the world and so complaint be made to the Parliament thereof if it were to any end to complaine there of that which hath already passed without punishment But seeing the Parliament hath power the case standing as before hath been shewed to doe in all things as they see cause by good consequence their speeches necessarily preparing discussing agitating concluding what is so to be done cannot be subject to any limitting questioning or accompt abroad nor in reason therefore are to be divulged in that sence this being incompatible with such power But then these haters of our Law-makers and Lawes say Many of both Houses are away and so the acts lesse valid but be the number remaining little yet the acts of the Major part of that number are still good For neither the King that calied them away or countenanceth them that desert their stations may alledge this nor the Members that voluntarily not upon trust in those that remaine or leave obtained abandon their places there and duties are to take the benefit either of their owne wrong whether negligence in such Members or worse perhaps nor of their owne unworthinesse as Cowardise to oppose what they liked not which feare admitting such could be argues still that they that feared were the lesser number though what needed they feare to speake freely a dissenting lesser number being ordinary and sometimes a very few perhaps scarce enough to make a number dissenting openly from the rest of the whole House without any inconvenience It being allowed for any to speake their minds whilst a matter is in agitation before it be settled If they say they goe away that they may not seeme to allow what would passe though they were present then the Major part concurres to what is done by their owne confession els why stay they not to oppose it If they say so many are gone without leave of the Houses as put together would make the Major part supposing this were true either such a Major part went away at once in a body and then it was their fault not to stay for then they being the Major part had prevailed or they went by little and little and then still it was a Major part of the remainder that concurred to what was done els it had not passed and so the acts still good If they fly to say that they who thus deserted the House out of feare did it not as fearing the Parliament but the people granting these men this which is not their due that such had cause to feare the people and that such base feare when as they pretend they were to stand for the King Countrey Lawes Liberties Religion and did not render them utterly unworthy their places it may be answered briefly they that remained and carried matters might feare the King as much or more but their cause was noble and good but these or the like Cavils will no more hoodwinke the people their onely course were to produce some publique act of Parliament that might certifie the world that the King and both houses have long since unanimously concurred to dissolve this Parliament else Sophistry will not carry it against the manifest truth By the premisses or rather by diverse excellent Tractates published by others to the same or the like effect I hope it is even as cleare that the Parliament is and ought to be the supreame Judge in publique matters now in question in England as what it is it hath judged and ordered touching these things by so many publique orders declarations and the like and consequently that reason wills that they be sacred in our esteeme and punctually obeyed and executed and so no need of warre and whosoever goeth against reason and truth goeth against God himselfe who is Prima summa pura ratie and it will concerne him nearely to looke to it whether he be stronger then God goeth against himselfe if he be a man and shall first finde a civill warre in himselfe before he can cause it in his Countrey upon such grounds and for his Majestie he cannot as he is a King but judge that that man thinks dishonourably of him who goeth about to perswade him that that can be for his good that is not for the good of his Kingdome and so sever what is so excellently joyned or that the great Counsell of the Kingdome is not the onely at least the very best and the onely sure and securing way without all doubt for that Prince to follow that intends the publique good and which will ever assuredly concurre with him to that end nor in opposing an arbitrary power which ill men about him for their owne private and wicked ends would induce Doth the Parliament any thing but disenable a Prince or rather those about him from doing ill or more properly from usurping such power which to what end is it in a good Prince which he will or can never reduce to act or use but the false or pretended Mother of the childe who would have it divided whom the wisdome of the King may discerne will whisper there is no thankes or glory to doe good unlesse he might have done evill and so did good freely since free will onely merits I beleeve they hold merits it seemes these malignants setched not this Doctrine from heaven for there we may finde that confirmation in grace in the Angels and blessed spirits of just men whereby compleat free will or the remaines of it which free will argues but imperfection and mutabilitie power to sinne being but impotency and the King of Kings God himselfe who is perfection it selfe being above and without all power or possibilitie of doing any evill yet rather therefore I should say omnipotent in or for good that confirmation in grace I say by which free will is transfigured and sublimed into a state divine and Posse non peccare into non posse peccare is a transcendent blessing if not the very essence of celestiall beatitude where these suggest such a condition is to be declined though with ruine of all But howsoever