ledition ugling and deceit disloyalty treason and true malignancy lest according to your own Covenanting words you partake matter mens sins and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues § 6. But because my intentions are to be brief in my Animadversions I shall pass from this second to the third Article where they tell us That they hall with the same sincerity reality and constancy in their several vocations endeavor with their estates and lives mutually to set the cart before the horse and the tayl of a man above his head to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberties of the Kingdoms and to preserve and defend the Kings Majesties person and Authority with a Jugling Jesuitical King-destroying limitation in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms that the world may bear witness with our consciences of our Loyalty and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish His Majeiesties just Power and Greatness This very Article and the notorious Jugling in it were enough to make an understanding person abhor the League eternally and detest the very thoughts of having any thing to do with it and that will appear if we do but consider well their limited defence of their noble Sovereign which in the whole amounts to no defence at all but rather a direct imperious opposition and resistance against His Regal Power and Authority § 7. I have read many of the Leaguers indeed exclaim against the Royalists for asserting That the Covenant tended to the destruction of the King What say they the Covenant tend to the destruction of the King Is there not a particular Clause in it for preservation and defence of the Kings Majesties Person and Authority Yes there is so and so far the words sound some what like Loyalty But what of that Tell me O ye holy Leaguers did you defend the Kings Person in Leaguing together to send Armed men against Him and were you not bound by a subsequent Article of this very Covenant to assist and defend them in such actions Was that the defence of the Kings Person when those rebellions Forces raised and sent by the illegal power of a factious party of the Two Houses then usurping the Supream Authority shot at those who were really risen up in His Majesties defence according to their bounden duty and allegiance and amongst whom in several Battels He had His residence with a Cannon and a Musquet Bullet which makes no difference between a King and Subject the Superior and Inferior Was fighting against him seeling and close imprisoning of him preserving of his Authority Was it not by vertue of this Covenant that Treason before begun was carried on by dint of sword ☞ so long against the pretended Malignants by true Delinquents till the Martyrs Forces through Gods Divine permission were wholly defeated and overcome Did not that force him to surrender himself to a pack of Scottish Presbyterian Judasses Did not their selling him into the hands of Leaguers at Wesiminster cause his Imprisonment I say was not this done by vertue of the Covenant Is not imprisoning of his sacred Person by force of Armes absolute The Law interprets it as a seeking the Princes life when any one seeketh to force the Prince Cook in E of Essexs Case high Treason by the Lawes of this new-risen Kingdom And was not his Imprisonment the true underiable consequence of this Cainish League and Covenant and is it not therefore evil and treasonable and so abominable and not to be kept And was not His Majesties traiterous Imprisonment the immediate Harbinger to his bloody devillish murther Did not one succed the other What then is it less then what the Assertors of Truth and Loyalty said That it tended to the destruction of our Martyred Sovereign and shall that now dare to be pleaded for and asserted for to be still kept by any that fears God or reverences man § 8. But some have said and others may say the same still That though we rose up in arms against the King yet we kept our Oath still for it was with this limitation In the preservation and defence of the true Religion c. and he not following of the one nor maintaining of the other though we fought against him yet we are true Swearers still Oh hellish Clause and Regicidian Limitation what Is that your Loyalty to swear to your King with a Juggle From such Loyalty and all its abettors O Lord deliver all Kings and Princes and more especially and peculiarly s Lament 4. 20. The Breath of our nostrils our now incomparable Sovereign For what Traytors or Rebels wil not swear any oath whatsoever with such a cursed limitation as that to defend their Prince whilest their Prince defends that which such shall please to term the true Religion whilest he preserves that which such t ◠Sav◠10. 27. children of Belial may call the Liberties of the Kingdom The Jesuitical Papists will without any scruple take an Oath to the King with such a limitation as that whereby though afterwards they murther their Prince for not upholding Popery either by powder poison or ponyard they may justifie the true keeping of their oath notwithstanding because he not maintaining their Popes Supremacy nor the abominable Mass of their Romish trumperies their defence of him ceased by such his actual maintenance of another Religion contrary to that which they account the true Nay did not the Sectarian party who took this Covenant which u See Feaks Beam of Light p. 13 in Marg. was magnified most blasphemously when it came into England first as the very Ark of Gods presence and who notwithstanding that afterwards brought their pious Sovereign whom they had swore to defend before their Court of highest Injustice and condemned and executed Him most barbarously before the windows of his own Royal Palace yet pleaded they were not perjured or forsworn because of this remarkable Restriction or special Limitation In desence of the true Religion c. And he being as they most impudently with faces of brass affirmed * Page 29. a desperate enemy to the Lord Jesus his true seed and kingdom and a great friend to Antichrist and the carnal and persecuting Church in all his Kingdoms their murther of Him was no breach of Covenant seemingly made for his defence I am confident he that is a true Christian Protestant will detest such limited Loyalty such jugling destructive defences of his Prince as favouring too much of Jesuitical venome and Anti-monarchical designs wherein a Kings preservation stands altogether upon peoples fancies when they fancy a Religion or the Liberties of a Kingdom to be such as he doth not maintain then farewel Loyalty down goes true Faith and Allegiance and up goes Treason and Rebellion and yet pretend to be his dutiful loyal Subjects too for all that which some may say is impossible but yet such blinde pretences have been
