I hope Sir you have not a private Dispensation among you to swear to maintain and abjure the same thing at your pleasure and as oft as you please I doubt not but most of those who first assisted the Parliament had they heard but the least pretense this way from those who called them to their aid would have very hardly contributed the least Money to their supply nor the least help to defend their quarrel Then it was for the Parliaments service in defense of the KING and his Posterity that all was pretended to be done and now can we believe the Originall intention to be all those facred pretenses notwithwithstanding to destroy the King and his line and to abjure Kingship or Monarchical Government God forbid this is certainly no other then a new Invention suggested by the Old Serpent and fomented by his Instruments to the Dishonour of God whose sacred Majesty they appealed to and swore before and the reproach of the true Protestant Religion in the profession and sincerity of which made by and immovably fixed in the hearts and breasts of thousands of this once famous Nation England was exemplary among all her Neighbours but now by this act of some few of her perjur'd yet Saint professing Sons made infamous yea abhorred and detestable among al that live round about her I grant you Mr. Milton that this action of ours for ours we must call it till the Nation be vindicated from it or punished for it as it was a damnable president so it was commended to and laboured very hard to be made practicable and practised in our Neighbouring Kingdome France so willing are seared Consciences in sinne to involve as many as may be in the same guilt with themselves if not
own what they acted but would seem to lye under the Armyes Force when indeed they and the Rebellious part of the Army mutually complotted and contrived the whole businesse as it was after acted where was their Magnanimity If the Action was good and just and honourable why would they seem unwillingly compelled to it Why did they so oft send to the Army and demand the readmission of their Members since they did not desire nor intend it why did they pretend to desire it Was that a part of their valour and Magnanimity To pretend a fear and affrightment from unarmed Petitioning London Apprentices who seized not a person of them nor offered the least violence no nor yet menacing words not daring to oppose the insulting Soldiery if they really disliked their Actions nor yet having confidence enough to own their Actions if they did as since it appeared undenyably approve of what they did who but Mr. Milton would style this a Magnanimous Action If Perjury Treachery breach of Vowes Murther Vsurpation Oppression and Sacriledge be the demonstrations of a just action if to be chosen for the good of the Counties Cities or Burroughs choosing in a joynt not divided way with not without the House of Peers to consult with the KING not to depose and murther him and yet to do contrary to all for which they were Elected If to be returned by Indentures to advise with the King about matters of great concernment to be sworn at admission into the House to be true to the King his Heirs c. to maintain him and all his just Priviledges and to confirm this Oath by several after Oaths and Covenants and Protestations and yet to butcher the same King make Warre against and proclaim Traytor his Son expell him out of one of his Hereditary Kingdomes and wherein he was Crowned make it Treason to relieve him in Exile yea Malignity to pray for him publiquely If to make an Invasive Warre on Scotland for Crowning a King to whom and which they were bound by Oath without their consent who had murthered the Father not only without but contrary to theirs and contrary to their own re-iterated Oaths and Duty If I say all these and ten times as many the like Actions which all concur to and center in the abolishing of Kingship be just then next to the Devil the Rumpers shall have my Voyce to applaud their Justice And as for their Magnanimity let them commend it who know not or will not believe how perfidiously they wrought with their own stipendiary Servants to rebell against those from whom they derived their power and by whom payd It was the major part of the Commons and the Peers that alwayes acted empowered ordered and disposed of all things which how magnanimously the Rump could usurp to themselves we have seen having an Army at hand to back them but so cowardly they were that they durst not own themselves to have a hand in any of these Transactions but like a Puppet-player drew the Curtain of a rebellious mutinous Souldiery before the eys of the spectators though quicker sights easily at first perceived the juggle 'T wil now not be unseasonable to consider the experience which the worthy Patriots the restorers of us to Liberty had of Kingship which is no more then what themselves expressed in their Resolvs and Votes as is at large related by learned Mr Walker in his History of Independency and the same is here laid down by Mr Mâ—lton their Champion for the ground of this their abolishing the same They had found it by long experience burdensome expensive uselesse and dangerous so also they judged the House of Peers unnecessary c. Concerning this I have spoken already and yet I must repeat the same arguments although not the same words since that maxime in oratory holds ever true Nunquam nimis dicitur quod non satis intelligitur Let us consider things then and if we want not memory we shall not want instances enough to convince as well the Rump as this their Champion that this their old discovery was but a new forgery and an expresly sinning against the light of their Conscience would any that had read the Speakers Speech to the KING made on the fifth of November 1640 at the first convention of this Parliament beleive that he then had found Kingship or Kingly Government such as the Rump since declare to the world their experience thereof nevertheless the same William Lenthal though he then protested his Judgment that the welfare of these Nations under God depended on his Majesty and his Royall issue and acknowledged with pretended gratefulnesse how under him and his Father this Kingdome had flourished