NOthing can be the matter of a Vow or Covenant which is evidently unlawful, but it is evidently unlaw­ful for a Subject or Subjects, to attempt to alter the Laws established by force, without the concurrence, and against the Commands of the Supream Legisla­tor, for the Introduction of a foreign Discipline, said the See his Fair war­ning to take heed of the Scottish di­scipline, pag. 30. now most Learned and Reverend Primate of Armagh. Upon conside­ration whereof, and finding that Jugling Oath, Entituled, A Solemn League and Covenant, to be the subject matter of Debate between the Reverend Episcopalians and the Presbyterians at this day, I resol­ved with my self (how unlearned soever) to make a serious Enquiry into the nature of that Covenant, and set down my Animadversions on it. And upon such Enquiry, I found it not at all to portend any good to this Nation; and by an impartial Search into the genuine fruits, and bloody villanous effects thereof (which as Springs from that venemous Fountain, have run forth over the Nation,) I finde that it deserved rather to have been buried like Corah and his Com­plices, in everlasting oblivion and forgetfulness (except it were for a detestation and perfect abhorrency of it) then to be revived again as an Achan amongst us, to involve and keep us still in blood and con­fusion: I speak not this out of passion or partiality, but out of a se­rious consideration of the evil matter contained in it, part of the ve­ry Preface whereof sounds very strangely in mine ears, where they tell us, That according to the commendable practice of these Kingdoms in former times, and Gods people in other Nations, they have resolved to enter into a Solemn League and Covenant, &c.

I have read a Saying somewhere, That its ominous to stumble at the threshold, and that these Absolonians should stumble so grosly against the Truth at the very entrance of their League, argues their being filled more with Puritanism, then Purity; more with frantick zeal, then that according to knowledge; for had they had any regard to truth, the world had never then been made acquainted with such a ground­less Fiction; for let them make appear by true Evidences and Hi­stories (if they are able, and if not, let them renounce their bold As­sertion) that ever such a League (as this of theirs) was ever framed, devised, and put in execution within this Nation, for the extirpation [Page 2] of all Arch-Bishops, Bishops, and the rest of that glorious Hierar­chy, whose Liberties and Priviledges are established by the great Charter, and other good Laws of this Land) and that ever there were such a Combination against their Prince for no other end, but to defend him. If this were the Practice of former times, What meant the Olivarian Covenanting-Metropolitan Nye, when he point blanck affirmed, That it was Covenant with Nar­rative, p. 12. such an Oath, as for Matter, Persons, and other Circumstances, the like hath not been in any Age or Oath we read of in Sacred or Humane Stories? Now can any one that hath read any thing of the English Chronicles, be so mad and frantick as to think that to be the Practice of former Ages, which was never visible, never done by any within this Kingdom: nay, and which one of the profound Swearers themselves affirms cannot be paral­lel'd, That the like hath not been in any Age? Either the one or the other, must lie with a witness. If what the Preface saith, be true, then Nye is notoriously deceived; then farewel truth it self, and all the noble Assertors of it: if what Nye affirms be true, (as undoubt­edly it is, and cannot be denyed) then that part of the Preface (which sets such a fraud and deceit to catch the eyes and hearts of some credulous poor mortals) must absolutely appear to be a dam­nable falshood, and the proper effects of a Serpentine infatuation, and their Covenant-building it self, to be like that of the fools, spoken of by our Saviour in the 7. of Saint Matth. and the latter end. Nay, that's not all neither; for they call it a commendable practice: what, and never done, nor performed by any in this kingdom? Surely, if I should go and do a thing (which was never before visible, or a­cted by any) and say, It is according to the commendable practice of o­thers, I might well be esteemed void of any sense or reason; in a meer distracted condition: fitter for an inhabitant of Bedlam, then any sober place amongst those who were able to distinguish betwixt Sobriety, and Frenzy: betwixt an Orthodox Christian, and a Gui­sian Leaguer. But suppose there had been such practises hereto­fore, in 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 [Page 3] 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, 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: Its 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 