of the truth alas our Covenanters made it appear that their words and actions are two distinct things and people are very ready always to pass sentence upon men not according to their fair words and pretences but according to their actions and when they find a contrariety between them to fasten upon them their proper deserved name of hypocrites Nay their very words do not agree one with another and such surely must be accounted self-contradictory juglers with a witness for they had no sooner told us of making a Real Reformation of their lives in all duties they owed to God and man but presently after they shut up their Baal-berith with this Antichristian rebellious infamous and never enough to be detested prayer and conclusion beginning with a Most humbly beseeching the Lord to strengthen us by his holy spirit for this end and to bless our desires and proceedings with such success as may be deliverance and safety to his people as though Rebellion could ever produce safety long to the undertakers And which surely proceeded either from the instigation of the Devil or else was the plot and devise of some Romish Jesuitical Emissaries to make the true loyal Protestant Religion which teaches men according to Christs Rule rather to suffer and flee then to fight with and kill our enemies to stink as unsavoury stuff in the nostrils both of God and all truly pious men else certainly we should never have heard of an hellish lewd League made for encouragement to other christian churches if they be truly Christian they 'l abhor our Leaguers courses groaning under or in danger of the yoake of Antichristian Tyranny what for very Titus 3. 1. fear of a yoke must Christians rebel against Principalities and powers to disobey Magistrates which Titus had a command from St. Paul to put the then Christians in mind to be subject to though really groaning then under a sad yoke of Jewish and heathenish tyranny on the one side and the other certainly the Covenanters mind not what a neerness their feet are to be the very brink of hell when they laid down these Antichristian Articles for others to joyn in the same or like association and Covenant to the glory of God the enlargement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ Suppose a man that hath cut himself to stop it from bleeding should afresh with a knife make the wound wider would you not think him frantique and the peace and tranquillity of christian kingdoms and Commonweals It s a brave art to perswade people that wars and bloodsheds confusions and disorders tend to the peace and tranquillity of a kingdom and that this Covenant bound the takers to pursue their resolutions by the sword is plain beyond contradiction and we have not been deluded and cheated by our Leaguing Absaloms long enough it seems but we must continue hampered still in the noose of a Regicidian Antichristian leud impious profane Covenant for fear of being perjured forsooth if we draw our selves and necks out of it whereas true Christianity will not suffer a man to transgress so far the bounds of loyalty as to keep that nor true loyalty permit a man so far to go beyond the limits of the English Laws as to turn a Rebel to his King to stand to such a faithless Covenant which teaches men to k See Eikon Basilike His Majesties words upon the calling in of the Scots build their piety on their ruines of Loyalty to make bankrupt of their Allegiance under pretence of setting up a quicker trade for Religion But to their conclusive prayer a particular answer I shall give in such following terms as these § 13. We read in the 58 of Esa 1. verse the Lord commanding the Prophet in this manner Cry aloud and spare not lift up thy voice like a Trumpet and shew my people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sins Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways as a Nation that did Righteousness and forsook not the Ordinance of their God they ask of me the Ordinances of Justice they take delight in approaching to God Wherefore have we fasted say they and thou seest not But what said God to them Behold saith he ye fast for strife and debate and to smite with the fist of wickedness Here was fair pretences who could make better but that did but aggravate the sinful nature of their Crimes we have had such mock-fasts too in our times by our Leaguers God bless us from any more such and promises to reform themselves that the Lord might turn away his wrath from us and yet make it a part of their reformation presently to pursue their rebellious intentions against their lawful onely Supream Governour They pretended indeed to fast for their sins but their subsequent actions declared to all the world their fasting to be like that of their Jewish Brethren even for strife and debate for prosperity in Treason and to smite with the fist of Rebellion to cut and slay all the assistants of their King because they will not forsake their vertuous Soveraign renounce their sworn faith and allegiance and become joynt actors with them in their unclean beastly courses The Jews sought God daily and delighted to know his ways yet that excused them not So our Holy Leaguers pretend to seekafter God and to delight in approaching to him yet that serves not for an extenuation of their crimes nor for the lessening of their offences Observe Reader these Leaguers prayers how devoutly they can pray for success in their Treasons and Conspiracies nay and to have it for this end too that other people in forrain Nations may Covenant in like manner to rebel and rise up in Arms for the extirpation of the settled Church Government of the Nation without and against the consent and precept of their respective Princes and to follow our Leaguers peerless practices in it But I demand Is not such a prayer as this extreamly sinful in the matter of it do they not as good as pray for prosperity in their breach of the Law of God When I read it methinkes I cannot but admire at these Covenanters confidence and stupidity that they should first break the Laws of God in a most notorious manner by their perjury and disobedience to their Prince and then Covenant and bind themselves to proceed in the carrying on of their evil Treacherous designs and yet pray to God to prosper them in their villany when they might more justly according to Gods dealing with Corah and his holy-conspirators for Church-paritie have expected to have found the fate of those murmuring Saints against the Supremacy of the Prince and Priest the true and exact picture to me of our Covenanting Jack Presbyters to be swallowed up alive for their Extirpating Covenant and the earth whereon they trod to sink under them For l See his Pious votary p. 47 48 a Rebel saith the learned Hardy who goeth forth to fight against
the one is the intention of the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance and the other the purpose of the Covenant needs not to be demonstrated with any illustration seeing the doubters may be satisfied in the Oaths themselves And therefore I conclude the contrariety between the one and the other in the words of the learned Paraphrast when he set down his minde with a Neither can that limitation in the Covenant wherein they oblige Page 8. themselves to the preservation of the King in the maintenance of the true Protestant Religion the Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberty of the subject limit or abate the force of those absolute obligations whereby all subjects are obliged to the King and his lawful Heirs and Successors which are upon them by the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance but as such limitations look very unhandsomly so they have not at all any force of abatement in them but ought to be abhorred disclaimed and rejected by all honest Subjects and Christians as an evil gapp opened to Rebellion and Sedition to those that have a minde to make such an evil use thereof under pretence that the King doth that which indeed he ought not to do either depart in any thing from the true Religion or violate the Priviledges of Parliament or the Liberties of the subject § 17. Lastly For this League and Covenants contrariety to the Protestation I shall first set down in general the words of a Right Reverend person upon it who hath told us That b See the Imaâ—e unbroken the Protestation was confined