yet eight years after behold and stand in admiration the same man with a perjurd tongue and double mind sits Speaker to the Rump and they pretend their long experience not only of the burthen and uselesness but the danger of Kingly Government Of Sir Henry Mildmay and both the Vanes Cornelius Holland and severall others this I may say and wrong neither them nor the truth That if ever Servants had a good Master and he in requital false wicked servants they and their murdered Master may be cited as ful and clear Examples And yet these will needs be Saints in opposition to the Apostle Paul who saith that perhaps for a good Master some servant may dare to dye never supposing or imagining there should be such desperately treacherous Servants to circumvent and Murther their Master As for the burthensomnesse of Monarchy which I presume we are to interpret concerning our own Government by Kings and more particularly of that excellently accomplished and first english royall Martyr King CHARLES How expensive I pray you how burdensome was he Could he or any other KING before him rayse monys without a Parliament As for his Family expense did ever any man before you taxe him with profusenesse Did he or could he make warre without the advise of those Nobles who were of his Privy Counsell Nay on the other hand was not his Father so farre given to peace and peace-making that he gave for his Motto Beati Pacifici and reckoned it his honor to be accounted one of that number Was not the imputation laid upon him by those who make it their business to bark at Majesty and to speak evill of dominion that he was a Coward and one who would rather choose to buy a dishonourable peace then to make and manage an honourable Warre was not he by the invitation of his allyes the Bohemian Protestants as well as those of Rochell the instigation of his Peers the addresses and incouragement of all his loving Subjects stirred up to a Warre in defence of both the Bohemians and Rochellians In prosecution of which was not his treasure exhausted and a Warre left from the Father to the Sonne to the pursuing whereof Conscience Religion and reputation bound him and yet how slack were the Parliaments for his supply
Hollanders I call it rebellion as being its proper name since it was a totall defection from and taking armes against and making warre upon their undoubted Soveraign T is true and I yeild that they had provoking Cause but whether upon this provocation and that very great they did not show much of Man in the management of this revolt I dispute not only give it the proper name of Rebellion which in all cases is not absolutely sinfull though it never will loose that its proper and unalterable denomination as the Killing of a man in never so just defence yet leaves the fact manslaughter But to return to their policy they are according to their own name by which they call themselves so farre from being a Common-wealth that in the plurall number they stile themselves the Hoghen Maghen estates of the Low-Countries one juridically not depending upon the other They were auntiently so many Lorships or in their own Language Gravescapes which being no way subordinated to or depending upon each other agreed together only in a mutuall relation of Subjection and equally owed allegiance to the King of Spain Whose minister in those parts the Duke of Alva by unparelled and scarce before heard of Tyranny and barbarous Cruelty especially labouring and endeavouring to impose upon their Consciences and to bring up amongst them the bloudy inquisition that monstrous engine of inhumanity exercised chiefly upon the score of Religion they were compelled to take up armes and rebell against their Leige King which was prosecuted on both hands with that violence that the breach was made irreparable and so they for ever cast off and solemnly abjured his authority So that now Zealand Gelderland Vtrecht Mastrecht c. are distinct Jurisdictions by themselves and independing as to Holland Yea the very great Townes of each province Juridically depend not on any other but are absolute among and within themselves and the States although they convene together it is not in the form of our English Parliament or Grand Counsell but only to advise each with other to consider and consult and thereupon to perswade yet have not the least power to Compell So that all the other provinces together cannot give one Law to Zealand or to Gelderland but the Lords of each Province may do what they will further then they can be wonne by perswasion they cannot be commanded by the rest though altogether agreeing The same may be said of Amsterdam Roterdam the Hague or any other Town whose own Lords or Heirs are Autocraticall or invested with full power of themselves nor own they any Commanding or Prohibiting or any way Coercive Power above or without themselves their own Wals bounding not only their Towns but including Supream jurisdiction from which lyes no appeal Such a passe you would have England brought to your Country is much beholding to you Sir for your goodwill I suppose you expect no posterity to leave behind you that might curse the Fathers invention should it take effect You contrive very readily to have each County to have Law and education for youth among themselves and each chief Town if not so named before dignified with the Title of a City that we may not come so farre for Law and Justice only you are troubled at Controversies which may happen between two of distinct Counties and these you would have decided at the Metropolis I suppose you intend London But because it was alwaies accounted as easy to found a New City as to form and establish a New Government it may be you have designed another Metropolis in your Windmill brain But be it as it will why may not the plaintiffe sue still in the County where the defendant lives unlesse he can by accident find him or by some device get him into and arrest him in the County in which himself dwels and what need in such case any Metropolis at all And so what needs a Grand Counsell but only Conventions to advise and Consult but what matter of enacting Lawes when every County may be within it self Supream Certainly Mr. Milton you were