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 [Page 4] 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 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 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 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 whats 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 [Page 5] 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 cavilling, & declaring of their own folly) That See his fair warn­ing, p. 2. this discipline (which the Croftonians so much adore) is the very quint­essence of refined Popery, or a greater tyranny then ever Rome brought forth, inconsistent with all forms of civil Government, destructive to all sorts of Po­licy, a rack to the conscience, the heaviest pressure that can fall upon a people, and so much more dangerous, because by the specious pretence of Divine insti­tution, it takes away the sight, but not the burthen of slavery. Reader, per­use that small book, and i'le undertake it shal give thee full satisfacti­on what this Cockatrice egge, the Scottish discipline is, and what a pre­cious jewel it is to be preserved. But how will they preserve this Pan­dora's box? why, according to the word of God, & the example of the best re­formed Churches: that's brave indeed! to swear to preserve that accord­ing to the word of God, which knows nothing of it (as it is singular by it self)? Suppose I should swear to preserve a thief in his pilfering cour­ses, according to the word of God, would that make the thieves actions good, because it is expressed according to the word of God? or would it not rather aggravate and heighten the bloody nature of my sins, to swear with such a strange self-contradiction? Just as if I should say, I would do a thing according to the will and desire of another, who hath openly made his protestation against it: I am sure the thieves actions cannot be more opposite to the Sacred Canon of Scripture, then some part of the Scottish Discipline is, (which the Reverend Primate hath well informed us of, to which I refer the doubtful for satisfaction) and therefore notwithstanding that expression, the Oath for preservation of such an Anti-Monarchical Disci­pline, cannot but be very wicked, and therefore unlawful to be sworn or kept. And as for the best Reformed Churches, the Church of England, by all impartial, unbyassed, sober Prote­stants, was wont to be accounted the best Reformed Church in the world; and, See the fair warn­ing, p. 2. before these unhappy troubles in England all [Page 6] Protestants, both Lutherans and Calvinists, did give unto the English Church the right hand of fellowship: which made the most Reverend Doctor Hammond (of renowned memory) to affirm, That See his View of the new Dire­ctory, and vindicati­on of the ancient Li­turgy, P. 7. the Church of England, as it stands established by law, is avowable against all the Ca­lumniators in the world, to be the best, and most exemplary Reformed: so far (saith he) that if I did not guess of the sense of the Covenant, more by the temper, then words of the Covenanters, I should think all men that have Covenanted to Reform, after the example of the best Reformed Churches, in­dispensably obliged to conform to the King-Edward, or Queen-Elizabeth-English Reformation, the most regular, perfect pattern that Europe yield­eth. Thus that indefatigable Defender, and Propagator of Catho­lick truths, against the novel inchroachments of the then Juliani­zing times, whose memory will be precious, and his name smell as sweet odour in the nostrils of all true hearted Christian Protestants, when the name of an Assembler will hardly be thought on, without immediate branding him for Treason and disloyalty. And so now, having briefly dispatched the first, I shall proceed on to the second, and there they speak out what their Covenant for Reformation is; for they tell us there too, in their Rebellious language,

§. 4. That they shall in like maner, without respect of persons, endea­vour the extirpation of Popery, Prelacy, (that is, Church-Government by Arch-Bishops, Bishops, their Chancellors, Commissaries, Deans, Deans and Chapters, Arch-Deacons, and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depend­ing on that Hyerarchy) Superstition, Heresie, Schism, Profaneness, and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound Doctrine, and the power of godliness, lest we partake in other mens sins, and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues. In good time! Excellent Deformers! They that were the grand Promoters, and carriers on at first of the Regular English-Reformation (though indeed, not by Sedition and Rebellion against their Soveraign, nor by making use of cursing-Me­rozian Texts, to stir up the people to assist them in such filthy cour­ses, but by obedience and subjection to the