the Divines of our times may not allow the explication or application of this point we may hope his Majestie out of his Princely care of the good of his people though both himselfe and it may beleeve well of his good intents to that purpose will be far from judging such a puntiglio of arbitrary power for however it may fill and tickle the phantasie yet deeply and duely penetrated into by judgement it appeares to resolve even into no more if a puntiglio be any thing or least it might possibly be thought he would or might have done evill had he not been restreined from it when he cannot violate such just restrictions without first doing the greatest evill of all to the publique from judging I say such a puntiglio a just and sufficient cause to destroy the people by a civill warre when were this power indeed justly belonging to him yet true love to his people might judge
hath appeared and further hereafter may do cannot be Admit this Trojan horse into your walls allow this all of them may easily resolve into nothing Consider well what Judgement hath been made of the Laws the libertie the property of the Subject before this Parliament whilest a future Parliament was doubted and feared and therefore kept off as long as these Malignants could but their fear and hate shews what we ought ardently to desire and love whilest so many Monopolies Loane Conduct Coat Ship-money and the like grievances were brought upon us our persons not going Scotfree as consisting well and compatible with our laws liberties properties and adjudged lawfull which yet what did they or ere long going on at least would they have wanted of making them all meerly at discretion pleasure and will the meer names of such things remaining and used indeed as Trophees of their Conquest and monuments of our quondam felicity and at leasure to be lamented folly and eternall shame The danger of our Religion is not forgotten because not ranked in mention with the rest it shall have a better place by it self as a Queen sitting alone The Judgement made of priviledges of Parliament during this Parliament seem to have come little short of the Judgements made of our liberties properties c. and if it be duely weighed First that they will have the King to be judge of them then what Judgement hath been lately made both in fact and in words or Declarations of them a man meanly penetrant will find them resolved by the positions of these Malignants into next to nothing and all this while the Parliament was and is in vigour vindicates and asserts them and likely to call these men to account what will they make of them should they through the authority and reputation of this Parliament which is the essence of it peirce at once the heart of all future for a Parliament not free were no Parliament and if the King be allowed judge of priviledges of Parliament where any new case happens which may touch the very essence of it if it be any thing else then the priviledges will it not come to this that the Judges he appoints or rather such instruments as the Malignants about him please to set over us shall upon the matter judge the Parliament which is to Judge their Judges making it and the Laws what they please and to restrain the power and freedome of it as of the Laws as they think fit whereupon would follow even the same inconveniences which were before mentioned supposing the King the supreame Judge of the Laws namely that the Parliament should be disenabled to defend the people or indeed it self if incroached on or oppressed upon the same reasons in that place expressed But it seems more rationall that since the Parliament is to be Judge of the Laws as is above shewed nay even may make them at least in some cases it may judge as well of its own priviledges neither appears it in the Kings power to make them what he pleases save onely thus if he doth not exorbitate nor innovate any thing against them neither can the Parliament desire any alteration of them in any point betwixt it and the King concerning them But in case of extraordinarie emergents of never-before-heard of attempts on his part whither by any verball declaration or by fact whereby the priviledges authority or very being for it may trouble a good School-man to distinguish clearly betwixt these three it self of the Parliament is indangered it is reason that the priviledges now become any thing that the Parliament judges fit for the conservation of it self For the maine end and intent of the first ancient ordinary and usuall priviledges of Parliament being to enabie and qualifie it for the due attending defending or advancing the publique good for which purpose they were judged sufficient by the first Institutors not suspecting such new invasions or attempts on them or on Parliaments as since have happened in more corrupted times but thinking them rather secure as pait of the Laws or customes which Kings are bound to keep inviolate why should not the same end and intent which ever remains in equall force immortall and immovable work and move as well to the instituting even of new ones if new causes happen and without such new ones the Parliament shall remain disenabled to procure the publique good for which it was ordained and if the Parliament may in extraordinarie rimes as now make new Ordinances for the conservation of the people it may make if need require new Ordinances or Priviledges which are but the private Laws of or concerning the Parliament for its own conservation without which they cannot desend or conserve the people and in vain had it power to make new Ordinances upon new occasions for the publique good if it have no inherent power to make new priviledges or ordinances upon new emergent dangers to save it self Posse naturally and necessarily presupposing Esse as grounded