very inconsiderate when you wrote that ready and easy way of establishing a Free Commoâ—-wealth I shal not here urge the unpracticableness of these your fanatique State-whymsis but aske you presupposing them as you say easy and ready just now to be put in practise Cui bono In what shall we be bettred there by and t is like you may answer me Peruse my advice and there you will find the benefits thereof There I find you give us hopes that if we can but either Cantonize England as the Switzers or imitate the Hollanders or the Venetian avoyding the Duke of the one or the Prince of the other We shall first be free in Civill and religious things and Secondly we shall have our minds made Governours our Spirits enobled our Courages advanced and be made Valourous whereas otherwise we shall be curbed of our Liberty and have spirits sutable to our Condition base and degenerate Perhaps Sir you write experimentally While you held your obligation to your Wife which as your learned doctrine of divorce testifies was an insufferable yoak of which you could say with the Apostle Peter concerning the Law It was a Yoak which neither you nor your fore-fathers could bear During this vassalage I may imagine you likewise to be so poor spirited as to fear an Oath and to be inslaved to your Allegiance and so farre to reverence Authority as not to dare to bark at the highest thereof to wit Majesty But since you grew so wise as to throw aside your Wife because your waspish spirit could not agree with her qualities and your Crooked phantasy could not be brought to take delight in her you then grew so free that as for your religion you could take the Christian Liberty to turn a Libertine at large or in plain termes an Atheist and as for your Allegiance you found your self so free set from it that you could without remorse discharge your filth at and vomit forth your poyson against majesty then you grew so valourous that you could swear allegiance and take the oath of Soveraignty the Covenant also or Solemn League with the Vow and Protestation the Engagement also without boggling or starting and reserve Courage enough for twenty severall nay Contradictory Oaths if reformed Authority in plain tearms rebellious Vsurpers require it and hope of profit or danger of losse invite to and back it Truly Sir you are in my judgment a valiant man grown who durst not only adventure against the most learned Salmatius but had the impudent confidence to snarle and bark at the most ponderous Judicious and Matchlesse piece his Majesties ROYALL MEDITATIONS intituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But Sir upon a serious yea a slight enquiry we shall finde no such qualities among either the Hollanders or the Switzers as to make us in love with them but we may truly say There is no King there therefore
the Faith to wit the true Christian and Apostolick Faith concerning whose profession of and owning so honourable a defense we were bound and still are to say with good Nehemiah Blessed be God who hath put such a thing as this into the Kings heart and to pray that he would more and more be his Guide Counsellor Director and Protector that under him Religion may flourish and we may once more be a happy flourishing Nation 'T is to be confess'd that while the Church is militant here upon Earth there will and must be Offences and Scandals this Christ hath pronounced as absolutely necessary and the contrary impossible although woe to them by whom they come but for professed Christians to be viewing perusing overlooking and examining the Constitution of the Church they live in to be carping at and inveighing against the defects thereof practicall especially where much that is practised is not allowed and wished by the Judicious that it may be amended as soon as may be with conveniency and thereupon reviling reproaching and separating from the same it argues in my opinion those who are but nominall not reall Christians yet such is the temper of most of our modern Giddy-brained Phanatiques who from Controversies in Religion fell naturally to dabling with State concernments and have without Gods infinite mercy kindled in both our Church and State an inextinguishable Combustion I shall come now briefly to take a short view of what we were before these unhappy late Warres and compare our condition then with what we have been since that so an estimate may thence be taken what we are like in the End to come to unlesse God in mercy prevent our ruine as he hath already blessed be his Name given us great hopes Our Government and Governors were of two sorts Civill who ruled us as men and Ecclesiasticall who were set over us as Christians Of Civil Magistrates our King was supreme a true but not an absolute Monarch He had none above or singly co-ordinate with him and in dignity he excelled and went before all the rest Howbeit his Rule or Government was purely Paternall for as a loving and carefull Father in managing the affairs of his Family will consult with his Sonnes when grown to age yea and with his discreet Servants so the Royal Father of this great and flourishing Family consulted not only with his Nobles whom he honoured with the Title of Kinsmen and who were the most discreet and judicious of them of his honourable Privy Councill but he advised also with this Commons who for that end chose the Chief men of their Shires Cities and Boroughs Corporate and intrusted them with power in their name and for their welfare and benefit to represent and lay open their cases wants and grievances before the King and his Peers and joyntly to endeavour study and finde out a way of redresse or relief of the same They were still the Masters of their own Purses they not only raised whatever Money was to be levyed but advised together and consented to the disposing of it This grand Council was the Physick under God for the Nation when it was sick or any way distempered which the King like a wise Physician called as oft as he with the advise of his Wise Counsell judged it needfull either for the necessary cure of a distempered State or the convenient preservation and farther beautifying or adorning a flourishing one While things ran in this Channell how happy was England