unjust punishment of Ma­jesty, and freely offering their bodies to the fire) must now be ex­tirpated by our Deformers of Truth and Christianity, under a sly pretence of a detestable Reformation. A good requital to them for their incomparable defences of the true Protestant Religion against the Jesuits, and others of the Babylonian Romish rout, to be now cast out, as unprofitable branches, by a pack of holy Leaguers, not worthy to be named with them: but what said our own late most noble Sovereign? See Ei­kon Basili­ke upon the Covenant. Many Engines of religious and fair pretensions are brought, chiefly to batter or rase Episcopacy: This (saith he) they make [Page 7] the grand evil Spirit, which (with some other imps, purposely added to make it more odious and terrible to the vulgar) must by so solemn a charm and exorcism, be cast out of this Church, after more then a thousand years possession from the first plantation of Christianity in this Island, and an u­niversal prescription of time and practice in all other Churches, since the A­postles times, till this last Century. But no antiquity must plead for it: Presbytery, like a young heir, thinks the father hath lived long enough, and impatient, not to be in the Bishops chair and authority, all art is used to sink Episcopacy, and lanch Presbytery in England, which was lately boyed up in Scotland by the like artifice of a Covenant. And therefore for that Apostolical-Primitive Universal Church-Government of Epi­scopacy (so Universal, That See Ei­kon Basili­ke, in 24. P. 103. (as the Martyr saith) since the first Age, for one thousand five hundred years, not one example can be produced of any setled Church, wherein were many Ministers and Congregations, which had not some Bishop above them, under whose Jurisdiction and Go­vernment they were: and so, by consequence unavoidable, the dam­nable infamous nature of the Covenant for extirpation thereof. There hath been so much said by our Reverend Episcoplains, and by our late Josiah, of most blessed and glorious memory, that I shall forbear to say any thing more of it, but refer them that desire satisfa­ction, to their respective writings; (and I wonder when the Pres­byterian will answer them: I do not mean by cavillings, and rail­ings (for there have been too much of that already) but by true, good, solid, sound arguments and reasons; such as may carry truth in their fore-head, which people shall easily perceive, when they can once have the happiness to see the Swans turn black.

§. 5. But is this all that these Leaguers swear to extirpate in this Article? No, they joyn with the former (just as if a man should joyn a Scottish Presbytery with a Monarchy, which (in the wise experi­enced judgement of King James See the Conference at Hampt. Court. p. 81. as well agreeth as God and the de­vil) Superstition, Heresie, Schism, Profaneness, and whatsoever shall be found contrary to sound Doctrine, and the power of godliness. A good hearing! I like this part of the Article extreamly well; and the better, for that hereby they must endeavour to extirpate, as much as possibly they can, (under the danger of perjury) their very Extir­pation. Down Covenant, down: What dost thou hold up thy head for? Thy Fathers that begot thee, have knock'd thy brains out, and have sworn to do it by their Sacred Covenant (as they call it) in swearing to extirpate Heresie, Schism, and Profaneness: this I will make appear by their own confession (and let them deny it if they are able) which they unanimously set forth to the view of all [Page 8] the world, no less then 52 of the party, See the Testimony to the truth of J. C. sub­scribed by the Mini­sters with­in the Pro­vince of London, p. 30. p. 29. p. 30 p. 26. That in stead of true Piety and power of Godliness, they had opened the very flood-gates to all Impiety and Profaneness, and after they had removed the Prelatical yoke [mark] from their shoulders, by their covenanted endeavors (i. i. by vertue of their League) Well! what then? What followed their extirpating Oath against the Prelacy? They tell us, There was a rueful, deplorable, and deformed face of the Affairs of Religion—swarming with noisom Errors, Heresies, and Blasphemies in stead of Faith and Truth; torn in pieces with destructive Schisms, Separations, Divisions and Sub-divisions, in stead of Ʋnity and Ʋniformity. page 31. That in stead of a Reformation, they might say with sighs, what their enemies said in scorn, they had a Deformation in Re­ligion; and in stead of extirpation of Heresie, Schism, Prosaneness, &c. they had an impudent and general inundation of all those Evils. A fair Con­fession, and an ingenuous self-condemnation! Observe Reader, what these Changers of our times, and deforming Leagueing-Reformers have publickly confessed, to the shame and disgrace both of