to established Law but the Covenant to destroy Law and what was established by it the Protestation to defend the Doctrine the Covenant to destroy the Government which is comprehended in the Doctrine How do these two hang together Reconcile them and it will be as easie to make light and darkness order and confusion vertue and wickedness lawful unlawful acts to appear one the same thing to every persons eye and ear And therefore how shallow and weak soever my judgement is in every thing yet I hope those that are judicious will excuse me though I presume for once to commend what I say now to their and every mans serious consideration because if I am erroneous it s not through wilfulness or obstinacy but meerly for want of understanding to discern that which is better upon supposition that I am in an errour which I cannot say till I be convinced of it and that which I have to say upon this account shall come dressed to peoples eyes in no other terms then these which I have now subjoyned Every one that took this Protestation did Vow and Protest to maintain and defend as far as lawfully he might observe that well Sir John with his life power and estate the true Reformed Protestant Religion expressed in the Doctrine of the Church of England Now minde the Thirty nine Articles as they are usually called have been alwaies hitherto wont to be accounted The Doctrine of the Church of England the Thirty sixth Article whereof is so far from speaking against the Bishops for the advancing and promoting of a dogged surly Anti-Monarchical Scottish Discipline that the very book of Consecration of Arch-Bishops and Bishops and ordering of Priests and Deacons which had the Royal Civil sanction at the making thereof is affirmed there to have nothing in it that is superstitious or ungodly and this is a part of that which in this Protestation was termed The true Protestant Religion Nay and this must not be defended neither but as far as lawfully I may so that if there had not been the least mention of Episcopacy in any of the Articles yet confining themselves in their Protestation to the rules and orders of the Laws the Supremacy of the King over all persons Clergy and Lay in all causes Ecclesiastical and Civil and Episcopacy its stout propp and defender both undermined subverted and destroyed by a Scottish Discipline stand as safe and firm by the very Protestation as they were before that was ever made or taken Now comes a Solemn League and Covenant and bindes its takers by force of Arms to beat down Episcopacy comprehended in that very doctrine which the Presbyters had sworn to maintain and defend with their lives powers and estates and established by Law to turn their neighbours as the Revered Primate See his Fair Warning page 2. saith out of a possession of above one thousand four hundred years to make room for their Trojan horse of Ecclesiastical Discipline a practise never justified in the world but either by the Turk or by the Pope I and do this too not as far as lawfully they may but any way in the world by hook or by crook per fas aut ne fas so that they can but attain at the ends aimed at in their extirpating noddles to beat down the firm brazen walls of Episcopacy to rear up the muddy noisom ones of an unwholsom factious Presbytery in their rooms And therefore once again I Quaere Can that Protestation whereby I A. B. do promise vow and protest to maintain and desend as far as lawfully I may with my life power and estate the true Reformed Protestant Religion expressed in the Doctrine of the Church of England wherein the lawfulness of Bishops is expresly comprehended any way agree with an illegal League which bindes me to extirpate Bishops in direct opposition to that Doctrine as contrary unto the power of godliness Our Leaguers I know would fain be accounted true and good Protestants and yet swear to extirpate that which is a main propp of the true Protestant Religion and therefore in this case the definition holds very firm and true which was long since given of such at the Conference at Hampton Court That they are * Pag. 38. Protestants frayed out of their wits Again part of that doctrine which by the Protestation the takers vowed to defend is that †The Kings Majesty hath the chief power in his Realm of England and other his dominions unto whom the chief Government of all states of this Realm whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil in all causes doth appertain And by the Covenant the takers swore to preserve and maintain all the days of their lives the thing called the Scottish discipline Now nothing can be more opposite to the Supremacy of the King asserted in the Article and vowed to be defended with life power and estate in the Protestation then this very Scottish discipline which our Baal-Berithists by an after oath swore to preserve Yea light and darkness God and the Devil heaven and hell the serving of Christ and the worshipping of Baal will assoon be brought to agree with each other as the Scottish Presbytery will with Monarchy King James told us it by a sad doleful experience as the discipline of Scotland wil accord with the Regal Supremacy over all persons in all causes as well Ecclesiastical as Civil he that
the times of Popish Egyptian darkness shall any pretending to true Protestantism which severely declaims all such perfidious Antichristian courses be found to be so far approvers of such infamous actions as to commend them for examples to others to tread in the same steps Can Subjects combining and swearing together to extirpate the legal established Church-Government of a Nation as Bishops were and are still here though the leg exercise of their Coercive power in the Star-Chamber and High Commission Courts was taken away by the Act in 1641. to prevent the subsequent Rebellion and Jesuitical-Combinations of Leaguing Presbyters and vowing to assist one another in their Covenanted Rebellion with their lives and fortunes against the express command of the supream Governor for the attaining of their Leaguing ends be called and stiled Commendable by any one pretending some affinity to Loyalty or Christianity which are inseparable and the constant attendants upon a true fearer of the Lord It 's a brave time with Rebels when their Treason and disloyalty are enrolled amongst the Records of Fame and Honour and their obedient opposites to the commands of their lawful Prince are in the very act of Loyalty tearmed and Recorded for terrible Delinquents against the thing which Nick-named it self so often A Parliament Halcyon daies for Sacrilegious Schismaticks when that which is condemned by the word of God nothing more shall be garnished forth with an Epethite of Commendable though what the Prophet by God's express command said so long ago that do I say now unto these strangers to Truth and Loyalty b Isaiah 5. 