in Generall although some particular blemishes or pushes in the Body politick were lanced fretted and made sore by this means But when the just indignation of God was come to its height because we were so unthankefull for multiplyed blessings he then suffered this ungratefull Nation to loath Manna and to long for Physick to come into a course of medicinal diet and to linger after first a Trienniall then a perpetual Parliament which we have enjoyed so long nominally at least though really the Fagge end only or Rump of that Parliament which was also sore Ague-shaken several times by disgracefull and long Ejections which yet they willing to perpetuate themselves as oft as they came on the Stage again called only Interruptions however they cannot deny but they made or suffered tedious Exits which were as long as the rest of the Play and other Scenes nay whole Playes were acted in the Intervals I say we have endured so tedious a course of State Physick till we experimentally and to our cost and shame found the Proverb verified Medicè vivere idem esse aâ— miserè vivere At the Convening of this Parliament what was accounted grievous and so represented to his Majesty but he was willing to redresse it effectually Monopolies Star-Chamber and High Commission by his Royall assent abolished and the Council-Table regulated so as to stand for little more then a Cypher by his Majesties permission and all because his people whom he loved more dearly then his own safety shewed a dislike of them and accounted them a burden Tâ—â—â—age and Poundage willingly layd down at his Subjectâ— feet the Militia and Negative Voyce so far granted from himself that he left himself only power to be made a Martyr at his Subjects pleasure Yea and for the Episcopal Dignity he consented they should be stript of whatever the Parliament thought fit saving to them only their Office which his Oath at Coronation bound him indispensably to maintain O England England couldst thou but then have seen the things that belonged to thy peace which soon after alas were hid from thy eyes Yea the Nation did see it yea the Reverend Senators were deeply sensible of it the Nobles discovered evidently the true and only cure under God for the Nations distempers Nor do I blame them nor yet the major part of them but know and they since have been made sensible that a few restlesse dangerous factious pestilent spirits in both Houses first begat and then fomented a misunderstanding between his Majesty and his Cardially loyall subjects which Coal being once kindled they by the same cunning but devilish policy blew into the flame of a War in which posture all things could not be defended on either side but his Majesty wanting the sinews of warra could not possibly keep that discipline in his Army which the Parliament did in theirs and so Gods Providence permitting and our sins procuring his Royall person being captivated and his Forcâ—s dissipated those whose loyall breasts only intended his welfare and advancement in glory and Revenue which they in soverall Declarations protesting and appealing to God as a Judge and Witnesse of the truth of their intentions enforce me as Christian to believe to be their design were convinced by several Treaties that his Majesties both actions and intentions were misrepresented to them by some Boutefeus of State and therefore relenting towards him and his Royall Posierity intended a speedy settlement of the Nation in a Religious Peace and had done
their Master breaking first themselves and then calling and breaking Mock-Parliaments as a Potter his Earthen Vessels on the Wheel Did that which you called an Illegal Exaction of Money vex you Rejoyce in your Rump who took away the twentieth part of all Reall Estates besides other Compelled Lones Taxes Excises c. from their Friends and all or most from their Enemies whose only Crime was loyalty to their Prince Did abridgement of Châ—istian liberty molest you you have been happy in the Fagge end of a Parliament that would allow Anobaptisme Ranting Quicking Seeking and what not only abridged Episcopal men who were true Sonnes of the Church really and the Papists nominally But in truth when were so many Jâ—suites and all sorts of Romish Emissaries tolerated at least if not underhand allowed as during these times In a word if God hath not proportioned your Judgment to your sin to the amazement of Strangers and Neighbours and the misery and smart of the Nation then rejoyce in your worthy Patriots and let them rejoyce in you otherwise let fire nay a fire hath come forth of these Brambles to the destruction of our tall and glorious Cedars I have but a few words more and I have done with you Mr. Milton concerning Queen Elizabeths not enduring the Presbyterian Reformation lest it should eclipse the Dignity of Monarchy The necessary connexure of Kingship with Episcopacy The mercy of God to this City in preserving it from Pestilence during this time of hopefull Reformation And lastly the suspition of our present Hereditary Kings being inclined to and infected with the Popish Religion from his being necessitated for a long time to crave and receive his Maintenance or means of subsistance from the King of Spain a Popish Prince As to the first I finde you acting like your self at least as you professe your self to be principled clawing the Presbytery to ingage it against Monarchy For your Author by you cited I count it not worth while to examine him if or no his sense by you be perverted being most confidently assured that it is He is an Author of worth and lived in great repute and esteem with his Princes whom he served upon which score I am satisfied that he knowingly wrote nothing that was derogatory to Majesty But if some kinde of Rigid Scotch Presbytery entertain Tenents which tend to eclipse the honour and respect due by divine right to the Supreme Soveraignty so far it is condemnable the Church of God disclaiming in its primitive purity all such Doctrines and declining such practises Or if Fame might represent to that good pious Queen things otherwise then they really were as we here frequently and confidently reported of the Scotch Presbytery that they teach and would practise the bringing