them­selves and their graceless Covenant. Here they tell us, that they have opened the very flood-gates to all Impiety and Profaneness, (by vertue of that very Covenant whereby they were sworn to ex­tirpate it) and that after they had removed the Bishops, Religion swarmed with noisom Errors, Heresies and Blasphemies, torn in pie­ces with Schisms and Divisions: Very good; Was not this very Co­venant (by force whereof these mad exploits have been done, and the terrible effects thereof are so sadly complained of) taken and sworn without, yea against the consent and express Command of the onely Supream Governor, (and so by consequence absolute rebellion) to whom these Swearers before by a legal established Oath, had so­lemnly swore to bear true faith and allegiance? Is not then that League which was the Instrument and Means for the producing of these horrible Impieties and sad Effects, both in the form and mat­ter of it, extreamly unlawful, naught and wicked, and therefore not to be kept, but damned eternally? Our blessed Savior saith, Matth. 7. 18. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit: And can this Covenant (whereby the Swearers thereof have acknowledged (for that was it they were speaking of when they con­fessed) they have opened the very flood-gates to all impiety and profaneness) be a good tree that hath brought forth such venemous deadly fruit? or not rather a very corrupt tree that cannot bring forth that which is good? Certainly that League must be a League and Covenant with hell and death, that shall produce such hellish fruits and effects, as by the printed Confession of the Swearers themselves [Page 9] was too evident and palpable (it seems) to be with any truth denied. What remains then, but that it should have the deserved fate of a corrupt tree, even to be ver. 19. hewn down and cast into the fire by the hands of the common Hang-man? The blessed Apostle S^t Paul told his Romans, that he would have them to Rom. 16. 17, 18. mark them which caused divi­sions contrary to the doctrine they had learned, and avoid them; for they that are such (saith he) serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly, and by good words and fair speeches (like our unsacred Leaguers with their According to the word of God, and the example of the best Reformed Chur­ches) deceive the hearts of the simple, who are not able to see into the depth of their delusive Cheats. And in another place asked his Co­rinthians, that 1 Cor. 3. 3, 4. whereas there was among them divisions, (and what they were, he tells us other where 1 Cor. 1. 12, 13. were they not carnal, and walked as men? And therefore again I Quaere, Can this League (from whence such destructive Separations, Schisms, Divisions, and Sub-divisions have naturally flown) be any other then extreamly abominable and wicked, when the very causers of such divisions, by what wayes or means soever, are branded by the Apostle with this black mark of not being spiritual, but carnal; of serving not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly? Qui vult decipi, decipiatur; He that will be deceived, let him. But its impossible to catch any other with their destructive schismatical courses, then those who are either ignorant, or wilfully shut their eyes that they might not be enabled to see the mischiefs and villanies of their solemn League and Covenant; which being so extreamly sinful both in the form and matter of it, and by filling Re­ligion with noisom errors, heresies, and blasphemies, in stead of faith and truth, and causing an impudent and general inundation of all those evils, to be vehemently, contrary to sound doctrine on the one hand, and by o­pening the flood-gates to all impiety and profaneness, to be notoriously opposite to the power of godliness on the other hand, (for there were none of these things heard, or to be complained of in the Bishops time, till Isaiah. 14. 29. out of the serpents root this Cockatrice (the Covenant) came forth, whose fruits have proved no better to us then a fiery flying ser­pent.) I do here warn and conjure them in the presence of God, An­gels, and men, and as they will answer it before the Judgement-seat of Christ, not onely to renounce, but (as much as in them lie) to en­deavor to extirpate such an impious, profane, and faithless Covenant for extirpation of the Prelacy (the noble Hedge against all those Schisms, Separations, Divisions and Sub-divisions, so much complained of by them) according to the reality of the last Clause of this their second Article which they swore. Return, return (O sacred Cove­nanter) [Page 10] return, return into those ways of truth, plainness and loyalty toward God and your King, which by your peerless Covenant you have so deeply apostatized from, into the ungodly ways of falshood and 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 [Page 11] 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, 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 [...] 