on it Qui dat finem dat necessaria ad finem the priviledges being to defend and maintain the Parliament as the Laws the people and as Salus populi is lex suprema as before so it may as well be said Salus Parliamenti supremum privilegium If it may work new it may much more interpret declare and judge of the old on occasion and are no more to be held to the old usuall known priviledges when new extraordinarie attempts or affronts happen then to the old known Laws onely in the case above spoken of and upon the same ground and analogy of reason And here we are fallen unawares on the old Lord Treasurer Burleigh who we need not say was a great Statesman who was wont to say He knew not what a Parliament might not do not much unlike the Archbishop Bancrost a great Statesman who would tremble as is said at the mention of a Parliament as knowing or rather not knowing the power of it and had not they both taken the word Parliament in our acception they had told us no news It is one effect of ill Counsell about a Prince in the consequence somtimes better then in their intentiō to minister occasions to the people by invasion of their rights to look narrowly into the nature of the Princes prerogative when by the power of truth it ost looseth of the former reputation which liberty gains a more dubious light setting it of better and ignorance begetting here devotion and admiration of what is unknown hence it is perhaps that in these times as more polite and penetrant then many former ages Prerogative is said generally to loose in Christendome the better thus fortified against the so great and growing danger from the Common enemy the Turke and other great Mahometan Princes the great bulwark of Christendome Germany now so torne the more requiring it by so maine a disparity in matter of liberty the Mahometans using their Subjects as their
this case is remediable for by such having recourse to force or warre though but defensive he challengeth and assumeth all the power from the people to himself making himself supreme Judge of all upon the last resort of which somewhat more shortly But the King cannot be so in our present case in which he is a party in as much as the evill proceeds from ill counsell prevailing with him For to bring the hypothesis to a Thesis and not to stand alway on supposition taking it as a supposition that a king seduced may de facto make such attempts as are above put it is more evident of it self then that we need look on the fall of Liberty in France if not from the King nor Counsell about him consequently then whence is the remedie for our losse from the Judges what ever their will may be they want power and notwithstanding they still were present the mischief grew on It must be then from the two Houses of Parliament onely unlesse you would have the whole Nation assemble personally as in the Vale of Jehosaphat if you suppose it possible and if possible fit for any thing but confusion except perhaps force the king having to speak with what reverence we can in this case excluded himself and the Clergie justly being excluded from such temporall distractions that it may attend the better and advance the celestiall and ecclesiastick more then enough to take up the ablest men wholly and not a little hindered and discredited by their so great greedinesse after worldly matters let them do their dutie let them teach truly live exemplarily like professors of mortification this will render the people so devoted to religion to them that they may securely trust the Parliament with all that touches them and safely make it their proxy themselves being absent and whilest thus spirituall matters are the better served and attended these and the temporall both receive the greater blessing but such diffidence and suspition in the Clergie if it should not be present in Parliament argues ill deserving since the justice and wisdom of the Parliament as principles of this government ought not to be questioned but how much more is the Clergie to receive at the hands of the Parliament that fuora i. preti i.e. Priests void the roome used by that Councel in Venice of which Bodin in the third book De republicâ the 3. Chapter then when they shall be found in life and doctrine unsound ill affected to the publick good accessarie to the evill to be remedied nay ardent to bring in or maintain either Papistry and idolatrie or at least a most scandalous symbolizing with it in temporall pride riches and greatnesse and even Antichristian domination through the breaches and ruins of their Countrey rather then even a Parliament shall question it The Parliament then and under this notion of the two Houses in these times understood being our onely remedie or rather Physitian it follows it may and is to be Judge of the danger or disease and that of power which is to remedie if it be so is to try whether it be so for without judgement or knowledge of the disease how can there be remedie or how shall the Physitian know what when and how to apply If it be the onely competent Judge of this our dangerous disease and of the meanes to meet with or expell it the knowledge of the remedie depending essentially upon the knowledge of the Maladie and receiving thence its Judications it hath consequently power to execute or act or cause to be executed or acted what it hath or shall judge or ordain necessary for the cure else such power to judge were vain and it would still return that the people were remedilesse But WISDOM or Judgement and POWERS as they are divine coincidents and all one really and naturally where they are supreme and essentiall as in the Divine nature it being but our weaknesse of understanding to conceive them disjoyned so for principles of one facultie questioned are to be enforced from an higher facultie even in