20. Wo unto them that call evil good and good evil § 2. They tell us too It was according to the practice of Gods people in other Nations Aha! What Gods people and Covenanting Rebels too What Reformers and swearing Extirpaters of the Episcopal promoters of the Reformation Saints and yet Schismaticks Christians and yet Traytors Surely our Covenanters were put to extream hard straits to make lies their refuge for their carrying on of their extirpating Reformation No other way to catch people into the black Road with them but by blinding their eyes with Errors and Contradictions A sad geneneration of Merozians It s true indeed the Guisian Leaguers in France went directly in the same impious courses before them unless they be their Gods people I know none for they alone were the Monsters that our Leaguers could properly say they were imitators of because they went to their hellish work with an Oath like ours and yet Guise himself like ours too had the face to tell his Prince That he was his faithful subject for all that Who as the Translator of a Parisians Work tells us living under c See the right of Kings and duty of subjects Pref. a milde and peaceable Prince slandered their King that he was an enemy to the Roman Catholick Religion as our Covenanters did the late Carolian Martyr to be an enemy to the Protestant and under the fair pretence of Religion screwed themselves into the favour of the Common people who are usually deceived by such pretences raising a strong party against the King by the name of the holy League which caused much confusion in that kingdom as by too sad and lamentable experience we have found to be the effects of our English Leaguers in this And now I appeal to the conscience of any man living whether they that can first Rebel against their d For so they swore the King was only Supream Governour and then have the confidence to tell us of a thing which never was like that of the man in the Moon and set it down with such a positive Asseveration as making it a pattern for their illegal traitorous undertakings and stile that Commendable which if any such thing had ever been ought to be abhorred as much as hell by him that desires the Rules of Christianity I say I appeal to the Conscience of any man living who desires not to be ensnared and kept so with the e See Mr. Reynell's Panegyrik intituled The unfortunate Change Caledonian Boar which was the cause of our distempers whether they that speak these lies and juglings these palpable falshoods and deceits could possibly have according to their assertion Before their eyes the glory of God and the advancement of the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ whose f See Mr. Quarrel 's Loyal Convert P. 5. glory will not be vindicated by such unlawful means and unwarrantable proceedings and whose kingdom is endeavoured to be pulled down by such a peerless Covenant But what 's it they swear that must have a juggling Preface to set it forth Why they tell us in their first Article That they will sincerely really and constantly through the grace of God as though that would ever square with such proceedings endeavour in their severall places and callings the Preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the word of God and the example of the best Reformed Churches § 3. What have I to do with the reglement of Foreign Churches * See his Fair warning P. 1 said the Reverend Primate and so say I too What had English men to do to swear to preserve the Doctrine and Discipline of another Countrey Let them stand or fall to their own Master Ay but here was the Mystery We have an earnest longing desire to have Bishops extirpated and we having followed the pattern of our dear Scottish Brethren in rising up in arms against our King for that purpose and being not well able and sufficient of our selves to carry on our design against them we must call in the other to our aid and they will not come to us unless we will swear to set up their Church-way amongst us and therefore rather then Bishops shall stand we will do it For as the late Martyr said upon the Covenant nothing will induce them to engage till those that called them in have pawned thier souls to them by a solemn League and Covenant I am verily perswaded that there was not one amongst a hundred that swore that League to preserve the Scottish Discipline that knew no more what their Discipline was then a horse and so they swore with a blinde implicite faith to preserve they knew not what themselves Pure good swearing is it not Was this sworn in Truth Judgement and Righteousness as the Prophet saith an Oath should Jer. 4. 2. If not as it was not Is not therefore such mens swearing unlawful and so to be renounced and repented of Is it not an abominable wickedness in any one to swear to preserve the Scottish Discipline or when sworn to keep such a wicked Oath when the Reverend Primate hath made it appear by such cogent and undeniable Arguments of truth and sound Divinity beyond the reach and power of a Crofton or any Presbyterian adversary to answer without palpable
made by those who had nothing else to say for themselves and their illegal courses being assisted too by such a Learned Assembly of so many Divines who after a Three years Conference most profoundly voted God to be the Father § 9. And yet notwithstanding this Anti-monarchical limitation they declare they did set it down that the world might bear witness of their Loyalty they might have said Jugling and Rebellion for that is the true english of such a limited Loyalty and that they have no thoughts to diminish His Majesties just power and greatness No question but the world would did and have sufficiently taken notice of that which they call their Loyalty and have found it to be such as their Guisian Leaguing Brethrne practised who under pretence of x 2 Sam. 15. 7 8. maintaining w See The Right of Kings in Marg. the Roman Catholick Religion as these did for that which they usually mis-called the Reformed undermined the Kings Authority and sought to advance themselves the very same which Absalom the Beautiful Rebel showed to his Father when under a fair colour of Evil Councellors at Court and under a plausible pretence of paying his vow he made to the Lord in Hebron he * verse 6. stole the hearts of the men of Israel from their due allegiance to their King and drew them †verse 11 in their simplicity into a damnable Rebellion with him and therefore he that is loyal in practises and works will never approve of these Westmonasterian Leaguers loyalty which onely consists in words whilest their actions declares nothing else but Treason and Rebellion unless y See A Vindication of King Charls by noble Mr. Symmons p. 40. when they are in Cathedris in their seats as Parliament-men they are all as infallible as the Pope and have a power as well as he to do what they please to make evil good and good evil to make Rebellion and Treason to be Duty and Loyalty and duty and loyalty to be Rebellion and Treason to vote sacriledge murder and theft to be no sins killing slaying and destroying to be acts of zeal and christian duty Till then their loyalty will appear in the eyes of all judicious men to be no better then a Wolf in Sheeps clothing As for their disclaymer of diminishing His Majesties just power and greatness upon search and inquiry after it we shall find it to be a chip of the old block a parcel of contradictions like the other of preserving the Kings person with a destructive limitation and therefore I again thus Quaere Is the taking the Antient right of the Militia from him which was never for z See The Royalists Defence p. 97. the space of 1700. years past questioned or disputed until by these usurpers injuriously wrested from the Crown but hath been time out of mind inherent in the King a See Iudge Jenkins Lex Terrae p. 37. The practise of all times and the custom of the Realm no diminishing his Majesties just power Was the justifying the war by a party of the two Houses the Kings sworn Subjects against the Martyr to be warrantable both in point of law and conscience and making a deforming Reformation without the consent and against the express prohibition of their Dread Soveraign and not onely so but justifying for a commendable practise