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 [Page 12] contrary to that which they account the true? Nay, did not the Sectarian party (who took this Covenant which 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 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 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 [Page 13] 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 See A Vindicati­on of King Charls, by noble Mr. Symmons. p. 40. when they are in Cathedris, in their seats as Parliament­men, 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 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, 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 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 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 [Page 14] 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, 1 Pet. 2. 13. To submit our selves to the King as Su­pream, and that for the Lords sake? and did they not swear his Supre­macy? yea, that he was the onely Supream Governor (thereby im­plicitely denying upon Oath any Co-ordinates with him in the exer­cise of the Supremacy)? and therefore can perjury and disobedi­ence to the Laws of our Creator be affirmed by any one (not posses­sed with a deep frenzy) to concern the glory of God? Its true in­deed, [Page 15] when the Jews crucified our Savior, it was out of a pretended tenderness to the glory of God, and when our English-Jewish Ty­gres had murthered their lawful Sovereign, it was meerly (as they pretended) for the advancement of Christs kingdom; but that such actions as either of those, concerned either the glory of God, or the advancement of his Sons kingdom, is onely a demonstration of the Assertors strong delusions; for it plainly intimates unto us, See the Right Re­bel, p. 121. That there is a special work of Satan in it, when such a strong delusion is sent unto men, that they should believe such an Antichristian Lie, tendred unto them under the colour of a Christian truth, as the Doctrine of Rebellion is. But this is just like the Second, of the good of the kingdoms: and therefore to that I again thus Quaere, Was there not a War begun by a pack of true Delinquents got into the House of Commons, (and that they were such, I appeal to the judgement of the Law?) Did not that war (as all wars do) tend to impoverish and oppress the Kingdom? Was not this League sworn to carry it on, and not to leave off (whether to make defection to the contrary part, or to give themselves to a detestable in­differency, or neutrality in this cause of rebellion) till they had fulfilled their mischeivous traiterous ends? Can then that Covenant which binds people (as this certainly did and doth) to continue the im­broyling of a Nation or Kingdom in blood, confusion, perjury and Rebellion, concern so much the good of it? Can that which stirs up people to pursue the impoverishing, taxing, and inslaving of a king­dome, (for whither did the Rebelling and rising up in Arms, and swearing men to continue therein tend, but to that?) be affirmed by any except Frantick bedlamers to concern the good and benefit of it? And lastly for the honor of the King, (for he and his honor are put at the fag end of all in this perfidious League) I further again Quaere, Is it for the honor of the King to have his subjects rebel against him? Is it for the happiness of the King and his Posterity, to have all his Assistants and Adherents destroyed, as much as their fellow-subjects can, under the black false notion of Evil Councellors and Malignants? Did not the Covenant binde the takers to such things as those? Let them deny it with truth if they can. Can that Covenant which binds men to disloyalty and treason, (though hypocritically and lyingly pretending loyalty which doth not better the evil, nor antidote the venome in it; The devil though he appeares as an angel of light sometimes, to ensnare men the more easily in his delusions, yet he is but a black devil still for all that; and therefore I may justly and truly make my Question thus, Can that Covenant which binds men to disloyalty and treason) and to break the Laws of this Land, be any [Page 16] thing less then Antichristian? And is it not therefore damnable and abominable, and to be abhorred of every one that desires to observe the dictates of Gods good Spirit, in the sacred Canon of Scripture? Undoubtedly every one that understands the true ways of advan­cing the glory of God, the honor of the King, and the good of the kingdoms, will hold himself obliged and bound to desie this Covenant, as the very sink of Jesuitism, and high-way to hell it self; and he that hath ever read, and considered well