this supreme power on earth which as farre as frail mortalitie can bear imitates and represents that above they ought not to be by us apprehended separate but mutually presupposing or inferting one the other Let as adde to make up this terrestriall trinity Goodnesse which last may be understood in our present case a doing no unjust or dishonourable thing but wholly intending the publick good according to the peoples trust And it were an arch heresid in the policy of this Monarchy to disjoyn in out beleef or opinion the third from the two former And the Law saying no dishonourable thing is to be conceived of the Parliament it seems all one as to have said in other termes that it is the supreme Judge of the last resort and that even without the king if he hath excluded himself as above which is more then if he were far personally absent or otherwise casually disenabled and as much as if no king at all were for the time where all appeals are to rest and determine all men to acquiesse binding all from questioning what is there done and inferres the supreme power there to reside as being the whole kingdome in which it is radically and fundamentally by representation such power to be exerted and used when it judges necessarie and that if the nature of the occasion so requires with the suspension of the power of the supreame ordinary Delegate or Magistrate during that parenthesis of state for the kingdome having entrusted the Parliament with all it holds precious the effect of the Commission upon the matter being that it provide ne quid respublica detrimenti capiat it hath consequently trusted it with its power which is the supreme that it may be enabled to perform and execute the trust when it judgeth this cannot be made good without using that power But to return the Law saith also That the King can do or doth no wrong but it denieth not but ill Counsell about him may or perhaps the Law intends the king as he is in his great Counsell where he is as Sal in Leone or any Planet as they say in his proper house of farre greater vertue and power then otherwise But however Reason tells us that a Prince or a few of his Cabinet counsell may far more easily erre in judgement or possibly in point of will then the multitude of a Parliament so many whereof are selected out of the whole Kingdom by the people in point of Judgement much more of will or well willing to the publique whereof themselves are so great a part and this much the rather in that it is to be feared that oftentimes those privadoes of the Prince finding out cunningly the Princes will inclination or humour before they advise and further to ingratiate themselves seconding it much that there is agitated becomes to be upon the matter the judgement or will but of the Prince alone Well
their Herculesses honest men and men of honour ready to die for their Countrey if need require judging such a death infinitely to be preferred before the lives of the chiefest of these should they obtaine what they seeke But let us end this patheticall flying out though it be hard for the inferiour faculties sometimes not to stirre when the understanding somewhat inlightened hath inflamed the will On the other side so divine a gift as this Parliament thankfully recognized and made use of duely and the just power and dignitie of the Parliament and therein all our happinesse wisely and manfully now once asserted moderation and mediocritie induced the Monarchy duely tempered may be in humaine probabilitie perpetuall and all the surfet become Physicke And this violent Feaver of the State having amazed and drawne to an head all the malignant humours before dispersed all over the body and lying dangerously hidden and set on fire consumed and expelled them like the filth of an house swept into an heape and burnt the whole body may be much clearer sounder and better disposed then had not such a distemper ever beene I hope it appeares already were there no more then these presented weake reasons to an ordinary rationall man if far better from others be too meane for his Majestie what way he is to take that all may be well and seeing but one side can be trusted with the power of the Kingdome which of them is most unlikely to tyrannize or reduce all to arbitrary government or which will most probably use it to the publique good onely or whether in such extraordinary times it doe not most safely repose where it is originally naturally inherent viz. in the peoples owne hands and so in the Parliaments Nay were the case hitherto dubious yet since libertie first made appointed limitted prerogative for they confine together as the people in whom is the radicall primary supreame power and who made Kings not Kings people thought best when it first made choice of or instituted this one forme of government among divers others which we call Monarchy and whereof there are sundry degrees in sundry States some more some lesse trusted or limited as the first founders pleased els why are they not all equall since free and voluntary agents worke or doe onely so much or so far as they please and the various subordinate degrees or kinds of the creatures prove the divine Majestie to be agens liberrimum els the creatures would be all equall an involuntary or naturall agent as Philosophy termes it ever working as much as it can or to the utmost extent or sphere of its power and activitie and so an equalitie in the effects since I say libertie or the people first created as I may say Prerogative and that so tempered modified or graduated as it thought most conducible to its owne happinesse for the supreame power ever worketh for it selfe rather then for the subordinate or inferiour as being the end the efficient and finall causes being here co-incidents it is just that this namely libertie judge