the iniquity of Witchcraft which Rebellion is termed by the Prophet was this no diminishing His Majesties just greatness What do they think English men are made of What are all made up of a bundle of contradictions that they impose such juglings upon us Surely the power of the Militia in the King was a very just necessary power and he being b See A Letter to a Member p. 5. under God the Protector of the Law I wonder how he could could defend it and the d Priviledges of Parliament without the power of the sword and the greatness of His Majesties over all in his dominions was very just too if either the laws of God or of this Land or an oath of Supremacy are able to make it so And yet forsooth people must be forced by vertue of an illegal Anti-parliamentary League not onely to be c See The Animadversions upon General Monk's Letter to the Gentry of Devon p. 4. ingaged in the wars against the King and so thereby become perjured and faithless persons and to swear to assist all those that shall do so too in order to the taking away the Kings Negative voice and the power of the Militia from him which was one of those jurisdictions priviledges preeminencies and authorities belonging to the Kings Highness His Heirs and successors and united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm which every one of the Parliamenteers as they were called had by a solemn legal Sacred oath of Supremacy sworn to assist and defend to his power but also hipocritically to say no worse to sware too that for all that they have no thoughts of diminishing His Majesties just power and greatness Was there ever such jugling seen that men should endeavour to take away that from their King which is his just right and yet sware with their right hands lifted up to the most high God that they have no thoughts to diminish it Ay and sware too that they had before their eyes at this present the honor and happiness of the Kings Majesty and his posterity in what part of the world can these mens peers be found as to the art of jugling and contradictions in their oaths Where may we find a pattern of their venemous courses but among the damned Guisian leaguers in France who murdered their King with a promise of fidelity and of their being his true and faithful Subjects And yet this this is that Covenant God wot that notwithstanding it set us together by the ears and put us all in blood and confusion must be still kept to inrol us amongst mad men for ever This jugling and contradictions in this ungodly Covenant cannot but be contrary to the nature of a true oath which as the Prophet saith must be made in Truth righteousness and in Judgement and therefore unlawful and not to be kept by any without an evident disobedience to the command of the Lord expressed by the said Prophet to the men of Israel § 10. And though they can tell us in their sixth Article That this Cause and League of theirs so much concerns the glory of God the good of the kingdoms and the honor of the King yet I demand and they may answer me if they can Was is it ever heard spoke before by men that pretend a fear towards God that that which is a most horrible breach of the Laws of God could ever tend to his glory and was not this Rebellions Covenant and covenant Rebellion against the Martyr directly a breach of the Divine Precept spoken by the mouth of his blessed St. Peter d 1 Pet. 2. 13.
his lawful Sovereign to pray that God would be with him were not a Petition but a Presumption for though it be true that Almighty God doth sometimes suffer for reasons best known to himself such wretches to prosper in their wicked ways yet they cannot either justly expect or religiously desire it and by how much the more devoutly they seem to undertake such attempts by so much the more abominable they are in the eyes of God who never more abhorreth Rebellion then when it is masked with Religion and Devotion Do they think it was no sin in them for to make such an horrible conclusive prayer as that which is here made for a close to their Covenant If they say no then a pack of thieves who lye in wait for to spoil men of their goods and estates and sometimes of their lives may pray to God too for prosperity in their pilfering courses that is in plain English to bless them in their disobedience to him with success for it and count their prayer in such case lawful too and so Absalom and his deluded confederates might most humbly beseech God to bless them with such success against King David that they might not onely usurp his Authority and cast him out of his Throne but that other of their neighbour Nations might be encouraged by their example to do the like to their own Kings and so of any other whatsoever in the commission of any villany if they can but first have the courage to do the thing without fear of punishment and in expectation of praise for it and then can have but the confidence most humbly to beseech God as our Leaguers Cant it to bless them with success in it if they say yes then I hope their Covenant ought to be abolished and renounced as being what it is undoubtedly sinful in the matter of it I remember Mr. Croftons profound Lawyer Mr. Prynne in his printed Treatises hath told us That the unparallel'd proceedings of those who unjustly usurped the title of Parliament though their title was onely in nomine non re in name not in reality in relation to their barbarous murther of their Lord and Sovereign to whom they had sworn to bear true faith and allegiance and to their traiterous banishing of his incomparable Heir through a quaternary of perjuries have given occasion m See his Republicans and others Spurious good Old Cause briefly and truely Anatomized p. 17. to all our Popish adversaries not onely to traduce deride reproach blaspheme our Protestant Profession as some of them have done in print as a meer Seminary of Treason Rebellion Sedition Hypocrisie Perjury Disloyalty and all sorts of villany but to combine together in a HOLY LEAGUE to extirpate it and all Professors of it out of the world And n See his True and perfect Narrative p. 55. to massacre eradicate them as a company of Traitors Antimonarchists Regicides Hypocrites Rebels and seditious persons And made it great matter of lamentation as it is undoubtedly to every good Christian that men pretending to fear God should ever give such an irrepairable scandal to Christianity And I have no sooner set down that Gentlemans words but I presently finde that there was occasion enough given by their warlike Covenant to turn the edge of these Covenanters words upon themselves for they having rebelled against their Sovereign as it were for Gods sake for the further strengthning of themselves in their wicked courses combined by League and Covenant not onely to proceed on further in their rising up in Arms against their supream Legislator for the glory of God a practice as a loyal Scotch Minister o See Scotlands late misery bewailed p. 14. saith inconsistent with sound divinity against all orthodox doctrine a practice contrary to Scripture contrary to the doctrine of the ancient Church and their practice contrary to the Confession of Faith No King upon the accompt of his intellectuals morals or religion being to be suspended from the exercise of his Government or denied submission too by his Subjects but also to continue therein all the days of their lives against all lets and impediments whatsoever for the peace and safety of the three kingdoms which as they are notorious contradictions in themselves like the rest of their Jugling League by