the Sacred Canon, and the undeni­able truth of what our Carolian Martyr bid the Scotch Parliament always See Reli­quiae Sacrae Carolinae, the last printed Letter. ☞ remember, That as the best foundation of Loyalty is Christianity, so tr [...]e Christianity teaches perfect Loyalty; for without this Reciprocation, neither is truly what they pretend to be, will finde cause enough to re­fuse the taking of, and if taken, to renounce and abjure such a sedi­tious Vow and Covenant, which ties men to continue Rebels all the days of their lives; for he that shall swear to extirpate a sort of men (whose Function is establish'd by the great Charter of our Liberties) in absolute breach of the Law, and against the Command of his Prince, and endeavour to bring to pass his extirpation by force of Arms, (which is high Treason) and swear that he will all the days of his life, zealously and constantly continue therein against all opposition, That man by any reasonable person will be concluded a sworn Rebel, and to continue by vertue of his Oath (without a just renunciation) a Trai­tor to his King, as long as breath remains in his body to enable him to carry on the intentions and purposes of it. And yet this is the League that such a stir and clutter is kept about some mens Christi­an and loyal breaking of it: and though some of its unlucky Patrons are pleased to alledge for its goodness, that part of the Clause of the first Article, wherein it is said, according to the word of God, and the examples of the best Reformed Churches, yet I affirm, That that doth no more prove what they intend, by bringing of that Allegation, then the 2 Cor. 11. 14. devils being transformed into an angel of light, doth prove that he was in reality that into which he was transformed, then the Matth. 7. 15. false prophets coming to us in sheeps clothing, doth prove that they are not inwardly ravening wolves; then the Pharisees Matth. 23. 21. appearing outward­ly righteous unto men, is a convincing Argument to prove that within they were not full of hypocrisie and iniquity.

§. 11. But lastly, they tell us, That they profess and declare before God and the world, their unfeigned desire to be humbled for their own sins, and for the sins of these Kingdoms, especially that they have not as they ought valued the inestimable benefits of the Gospel, that they have not la­boured for the purity and power thereof, and that they have not endeavored [Page 17] to receive Christ in their hearts, nor to walk worthy of him in their Lives. No, it's very true, for if they had, we should never have seen an un­gospel-like, unchristian Rebellion raised and sworn to be upholden against our gracious King, painted over with a plausible pretence against some pretended evil Councellors, nor an Anti-legal jugling self-contradictory League sworn for the Dathanian extirpation of the great upholders of Monarchy and it's just Rights, Priviledges, Preeminencies, and Authorities, against the several Incroachments of Papists and Presbyters, of Jesuites and Sectaries. They complain there indeed that they have not endeavored to receive Christ in their hearts, and are they fit to be Reformers of Religion, and setters up of the ways and worship of our blessed Lord, when they have not so much as endeavored to receive him in their hearts? Doth the devil begin to make a Reformation of Christian Religion? Do Atheists go about to set up Christianity? What may we then expect the fruits of it to be, but a dismal cloud of darkness and confusion, which indeed doth suit well with these extirpating Leaguers Reformation they have made amongst us, See A Vindicati­on of king Charles. p. 88. such a one as Nebuzaradan steward to Nebuchadnezar made at Jerusalem, when he threw down the walls both of the City and Temple; They make it matter of humiliation it's true, that they have not walked worthy of him in their lives; and is this Baal-berith the way to do it? What shall we think of that man that shall out-face the Sun with his Treason, and seemingly repent for his wicked courses, and yet at the same instant swear to carry on his rebellion still? A serious man will give judgement, that such a one hath nothing to do with God or Christianity, but is wholly possessed by an evil spirit, which haunts him to his everlasting destruction; And yet this is directly the case of our English Baalims of the Cove­nant; they first raise a war (which the Law of the Land calls Rebellion) against the Kings evil Councellors, to remove them from him, which is absolute high Treason, & then pretend to humble themselves that they have not endeavored to receive Christ in their hearts, nor walked worthy of him in their lives, and yet in the very act of this feigned humiliation swear too that they wil zealously continue in such their filthy courses all the days of