their Kings to the Stool of Repentance she upon this misreport might suspect it Or perchance and that is most likely she being a wise Princesse and having a choyce Council might observe the tempers of their spirits who stickled most in the promoting that Reformation and finding them to design not only Innovation as to the then setled reformed Religion but distinction also in State might wisely put a stop to their pragmaticall intruding themselves into matters somewhat above their concernment Otherwise I seriously professe that I know nothing in a sober moderate Presbytery but what may agree very well with and will with Conscientious piety yield all due reverence unto a splendid powerfull Monarchy they are consentaneous each to other and may co-habite or dwell together in a Land as Moses and Aaron David and Nathan Hezekiah and Isaiah And this is most apparently manifest in the Reformed Hugonites who are Presbyterial Protestants and yet keep their Allegiance firm to and pay Customes Tributes and all due reverence to their Liege Soveraign the French King although a Papist nor do they account their subjection only compell'd upon that score but conscientiously they do not only outwardly obey him but in heart they honour him So the Waldenses in Savoy and Piâ—mâ—nt who being so cordially loyall to their Popish Princes can we imagine that English Presbyters would have been lesse subject to and honourers of their naturall pious Protestant Kings and Queens then others are of their Soveraigns who differ from them in Religion and alwayes may be suspected to bear an ill will to them exercising not rarely most bloudy cruelty in the massacring and murdering of them Although I doubt not but the example of our English King-killing Saints being recommended by their Agents with what serious motives they could invent to their Neighbouring Protestants and perhaps liked well and approved by some false pretending Brethren among the Hugonites and Waldenses with whom many in Devilish policy pretending to be Protestant Converts entertained such English bloudy Tenents with approbation and applause and by menacing threats gave severall Alarms to those Princes to whom they owed subjection commending the courage and Noble Valor of our English RVMPERS and boasting of help and supply from them promised to attempt and put in practise such another heroick feat in their Nations Our Crimson Saints on the other hand boast and proclaim that this their practise shall be a leading Example throughout all Europe In the mean time the true Conscientious Protestants protest against both in publique and private these damnable Tenents and execrable practises yet by this means the Princes of those Subjects are made jealous and suspicious of the Protestants Fidelity having such a dangerous president before their eyes which Jeasousie through the Villany of false pretended Brethren is blown to that height that the King findes no way of safety but in chastising all and cutting off many of these his dangerous Rebellious Subjects in which Massacre those Villains who first kindled the Coals make a fair Retreat having betrayed so many innocent pious Christians as Sheep to be slaughtered they only feeling their Princes rage who most abominate those Rebellious Tenents and Principles by which their Prince at first was provoked and inraged Observe here as in a Landskip the piety of our Rumpers and what they have deserved of their Neighbouring Protestant Friends by their Example Counsell and vain-glorious boasting what a leading Card they had begun withall and how it should be playd round to the confusion and pulling down of all the Princes of Christendome Hereby they have betrayd and butcher'd many thousands of the Waldenses by the Sword of the Savoyans And when God shall come to make Inquisition for bloud at their dores will all that Christian bloud be found lying and of their hands it will be required If then the sent of the Rump were so noysome of late how will they stink in Ages to come How will the then innocent Babes the Orphan Children of those murdered Protestants curse their memories For ever shalt thou live in ignomy and deserved infamy O most Bloudy Rump and the Children yet unborn shall justly detest and abhor thy remembrance They loved
the Grave and Sea They may also very well be termed the Snuffe of the House of Commons the State of England during the Commotions being properly compared to a Taper which being melted by the fire of Warre and wasting it self with its own light which was blown aside by the blasts of Rebellion ran down much of its waxe into the Socket and declined apace This snuffe at last preying upon what was run down by the heat of Warre and the winde of Rebellion blazed a long time till all that fed it was consumed and then went out in a most insufferable stink But I shall leave them to their own melancholy thoughts which perhaps may now check them and as Josephs brethren after almost twenty years security in that great sin which for ought they knew they were guilty of to wit their brothers bloud when they were reduced to a great extremity began to accuse themselves one to another We are verily guilty of the bloud of our Brother So these Regicides I hope in this their extremity may be alarmed by their consciences with such like thoughts We are questionlesse guilty of the bloud of our KING when our own hearts told us that his person was sacred and we our selves were guilty of what we charged upon him but he was innocent and therefore now his bloud is required This is the worst I wish them if it were Gods will but their black fact I would have abhorred and detested for ever and damned to the pit of hell where first it was hatched The last Engine by which Mr. Milton endeavours to hinder our much expected settlement is to perswade the people that our present hereditary King hath been from his Cradle trained up in Popish Principles having lived so long and received his subsistance among and from them this if it were true is a bad argument to keep him from his Crown if it be as certainly it is his hereditary right and due It was the unanimous resolve of the true Protestant Christians in Queen Maries dayes that notwithstanding the