being instrumental to the dishonor of God in the horrible breaking of his Laws and directly opposite to the peace of this kingdom as well as all others where such Antichristian prayers are put in practise in being acted so rebelliously to the praise and glory of the man of sin to the pulling down of the kingdom of our most blessed Savior and to the everlasting disgrace of true Christianity even of the true Protestant Religion which vehemently exclaims against all such seditious Antimonarchical ways and principles So with every rational man that knows there must be a flame kindled before a house can be burned that the King had never bin murthered by prosperous Rebels if the flame of Sedition and Treason had not first set the kingdom a burning and for a man to make a flame in a house and by that flame at length that house is burned and destroyed and then to say he never intended the house should have been destroyed savours of little less then frenzy and will hardly ever excuse his innocency in it These Leaguers had first raised a war and vowed and swore the prosecution thereof against the Martyr and the sword-men taking advantage of the Military power which by the Covenanters means they had obtained executed their villany in their villanous act of Regicide and yet the former would perswade the world that they never intended it which if the rising up in arms had not first bin practised the murther would then have never bin heard of which being so evident to any mans understanding this conclusion naturally flows from the premises That their rebellious Actings against the King in the behalf of a Faction of the Two Houses that had renounced all allegiance save in order to that which they called Religion do give as great occasion as the murther to foreign Princes to extirpate as much as in them lies the professors of the Protestant Religion to prevent them from rising up in arms against them lest their prosperity in such ways of darkness should invite them at length to attempt to serve them ☞ there as the renowned Martyr was here after he had been by vertue of this hellish black Covenant fought against and all his Forces overcome and as the immediate fruits issues and effects thereof first sold then imprisoned and afterwards delivered to his perjured Subjects to be crucified Finally for a conclusion to this Covenanting Prayer which the famous University of Oxford affirmed their hearts trembled to think that they should be required to pray it I shall here subjoyn the judicious and memorable thoughts of that then loyal conscientious University which I finde expressed in the following words
imposers thereof are guilty of the highest crime Now can that oath be said by any man in his right wits to be warranted by the Laws of the Land which is directly opposite and contrariant to them and for which the imposers may be hanged at Tyburn for the gallows have commonly been the immediate fate and consequence of that highest crime of Treason This Covenant was thrust down the Throats of many people not by an Act of Parliament which must have been made as the Petition of Right and all other Laws and Acts have been by the King and all the Lords and Commons but by an Ordinance as it was called of a packt black faction of the then never to be forgotten two Houses which serves for nothing but to * p. 84. record to posterity a lawless distemper'd time A thing so far from being warranted by the Laws of the Land that such a thing was never heard of till these latter times of Treason and Sacriledge Rebellion and Confusion when mens brains began to be possessed of the effects and virtues of a Midsommer-moon Again can that be warranted by the Laws of the land which is so far a breach of those laws as it s esteemed high Treason u p. 22. 40. Arising to alter religion established or any Law is Treason saith the reverend Judge And did not the thing which Crofton will needs have to be a Parliament arise to alter the religion and was not this league devised to keep men under an oath for the doing and assisting of them in it Let Jack Presbyter deny it if he can In the second Article of this Covenant the takers swore to endeavour to extirpate Arch-bishops Bishops c. which is absolute contrary to Magna Charta which in the 25th of Edw. 3. chap. 1. 2. is declared to be the common Law of the Land chap. 1. and the last Salvae fint Episcopis omnes libertates suae That the Bishops shall have all their whole Rights and Liberties inviolable and this great Charter the Judge tells us p. 62. is confirmed by no less then 32 Acts of Parliament and in the 42th of Edw. 3. The first chapter enacts That if any Statute be made to the contrary it shal be holden for none and therefore their impious lawless League in this respect is far enough from being warranted by the Laws of this Land being so notoriously against the very Charter of our Liberties Again the Leaguers declared as Crofton himself told us lately for I am scarce old enough to remember the doing of it That they Abolished the Common-prayer Book in pursuance of their Covenant Very good This very book which they pretended to abolish with the power of an illegal ordinance was not onely compiled by true Martyrs and Reformers and practised in the times of four Princes but was and is still p. 62. notwithstanding their Rebellious Ordinance setled by no less then five Acts of Parliament And therefore their Covenant being in that act also contrary to the Lawes All Ministers and others that have taken this Oath must teach themselves and others according to the exhorters own assertion for I love to take men at their words that such oaths call for repentance and not pertinacy in them it being proved to be so far from being warranted by the Laws of the Land that it is an absolute breach of above 26 of them § 15. I remember The Leaguers in their Disputes and Arguments ☞ against the wearing of the Surplice and performance of other commendable Ceremonies of our best Reformed Church of England do out of their wise Noddles send forth such doughty windy Affirmations as will excellently wel serve to prove the unlawfulness of their Covenant Let a man go and ask them why they will not wear the Surplice and live in conformity to the Rites and Customs of the Church they 'l tell him because they are unlawful and why are they unlawful because God hath no where commanded them to be done in the Scripture though in any wise mans judgement there can be no unlawfulness in a thing without it be a breach of some Law which hath forbid it and where they will finde that Law against the Surplice and Ceremonies its possible they 'l tell us when they are able and their ability for that end will be I believe Ad Grecas Calendas but not well before Now according to their own ways of arguing I shall make this retortion That God hath no where in the Scripture commanded subjects in case of a default made by the Prince or that he will not consent to any Reformation to rise up in Arms and rebel against him and swear an Oath to do it themselves without any Royal Consent at all and let any of the Pack make it appear if they can For for them to set down the examples of the Oaths and Covenants Kings and Subjects joyntly made for a Reformation when they are demanded to show a pattern for their Covenant is no more to the purpose then to say Queen Elizabeth and her Nobles made a Reformation in this kingdom to pull us out of the mist of Popish darkness no more satisfaction to a Quaerist then as the Reverend Dr. Pierce told one of his Antagonists for a man when he