their lives; was there ever such grand hypocrites, and mockers of God since the world began, among those that pretended a fear of his name, as these Leaguers are? The Scribes and Pharisees were but pigmies to them in this matter; First pretend a sorrow for their sins, and yet in the very act of their temporary repentance bind themselves by an oath, to proceed in them as long as ever they can; Go about to perswade some credulous heady mortals, that [Page 18] they are very sorry they have not walked worthy of Christ in their lives, and at the same time with their right hands lift up to the most high God, swear to break his Laws and Precepts, even to Re­bel against their King, to whom he hath commanded all men to yeild a due subjection and obedience, and if that be the way to walk worthy of him, Libera me Domine, the Lord deliver me from any walk­ing with them; If the way to walk worthy of Christ, be to turn Re­bels and Traitors to the Prince we live under, and out of pure love to God, profane his Sanctuaries, break his Laws, and run di­rectly counter to his sacred Precepts, I know none that walked more worthy of God and of his Christ, then the blind Jews on the one hand that ignorantly crucified our blessed Lord for a Blasphemer, and the hellish wilful Regicides on the other hand that knowingly murthered his Anointed for a Tyrant; For my part, I am in such disorder of spirit whilest I am thinking upon their deceipts and jug­lings, that I shall hasten (as much as confutation of rebellion will permit) to ease my self of their puddle of contradictions, and for that end and purpose I shall proceed to the next that follows, where I finde them to let fall these goodly expressions; And are true and unfeigned (how shall any man beleeve the truth of it?) purpose (say they) in publique and private, in all duties we owe to God and man, is to amend our lives, and each one to go before another in the example of a Real Reformation.

§. 12. Here's a fair Protestation we see; Plausible language again (as the former) to delude the hearts and minds of those that take up all things upon trust without any examination, but every whit as much jugling in it, as was in that which went before; which will easily appear by a few more Queries which I thus set down; Was it not a duty they owed to God to observe his commands? And did not he command by the mouth of St. Paul, That Rom. 13. 1. every Soul should be subject to the higher powers, (which the oath of Supremacy and what another Apostle hath 1 Pet. 2. 23. said, doth plainly evident to be the Kings most excellent Majesty) and that too under pain of eternal Damnation? And was that a Real Reformation in the duty they owed to God to walk in opposition to his Injunctions? Again, for their duty towards man, Let them remember the Case of the Earl of Essex, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, who (in comparison of Edge-hill Battel) gathered together but a handful of men, nor was that Queen fought with, (as our late renowned Sovereign was) nor her person in danger (as the Martyrs was) The Earl upon his Ar­raignment protested his intentions were onely to remove from the [Page 19] Queen some evil Councellors about her, yet notwithstanding he raising force to do this without the Queens warrant, his plea was not available, but his action was judged Treason, and he and his Adhe­rents executed as Traytors for it; Now mind, Was our Leaguers fighting against the King (for their declaring to fight for King and Parliament, at the very same time when they sent Armed men a­gainst those where he was in person, serves onely for a record and to eternize the memory of their damnable jugling and hipocrisie, but I say, Was their fighting against the King) a real Reformation of their duty towards man? Was their walking in the direct steps of the Trayterous Essex (who left an ungrateful son behind him, to fol­low the same curses with himself) which was judged high Treason, the going before one another in the example of a Real Reforma­tion? Was their actual See judge Jenkins's Lex Terra p. 12. incountring such as came to ayd the King in his wars (which is Treason too) a Reformation of their duty to­wards man? Was swearing to commit Treason a Real Reforma­tion? Observe Reader, They confess themselves faulty in duty to­wards God and man (for what do they talk else of a Reformation?) and then lest it should be thought to be feigned, their purpose is, they say (but we have but their bare word for it) to make a Real Refor­mation, and what (trow we) is this Real Reformation of their de­fault, but swearing together to break the Laws both of the Sacred Canon, and this land, in the wilful actual proceeding on to the com­mission of Treason and Rebellion? Thus their Reformation of their lives is so like that of Religion, that it must needs