desire of pious King Edward to the contrary she and not the Lady Jane should be Crowned Queen although she was known to be a resolved Papist and of a most furious spirit in requital of whom she sent many of them to Heaven in Triumphant fiery Chariots Now were it to be admitted that our King were of the Romish Religion yet his sweet inclination and disposition might take all suspition of danger from him Had he been educated with the greatest indulgence and care that were possible in the true Orthodox Religion and yet been seduced accidentally by the fraud and policy of some Romish Agents it had yet been our duty to have prayed for him as became true Christians but withall to have submitted to him for Gods sake as became the true Children and Successors of those Primitive Apostolike Saints who did the like to Heathen Emperors and Governors But when God knowes this Nation hath by unparallel'd Rebellion and Treason cut off the Father with that impious solemnity as was never yet done by the worst of Pagans and neglected the Children with as much inhumanity as unrighteousnesse dividing as a spoyl among themselves the ample Revenues belonging to Majesty and neither allowing the posterity any subsistance themselves nor permitting any other to do it but upon penalty of high Treason forbidding all relief to the Royal Orphans and Widow when I say the Nation hath done this pardon me that I say the Nation for I must lay the blame on the Nation till the Nation hath wiped off the blot if the King in consideration of these monstrous impieties perpetrated against his Father and continued against himself had imputed the fault of the Professors to the profession it self and imbraced Popery rather then refined KING killing Soveraign-despising Protestanisme it had been our duty to have been humbled for what was past and by a more exact Obedience to have testified our detestation of such principles in order to the convincing his judgement but to have rejected him on this score had I confidently perswade my self been adding impenitency unto sinne which is the greatest aggravation thereof For without doubt the whole Nation cannot wash their hands from the guilt of our great sins committed against Gods Vicegerent our undoubted Head and Soveraign Lord and his Royall Issue for fear of man at least or cowardly declining their endanger'd King and his Royall line was their fault While Vowes Covenants Oathes and Protestations were made for his preservation and happinesse it is no great wonder that fair words and promises insnared the simple since I perswade my self that those who made such promises were themselves beguiled by the subtilty of the ringleading Rumpers and the Rebellious Souldiery but when Oaths were palpably broken and Majesty not only contemned and in hazard but upon the very point of ruine had all who were cordially loyall then appeared against such monstrous impiety and villany had they been not only unarmed and naked but even sick and wounded men they had undoubtedly given a check to the Rumpers rage and malicious barbarous bloudy impiety In which respect our Humiliation ought to be Nationall and serious since not only Dogs Sorcerers and such like but the fearfull and unbelieving shall be shut out of the heavenly Jerusalem Yea and when Christ was crucified it was not the whole Nation that did it but the High-priest and Scribes and some zealous Pharisees nor the majority of the people that consented to it for they who plotted his death durst not put their designs in execution on the Feast-day least there should be an Uproar among the people who most of them accounted Christ as a good holy man and a great Prophet Yet none appearing on his side when it was put in execution that was long before plotted his bloud lay upon the whole Nation and dismal calamities many years after came upon all for the actual sin of some So in likenesse of our Saviours sufferings behold a pious Protestant King not carefull of his own life that by his bloud he might seal his peoples Liberties and the priviledges of Parliament behold him I say arraign'd with scorn reproach and contempt condemned with impudence and the height of indignity and executed with the full measure of malice tyranny and cruelty yea and after his death the Injuries done to the Father as it were intayl'd upon the Son and extended to the whole Royall Issue and Relations Behold a young Prince no sooner by villanous violence made a a lawfull KING but persecuted to the death Warre being made with all who gave him entertainment nor peace concluded with any but upon condition of his being proscribed and ejected out of all their Dominions and Jurisdiction his naturall Subjects prohibited but upon condition of utter ruine to own or relieve him and yet see the mercy and goodnesse to this poor Nation in this our King his constancy in the true Protestant Religion
and his undaunted profession of the same in the midst of and in despite of all these Injuries offered him from Protestant Subjects hath been the joy of all his Friends the admiration of Strangers the envy of Enemies and is notorious in Europe to the silencing of Momus himself so that his known practise can give the lye to the words or pen of any barking black-mouthed Adversary whatsoever This is the Lords doing to his Name be glory for ever If then it had been our undoubted duty to have received him joyfully and submitted to him chearfully and conscientiously for the Lords sake though he had been a Romist how much more ought we to do it as the case stands and how ought every true Christian to long for his return and not give God rest day nor night but be instant in servent prayer till his Restitution be accomplished For whatever may be pretended as to settlement by a Common-wealth there is no way of firm settlement but by returning to our former Allegiance We came not to that passe we were lately in but by the means of treason rebellion perjury murder oppression and sacriledge for which God certainly will visit Could we imagine there were no God as foolish Atheists imagine or that God were like to us an Abettor of such Villanies as we act and approve it would yet be very improbable that a foolishly intended Common-wealth