and give law to that and that this if an unnaturall jarre fall out gaine and prosper rather then the other and since the people reserved ever in its owne hands and saved to it selfe upon the trust to the Monarchy what priviledges right of Parliament or liberties c. parcell 〈◊〉 the originall power naturally in the people and which may draw backe to the fountaine the derivative power as the bloud and spirits to the heart when there is cause it thought best surely it must doe this with purpose to see them conserved as safely as may be and upon occasion to make use of them and enjoy them which could not be surely done without a power reserved to judge of the state of them and when they were to be used and the like for if the Prince be trusted touching the keeping himselfe within his limits he may even as well be trusted absolutely without limits nor such power to judge of them is to any purpose as above-said without power to execute what is judged hereupon fit So the Parliament judgeth in this case as the first authour and superintendent of the intent and is not as a partie to be judged Further were the matter yet dubious yet seeing the Protestant Religion the power being in the Parliaments hand is far more out of the reach of danger then the other way even without calling his Majesties good meaning into question therein as I hope anon will appeare it ought to put it out of all question how wee are to range our selves in these times The Parliament having our case so standing such power as is deduced whatsoever would seeme to oppose that power and stand in their way as they defend and assert the publique good so invaded must be voidable and usuall ordinary known lawes or customes made or in use supposing or whilest the Prince kept duely within his bounds which the King speakes so much of saying that he will ever governe by them and hold all to them but ever intending the publique good are no way to bound or tye up the transcendent power of the Parliament when it shall encounter new and never before heard of exorbitances or invasions of the publique good which the times that made those knowne Lawes never heard of so never provided against But by proportion of reason this Parliament may and ought as well provide by new Ordinances or orders for such new evills as they encounter as the former did for what they then met with for they had their originall also ex malis moribus bonae leges and had those times had such causes offered as these have they would have provided remedies of a nature like those this Parliament hath done the power and generall intentions of all times or the universall ground being still the same that is to defend and vindicate or procure the publique good and to tye them to the knowne or old Lawes in this case where the letter might kill were irrationall for so the first breaker of the Lawes might take the priviledge of the Lawes and advantage of his owne wrong and under the colours of the Lawes fight against and overthrow them or the rule reason or intention that caused them at first If it be said nothing was done by the King of publique consequence but by advice of the Judges it may be answered that the Parliament is the onely competent Counsell Judge in cases neerely concerning the publique and people in generall which the King is entrusted upon such occasions to call that the whole people may not but upon extraordinary causes be troubled to elect for Parliaments and attend that service But in such a case as ours by virtue of the legislative power residing in the Parliament it may make new Ordinances at least for the time as it sees occasion and judges to be in order to that supreame and immutable Law or Law of Lawes and end of them
the State And it may be the Kings forces running lately with so strong bias so eagerly at Banbury Warwicke Coventry c. esteemed most opposite indeed to the Papist though perhaps not otherwise direct to the first or maine mark for the present of these Malignants may judicate and argue without any sophistry a present complication of the disease and the duplicity of the designe and danger or if not a present essence of a double disease yet a dangerous maladie now in being alreadie but breaking out into a symptome more to be taken heed of then the very disease and depending on it But they object our Religion is on the other hand more indangered by Brownisme Anabaptisme c. suppose this true and that these should get strength nay prevail with the Parliament which it is charged to promote upon as likely as strong and even the same grounds as it is to affect the change of the Monarchy yet as we said of we know not what new form of government supposing ridiculously the Parliament did introduce it it were easily dissolvible so obscure Brownisme or Anabaptisme were much more easily mastered and redressed then most politick potent all over bearing Papistry likely to be backed with forreigne force which I think none will say is to be feared from those other scarce known weak poore Sects whose obscurity and paucity hides rather and exempts from animadversion and would the Parliament attempt this though we might justly refuse to dispute with those that denie principles in this kingdoms policie calling still in question the wisdom Justice and honour of Parliaments could it ever effect it without the peoples concurring Papistry so increased at home so countenanced might if it doth not already with their good friends help in Ireland and elsewhere hope to force entrance How foolish then is it for the people to fear that which can never take effect unlesse it self will have it so I fall unawares upon the same answer here used before touching the supposed change of the State because the false grounds they would seem to go on here and there seeming the same and if