is asked what 's a Clock To answer a windmil or a pump for the question is not whether Kings and Subjects may joyntly swear a Reformation of Abuses either in Church or State for there is no body I think wil stand to dispute that but whether in case a King will not make that extirpating Reformation his Subjects would have him whether they may do this without his consent by Oaths and rising up in Armes which is palpable rebellion u See the League illegal p. 17. Where doth God command the English to swear to preserve the Scotch Discipline and Liturgy which they themselves have often varied Or to abjure Episcopacy which was the onely Government of the Church for more then 1500 years and under whose shade Christian Religion most flourished and the Church stretched forth her branches to the Rivers and her boughs to the ends of the earth Where doth the Scripture warrant much less command the association of two kingdoms and joyntly taking up Arms in the Quarrel of the Gospel and defending and propagating Religion by the sword And let them answer that or let their silence conclude their being convinced I say again God never commanded Subjects any where in the Scripture to make a Reformation without their Princes consent by arms And therefore to deal with them with their own weapons according to their own ways of disputations against the Ceremonies I affirm that their Covenant is wicked and unlawful and being an unlawful sinful Oath by the resolution and judgement of all Casuists it ought not to be pleaded for nor taken or if once taken to be kept by any that ever took it because x See The Fair
Warning p. 30. To observe a wicked engagement doubles the sin according to the found determinations of the Reverend Primate And so my Argument herein I am sure ad hominem is unanswerable § 16. The next thing that will come under examination will be the unlawfulness of the Covenant in respect of its contrariety to the two former legally established Sacred Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance and the Protestation and to that end I commend to the consideration of my Readers the excellent Determination of the Irish Primate in relation to this point in his incomparable Fair Warning to take heed of the Scottish Discipline p. 31. Where after he had affirmed That a Supervenient Oath or Covenant either with God or man cannot take away the obligation of a just Oath precedent he immediately addes But such is the Covenant a subsequent Oath inconsistent with and destructive to a precedent Oath that is the Oath of Supremacy which all the Church-men throughout the kingdom and all Parliament men at their Admission to the House and all persons of quality thoughout England have taken The former oath acknowledgeth the King to be the only Supream Head that is Civil Head to see that every man do his duty in his calling and Governor of the Church of England The second Oath or Covenant to set up the Presbyterian Government as it is in Scotland denieth all this virtually makes it a Political Papacy acknowledgeth no Governors but onely the Presbytery The former Oath gives the King the Supream Power over all persons in all causes The second gives him a power over all as they are Subjects but none at all in Ecclesiastical causes This saith he they make to be Sacriledge And therefore I Quaere 1. Whether he that hath taken the legally established Oath of Supremacy to His Sacred Majesty which as a Paraphrast very well noteth y See The Oathes of Supremacy Allegiance which have layen dead many years c. p. 10. Admits of no Rival in the Throne but doth exclude all others from the Supremacy from being enabled to act above His Majesty or contrary unto Him or without Him or his allowance in any acts of Government can take this illegal Covenant whereby he swears according to his utmost power not onely to carry on the Rebellion then already begun for that it was so needs no further demonstration but also to assist all other persons that shall take it in what they shall do in pursuance thereof thereby implicitly owning the power of the then two Houses and disowning the Onely Supremacy of the King so clearly asserted in that Oath I say whether he that hath taken the former can ever swear the latter without a notorious guilt of apparent Perjury If not as no man I think upon serious consideration will affirm he may then it necessarily follows that the one is an opposition to the other Again The Oath of Supremacy bindes the takers to their power to assist and defend all Jurisdictions Priviledges Preheminences and Authoritys granted or belonging to the Kings Highness and united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm And the famous University of Oxford have told us That y See their Reasons p. 38. the whole power of ordering all matters Ecclesiastical was by the Laws of the Land in express words For ever annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm citing the Statute for it in their Margin whence I Quaere Secondly Whether he that hath once taken the Oath of Supremacy and afterwards swallowed down this Regicidian League was not desperatly forsworn in taking upon them the ordering of Ecclesiastical matters which is one of those Jurisdictions and Priviledges granted to the Kings Highness so far as to swear the Extirpation of the Legally established Ecclesiastical Government without and against his Majesties Royal assent one while swearing to defend the Jurisdiction and Preeminence granted or belonging to the King and another while vowing the performance of that which is absolutely contrariant unto it And Perjury attained by taking of two Oaths in my shallow judgement doth unavoidably imply the vast proportion of difference and contrariety that is between them Since the writing of these last words I heard of the burning of the Solemn League and Covenant by the hands of the Common Hangman according to the Noble Order of the truely Honourable two Houses May 22. 1661. now at this present assembled in Parliament by vertue of his Majesties Gracious Writ which as it is no more then its deserts in having bewitched people into an odious Rebellion against their Prince which as one saith well z See the Right Rebel p. 72. Must needs be acknowledged a sin of Sodom especially since the Sodomites are the first that the Holy Ghost in Scripture hath taxed for the practise thereof So I shall desist from saying here any more of this Loyal Vote concerning that monstrous League but shall now go on to the finishing of what I have here intended to show the sinfulness thereof in its contrariety to former Legal Oaths and to that end and purpose shall again Quaere Thirdly Can that Oath Which * was devised onely to ** See his Majesties Proclamation prohibiting the taking of it prevent peace and to engage the Kings good subjects in the maintenance of an horrid and odious Rebellion against him as this wicked League did any way accord with an Oath of Allegiance which solemnly bound all its takers to bear true faith and Allegiance to his Majesty and to defend him to the uttermost of their power against all attempts and conspiracies whatsoever therefore against that damnable one of the then two Houses which shall be made against his Person Crown and Dignity Fourthly Can this subsequent seditious and trayterous Vow and Covenant which endeavours to withdraw the subjects from their natural Allegiance which they owe unto their Prince they are his * Majesties own words and engages them in acts of High Treason by the express letter of the Statute of the 25. of King Edward the 3. be any way consonant or agreeable with two preceding Oaths which expresly obliges them to bear to the King truth and faith of life members and earthly honour and to a See the oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy c. p. 15. appear for the defence of him of his Person and Government against all attempts against them by any whatsoever upon any pretences soever Can any be so wilde and frantick as to make such an affirmation Fifthly How can that Oath which bindes men absolutely to bear true faith and Allegiance to the King without any relation to his good or bad Government sute with an Apostate that is sworn with a cursed destructive limitation to defend him so long as he shall continue in the preservation of that which the swallower thereof shall fancifully call the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom and no longer See more of this in the excellent Scotch-Covenant condemned That