should ever be setled forasmuch as the Interest of the Nation is ingaged to Monarchy it is a Government we were trained up in and accustomed thereto and our Kings not Fortaigners to us but our own Countrey-men who were themselves by bloud allyed to many if not most of the Nobles and they to the Gentry they also to the Yeomen and Countrey-Farmers that Interests were woven together so firmly and the knots knit between all so indissolvably that the same cannot be undone without the certain inevitable ruine of all And if Interests which have sprung up since the Warre whose foundation is illegality enormity and Villanous impiety be in ten or twelve years become so considerable that for peace sake the formalities of Law and nyceties of Justice must be dispensed withall and the rule raptim vivendi since it is become Epidemicall must be connived at as to the time past or else palpable and apparent danger might be of new Combustions is it to be imagined that so long continued and so interwoven Interests can be thrown aside like an Almanack out of date and all remain quiet We see that those who never were possess'd of nor quietly injoyed the Government but only reacht after and aspired to it can scarse be satisfied without injoying what they thus gap'd for but will rather endeavour to set all on fire then go without it and is it likely that such who were legally and quietly possest therewith owned by all and Allegiance sworn to them by all as the Kings Posterity was included in the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy and all his legal Successors in defect of Issue the Nobles also who are numerous whose Franchise and Prerogative it was so farre to participate in Government as to be the Peers of the Nation and to make one House of English Parliaments The Gentry also who were firm to their Soveraign whose Birthright it is to choose and be chosen Commoners Can all these be blown away with a puffe and breaches be sodered up notwithstanding 't were a madnesse to imagine it Certainly if to adhere to a King who had piously and happily Governed nigh twenty years descended of Ancestors of happy memory who with himself had almost compleated a Century of years in most happy tranquility were deserving sequestration imprisonment and death as some suffered besides a losse of priviledges and Franchises to themselves yet must their innocent Babes be cut off likewise with the Parents and can peaceable submission nevertheless be expected Certainly no Religion and reason both forbid it no marvel then if now at length toward the Morning Watch the Day-star of our deliverance appearing the Righteous God hath looked down through the Cloud of confusion and disorder and hath troubled the Host of our Egyptian Task-masters taking off the Chariot-wheels so that they drive heavily and troubling their Counsels in such sort that I hope they will never be praevalent more but if they continue obstinately impenitent will bring back upon them the Waters of trouble despair agony and final destruction that so when these Egyptians are over whelmed in those Flouds by which they intended to swallow up the Innocent we may with joyfull hearts sing Praises to him our Deliverer in the Church and pay our Vowes in the Assembly of the Great Congregation and I presume with confidence that if it shall please the Lord once more to return in mercy to this poor Nation to lay our Foundations firmly anew to heal our breaches and to restore unto us our Judges as at the first and our Counsellors as at the beginning we shall then be wary hereafter how we slight Gods Blessings and loath Manna lest if we again relapse into the same or the like sinne a worse Judgement overtake us As for our King 's being maintained during his Exile it hath been almost a Prodigy in Providence of his own he might say as David to Saul They banished him from the presence of the Lord saying in effect Goe serve other Gods and if David the Chosen of the Lord and a man after his heart when banished Israel fled to Achish King of Gath a Philistine who shewed him kindnesse and treated him with courtesie who can condemn our Exiled Prince far from Friends and Relief hunted from England into the Low Countreys and France from thence recalled to Scotland and as soon pursued by that implacable Bloud-hound who had not quenched his thirst with his Royall Fathers bloud and by him persecuted and driven into England thence forced again to flye to the Low-Countreys and France where he had the relief and converse of Protestants but even this was envyed him by our late infamous Vsurper who partly by force partly by policy ejected him out of both those Jurisdictions yet when destitute of Friends and succour God put it into the Tyrants minde to quarrell with Spain our most profitable Ally and that Prince relieves our distressed Royall Orphans Here was Gods goodnesse triumphing over mans basenesse his mercy over their cruelty to him be the glory but in greater mercy he hath kept our King and Royall Issue from being tainted in their Religion which is a favour for which Immortall praise is due to his Name And thus Mr. Milton I have run through your Discourse and in answering it I have obviated whatever is material in what you wrote against Salmasius either derogating from Kingly Government or justifying that Execrable murder of our lawfull and once happy yet for ever glorious martyr'd King CHARLES and in prosecuting my own Assertion in opposition to yours I have I