the whole kingdom or people will have it so there is no opposing But hath not the Parliament taken a voluntarie Oath besides so many publique Protestations and other obligations to us the Scots and the States of the Low Countreys for the maintenance of the Protestant Religion which they are too wise and just needlesly to have done and so should they do otherwise to incurre most justly universall falling of or rather falling on them had they had any intent ever to have done as these would seeme to fear to direct us here also from looking at the true fear and danger nay to draw us with our own hands to pull it on us we may superadde that the voluntary oaths of such a multitude as the Parliament on whom no suspition at all can fasten of inclining to that religion which takes upon it to dispence with oaths and equivocations and thereby with the Law of God Nature and Nations which intended to advance it will by Gods justice advance the ruine of it are better security then our Malignants have or can give us on the other side the Antithesis in each part inquired into duely as the subject well deserves But these men would here also take benefit of their own wrong according to their usuall method it may appear what correspondence or good intelligence the maine dangers of our Religion and State still hold mutually or how they resemble Necessity of the State nay of the very preservation of it self whereof these Objectors are manifestly the authors may justly and too evidently doth compell the Parliament to the letling of Religion though the end of policy and however first in esteeme and intention yet not so in the time of execution alwayes after the ordering of politick affairs and in such desperate times as these not to do this were but a sacrifice without salt a foolish superstition like that of the Jews who would rather sit still and so suffer themselves to be cut in pieces by the capitall enemies of their State and Religion contrary to David who in necessitie spared not the very Shewbread who maliciously invaded them purposely at such a time then arme or fight upon such necessitie on their Sabbath Which they complain the Parliament will not now do which should it now one ruine might involve both Church and State both at once yet hath it not altogether even such times notwithstanding left it self without some testimony of their good intentions herein as particular Acts or Orders of theirs do shew to the world but the attempts and facts of the Malignants evident to all men apologize too well for the Parliament in this point without any words from any man if we weigh the desperate estate of publicke affaires well in these times caused by the malice of these Monsters which times forcing us for a while to content our selves with an implicite or generall faith as touching the ordering reforming or setling of other particulars concerning Religion which cannot for the said necessarie reasons and the like be yet effected yet we have besides many other inducements obvious enough to confirm such implicite faith this also that of such ordering and setling these matters as is to be wished there is farre greater hope and presumption caeteris paribus from those Divines that preach and cry down the temporall greatnesse pride riches avarice c. of the Clergy and so all their own hopes and pretensions that way and consequently from the Parliament which we see countenanceth such men then from the contrary side that professing likewise in a speciall manner and degree mortification contempt and renouncing of the world and of the glory greatnesse and pomp of it humility and the like as minding heavenly matters and things above as principles of the Doctrine and Religion they presse upon us yet are not ashamed to appear to the world invested through various mysteries of iniquitie with so great a share of whatsoever the most worldly men whose highest contemplations ascend not to the Moon compose their Trinity of as may enable these men thus crucified and dead to the world by their own earthly power greatnesse authoritie not to insist on that kind which they have in our times attempted to render in some points or cases at least independent of the crown and absolute and which earthly greatnesse rather then the Parliament shall question or regulate they will question and condemne the Parliament and advance a Civill Warre or forreigne invasion to the evident danger of a generall ruine and abomination of desolation of their Countrey nay Church it self which these hypocrites would seem to stand for as may enable them I say by their own temporall potency which in the hand of such men becomes more dreadfull then any spirituall power they exercise sufficiently to keep in awfull silence if not to bring into a kind of
all the bloud and miseries which this unnaturall monstrous warre may cause a means suitable indeed to the end they force themselves to compasse nor can unpartiall posteritie judge of them otherwise then as Parricidae patriae and damnatae momoriae if all this be not of force with them to descend deeply into themselves and to weigh whether they be in state fit for death every moment at least they may deigne this last motive the honour of a deep and sad thought or two whether thus obstinately persisting they contract not before God another way a guilt to contribute or be accessary to the endangering or perdition of their owne and innumerable soules in another kinde and more directly and highly there being aliquid sacri in hoc morbo and Religion sharing the hazard as abovesaid but if the premisses have not power to inferre thus much with them yet I hope at least they are not so irrationall so extravagant as that these men can truely beleeve that they are onely to be consuted and those that maintaine such tenents to be