about the Church doth restrain its exorbitances and direct its administrations but neither Canon nor Common Law doth establish it and in terminis declare and authorize it to be the Government of the Church of England That neither Canon nor Common Law doth establish Episcopacy is notoriously false by your good leave Mr. Shifter And that neither do in terminis declare it to be the Government of the Church of England is clearly beside the purpose T is not your I averr nor mine neither will weigh any thing in the way of Argumentation but good solid Grounds and Reasons raised upon a Foundation of Truth must be the way and Method for the satisfaction as well as conviction of an opponent and I am sure there is none at all in this and mine I am sure is as good a proof of the truth of my expression as your I averr is of yours but are both of the same mettal both a kin to the Scotchmans confutation of Bellarmine Bellarmine saith thus but I say the contrary where is he now You say That neither Canon nor Common Law do in terminis declare and authorize Episcopacy to be the Government of the Church of England Well What of that Because neither do in express tearms name Episcopacy to be the Government of the Church of England to say presently it s not established by the Law notwithstanding the express mention of Bishops and their Liberties in the very first Article of Magna Charta signifies little to me but onely the shallowness of the Authors brains and yet his proud confidence too to strive with a Father of the Church with an ipse dixit who avers nothing but his own folly mixed with a Turbulent and Seditious spirit I had not read much further beyond these last words but I meet with a Trayterous expression of his in his venemous Answer to the Reverend Bishop which makes as clear as the Sun what a Factious Seditious spirit a Sacred Covenanter is composed of even such That if the Law makes once a strict enquiry will send his head to accompany his Brethren in Iniquity upon London Bridge and to that end observe the words of this factious Pulpiteer § 32. The Bishop having said That the Parliament he means the the two Houses can Act Vote Determine and Execute nothing under the Kings withdrawing from them into any part of his own Countrey Who may yet saith a Pag. 31. Crofton do all things in his infancy or while in a Forreign Countrey As if the place ☞ of his Retirement or reason of his Absence did add or abstract to the Authority of Parliament A right Rebellious Covenanter One ready for the work of Treason Perfectly opinionated of the Sovereign power of the two Houses over the King and ready prepared for a Second Rebellion upon the old false thredbare grounds of Loyalty and Religion He offers first as an argument against the Legislative power of his Sovereign for that feigned suppositious one of the two Houses That they may do all things in his infancy or whilest in a Forreign Countrey Either the man is very short sighted and simply versed in the Royal English Laws and yet before we finde him pretending to it or else he is a wilful Sophisticator If he is not knowing in our Laws Why is he so arrogant and presumptuous as to offer his shallow Arguments against the Bishops undeniable Assertion and to stand to contradict him in that wherein he hath no skill If he doth know the Laws he is the blindest of all Beetles by being wilfully blinde and speaking contrary to his knowledge I do not mean contrary to his desire or his Trayterous Seditious spirit for its a thing too well known and evident to be denied by any whose face is not perfect mettal and free from all the sparks of Modesty That in the infancy of a King there is a Protector appointed in the Princes Supream Legislative place of Calling Proroguing and Dissolving of Parliaments of setting the Stamp of the Regal Sanction upon the Writings and requests of the Two Houses for the making of them Laws for without the Royal consent no Law and Repealing of old Laws if it be thought convenient and this that I say is confirmed by that learned and Reverend Judge Jenkins who tells us That b Lex terrae p. 52. the Protector assisted by the Counsel of the King at Law his twelve Judges the Counsel of State his Attorney Sollicitor and two Serjeants at Law his twelve Masters of the Chancery hath in the Kings behalf and ever had a Negative voice And whilest the Prince is in a Forreign Countrey there are certain Noble men Commissioned under the great Seal of England to supply his place while he comes himself as the Histories of our Kings whilest in Forreign parts do attest as well as the practises of our present Prince whom God long preserve out of the juggling murdering Clutches of Presbyterian Judasses in relation to Scotland and Ireland by appointing a Lord Commissioner in the one and a Lord Lieutenant in the other to supply the place of Majesty in both Kingdoms So that his may yet do all things in his infancy or whilest in a Forreign Countrey without either Protector at the one time or Deputed Nobles at the other is nothing else but a meer fiction a delusive Cheat the effects of his Crazy brain endeavoured to be put into peoples belief and therefore I 'le trouble my self no further with it § 33. But behold the spirit of the man That neither the place of his Majesties Retirement nor reason of his Absence doth add or abstract to the Authority of Parliament Is the issue and fruits of his wilde seditious humor He without whom there can be neither Parliament nor Law is concluded by this hair-braind Presbyter to be but as a Cypher and that the two Houses are a compleat Parliament of themselves alone without his Sacred Majesty their Only Supream head and Founder By what Warrant were they at first called together Was it not by vertue of his Majesties Writ And was not the tenor of that Writ the Treating and Advising with the King And did they perform the ends for which they were summoned together when they raised Tumults against their Prince and forced him away from them and at last had the confidence to declare by their Votes of non-Addresses that they would neither Treat nor Advise with him If not then t is clear they sate to no purpose in the world but ingraved the name of Rebels upon their foreheads and made themselves to be no Parliament by destroying the ends for which they were called together But because Crofton is so arrogant in denying the Kings Presence or Absence to be of any force or validity in adding or diminishing the Authority of a Parliament I shall make bold to present him with this one Example Queen Elizabeth summoned 3. Eliz. Dyer 203. her first Parliament to be held the