Nation and made us their servants for Ever But especially because of his performances we have already had the taste and in a great measure fruition but the good to be reaped from your Honourable Consultations is yet in expectation to you therefore I addresse my self as an humble Suitor and yet Confident Petitioner but to his Excellency thanks is already due for a large portion of benefits which we have received of him in this kinde To which I may adde that this being written and intended to be published before your Session Reason and Order call for it that I should in the first place addresse my self to the Power in being especially of whose good we have so largely tasted and next to the Power which is in Expectation shortly after My Addresse Right Honourable and Worthy Patriots to you is to intreat you not because I in the least doubt your own most ready inclination thereto to set your selves seriously to the healing of our breaches Yea I know you will do it however it will not be amisse nor I hope interpreted peremptorinesse for me your faithfull Honourer to submit a few Considerations to your most judicious censure first inviting to a settlement upon our Ancient Basis and only firm Foundation not barely Kingly Government but our most Virtuous King Charles the Second to whom God grant a long and prosperous Reign whose Restitution I hope and pray for and doubt nothing Right Honourable Senators but by your means to see accomplished But Secondly giving your Honours the grounâ—s why I wish it may be effected and brought to passe as soon as possible I shall after conclude this Discourse humbly begging that the great God of Heaven would give you wisedome and courage that He who sitteth among the Gods may sit among you directing and guiding you in the ready way to settle these Nations in firm peace that Religion may be countenanced and flourish our Rights as Men and Christians asserted vindicated and preserved to the glory of God and the comfort of all that fear him in all three Kingdomes This Right Honourable Lords and Gentlemen can be no way brought about but by restoring the true Heir to his Inheritance all other wayes or means are but only suggestions of the Adversaries of the Nations happinesse who would continue things in unsettlement on purpose only to secure and indemnifie themselves from deserved justice Consider I beseech you how many prejects have been contrived towards our Settlement upon different Foundations which all proved sandy and so the Building thereon raysed though cemented with Bloud and Rapine soon fell and we were ever put after each Change upon greater straits and left in worse confusion then we suffered before So that the change of our Medicaments and Physicians in order to the Recovery of this sick State hath been far worse than our Disease it self the one causing us to languish in unsettlement the other accelerating our Destruction and threatning our utter Ruine Which must needs be attributed to the Justice of God who hath forsaken us because we forsook him He hath seen and beheld all the guilt under which this Nation lyes and if for two Transgressions and for three the Holy and Righteous God would not turn away the punishment of severall Nations what shall be done to us for seven crying Sins yea rather for seven times seven Abominations How have Rebellion and Treason Perjury Persidiousnesse and Murther Hypocrisie and Sacriledge besides all sorts of Heresies profanenesse beastlinesse unmercifulnesse cruelty and oppression reigned in these Nations and raged as if in contempt of Heaven How hath bloud touched bloud How have the Rumpers and after them the Vsurping Protector filled London and the whole Land with Innocent Bloud the cry of which is come up to Heaven and there calls aloud for Vengeance But now at last God in unspeakable mercy hath seemed to return to us and as a Father doth offer in love to embrace us to him be the praise In answer of whose so great tenders of favour and future blessing give me leave Honorable and Worthy Patriots to grone forth my most affectionate desires before your Wisdoms The cause of our long continued Calamities hath been and is unquestionably a spirit of ungratefullnesse toward a signally gracious God and a spirit of Rebellion toward his Vicegerent on Earth the KING also a spirit of profanenesse in contemning his Worship and Service together with the Ministers and Dispensers of the same This wicked ungodly spirit like a fertile although accursed Root hath brought forth numerous branches of such crying sins which at this day are to be found among us and formerly have been practised and remain yet unrepented for Now most Worthy Senators it behoves you seriously solemnly and industriously to endeavour a Nationall amendment of these Nationall Abominations Nor is it enough to bewaile the guilt but by amendment and restitution we must endeavour to wipe away the blot and expunge the stain contracted The Villany committeâ— against the Father and his Off-spring wâ—o was the Father of these Nations was committed upon a Naâ—all pretense and therefore it behoves it should be Ntionaâ—ly disclaimed In that act God was highly provoked by Oaths Vowes and Covenants not more sacredly made and solemnly taken and entred into but as perjuriously broken in the face of the Sun yet the perjury justified and defended under the Cloak and pretense of Religion Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum My Lords and Gentlemen you are the Successors of that Parliament and many of you the very persons that sate therein It behoves you now to testifie openly and effectually against this treacherous perfidious perjury which ended in bloud or else you will be found Justifiers of the same Gods wrath is not to be appeased without hearty contrition and repentance of these sins for time past and an amendment for future which Amendment must be answerable unto that praevarication wherewith God was and is provoked else the Plaister will be too narrow for the Sore Consider my Lords and Gentlemen our fault in all its branches Ingratefulnesse towards anâ— perjury against God Apostasie from our Religious profession to the toleration of all Heresies and Blasphemies and perfidiousnesse unto Rebellion from with contempt and rejection of our Liege King and his Posterity contrary to Duty Oaths and Protestations this must be adaequately repented of and satisfaction reparation and restitution made to parties injured if ever we expect Gods return to us in mercy and not a Visitation in judgement For with Majesty many thousands were injured in the highest degree to whom if at least justice be not done for the future and an acknowledgement of and taking shame for what is past where reparation cannot be made God without a miracle can and no doubt will make use of these to be the Executors of his Vengeance and fierce displeasure against this Nation who then would be not only here and there bespotted but over head and ears