instructed by a civill warre but if folly and defect of that reason that should governe men or a violent forcing tyrannizing and enslaving their reason and conscience by enormous and monstrous passions and sinnes the two originall causes of slavery be by no art to be severed from these men but they must and will by still persisting apply these two said generall causes of servitude particularly and expresly or in a specrall manner now to draw it upon them it is not unlikely most of them and their posteritie and friends may finde and prove the effect as inseperable from the causes thus redoubled and enforced as the causes from themselves should they be so unhappy as to carry what they by such meanes so pursue and however some dequoy indulgence may be used towards them to draw others till all be in the power of the principall malignants the like we may say of their cunning enforcing themselves not yet to declare all the depth of their malicious intentions towards those they disarme or any way get within their power using them as stalking horses till by seeming for the present to leave these in a tolerable condition they may make others stand out lesse resolutely or warily and so drawing still to them make all sure at last and at their discretion though even whilest matters are yet dubious the infernall are of malice hate crueltie jealousie and the like which is in their hearts sometimes cannot but flash out in divers enormous words or acts such present indulgence I say notwithstanding of the malignant partie let not these men thinke that it having all once at its dispose and made sure will judge it may securely repose on such of the Nation as have violated wittingly willingly the greatest tye on earth by being traytors to their Countrey or on those that loving their Countrey have been violently or fraudulently disarmed or on them that not intending the disservice of their Countrey but seduced by specious pretences have voluntarily assisted the malignant partie when time and plaine experience shall have disabused these two sorts and afford meanes of redeeming their Countrey and themselves will not the malignants rather have recourse to forreigne protection or forces an usuall refuge of an arbitrary or tyrannicall government especially succeeding and having usurped libertie of the Subject as abovesaid under colour of being guards garrisons auxiliary forces joyned in league or the like as France useth the Switzers the French Nation forsooth not populous or warlike enough It is true the Spaniard though not governing at discretion as the French useth the Switzers also but not upon jealousie and diffidence of their own people for ought I find as France doth but for want of men or some other reason of State and may not many strangers already here also be imployed then may these Zelots of the Malignants share largely in contributing to the wages of their forreigne Masters and be put to maintain their own servitude as they stood to bring it in with all their power But God be praised these men unlesse they speedily come in and make their peace are on the point rather of falling under the sword of Justice in the hand of the Parliament and it is not to be doubted but God himself whom they have by sundrie passages too notorious if we may so speak made a party against themselves these Atheists belike thinking he is grown old and impotent and cannot drown these Egyptians in a red sea of their own blood if they with diabolicall obstinacie go on as Lucian that old Atheist said of the Pagan gods in his time because they begot no more sons and daughters will resist and defend himself and his were humane meanes wanting against these publique oppressors of the people in intention and endeavour which they ought to expose their lives to defend and protect And for those that stand alreadie for that Palladium of their Religion and Countrey the Parliament as they are herein duely sensible of themselves and honour so out of the same feeling they cannot but so lively ardently and speedily concurre with all their power if need require when all their fortunes and all that is dear to such men lie at stake and which now nobly and bravely asserted and vindicated may for ever be secured and the roots of dangers pluckt up that the Scots assistance be not the second time needed though in all presumption readie it being the common cause to our exceeding charge nay dishonour as if others were more apprehensive of our honour then our selves and we needed others to protect or defend our Liberty or take and manage our quarrels And now howsoever we may not share in the putting a period to the disorders of the State yet let us think of doing it to this disordered discourse wherein though there may not appeare manifestly one continued beatch tracke of coherent passages to bring you readily to the truth yet I hope you have incountred a few points here and there not induect nor impertinent thereto like Posts of direction for Travellers at each miles end in some of our English deserts to give you ayme that you may hold the right way or rather like race posts quickly to be run over lest it might seem to pretend it self worthy to hold you long And you may the rather passe by the imperfections in regard whilest it was endeavoured to have ordered and compleated it and to make all yet clearer the Antiparliamentary partie hath so in the interim unmasked it self in sight of the world and given such attestation in plain matter of fact a stronger testimony then out of the mouth of the adversarie to the prospective and next to prophetick prudence and Judgement of the Parliament so long since having penetrated and shined on the secret corners of their designes and deeds of darknesse and exposed them to view that there is little need of any further