proceed from one and the same treacherous mouth and jugling lips, that are altoge­ther used in this League for the advancing of falshood and depres­sing 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 self­contradictory 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 [Page 20] 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 (Its 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 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 [Page 21] 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 [Page 22] 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 See his Pious vota­ry, p. 47, 48 a Rebel (saith the learned Hardy) who goeth forth to fight against 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 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 [Page 23] together in a HOLY LEAGUE to extirpate it, and all Professors of it out of the world; And 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 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 [Page 24] 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; See their Reasons. p. 15, 16. To pray (say those reverend persons) to the purpose in the conclusion of the Covenant, seemeth to us all one in effect, as to be­seech Almighty God, the God of love and peace, 1. To take all love and peace out of the hearts of Christians, and to set the whole Christian world in a combustion. 2. To render the Reformed Religion, and all Protestants odious to all the world. Mark the third, To provoke the Princes of Eu­rope ☞ to use more severity towards those of the Reformed Religion; if not (for their own security) to root them quite out of their several Dominions. 4. The tyranny and yoke of Antichrist (if laid upon the subjects necks by their lawful Sovereigns) is to be thrown off by Christian boldness, in confes­sing the truth, and patient suffering for it, not by taking up arms, or vio­lent resistance of the higher Powers; and yet forsooth this is that sacred Covenant that must be so strictly kept, to set the whole Christian world in a combustion. This is that League which must be so zea­lously continued in, to render the true Protestant Religion and pro­fessors thereof, odious and detestable to all the world, yes and for the enlargement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ too they tell us.

I remember a very good observation of one upon this very ac­count, See the Right Re­bel. p. 145. That as none of the Disciples denyed, cursed, and forswore his Master, but Peter onely, who alone without his leave, drew a sword in [Page 25] his defence, so neither is it said of the rest, that they forsook him and sted, till after that Peter had rashly attempted to defend him by force; as if the Holy Ghost would have Christians observe, That fighting for Christ with­out warrant from him, is the next fore-runner of forsaking him: That Pag, 139 if there be any one thing above others, which The Antichrist may properly challenge, as peculiar to himself, it is the professed practise of Rebellion, of purpose to promote pretended Religion: for nothing can be more directly opposite, both unto the Doctrine and Practise of Christ himself, and his A­postles, of Orthodox Christians in the times of the Primitive Church, and of all genuine Protestants since the Reformation, and yet that was the ab­solute tenour of the Covenant, to resist King Charles, to fight with a pretence for the advancement of King Jesus, which how contra­ry to his Will, Practise, and Command, may very well be gathered out of what hath been already set down, as well as what Croftons profound Lawyer, Mr. Prynne himself, hath said upon that subject, in his True and perfect Narrative, Pag. 68, 74, 75, 76. In which last page he sets down one of the express affirmations of the Jesuits, (plainly declaring the great union between them and our English Leaguers, in that unchristian Practise) That their Gospel and Religion is to be propagated, set up; the Heroticks, and Evangelical Sectaries, who resist them, Refuted, (how?) Extirpated, Abolished with Fire, Sword, and War (like holy Leaguers) and therefore upon all that hath been said in my Animadversions upon the several Articles of the Sacred Covenant (so called) I hope there is no man of any ingenuity, or understanding, but will conclude with me, the damnable sinfulness thereof, both in the Form, and matter of it; and so, according to the Leaguers own Assertions, in the number of those unlawful Oathes, which must at no hand be kept by any takers of them.

§. 14. Having thus dispatcht my Animadversions on this illegal League, I shall now proceed to set down their own words, to prove the unlawfulness, and sin of keeping of their so much idolized Diana, and so the necessity of repentance from all its takers; Their words are these in their exhortation to take the Covenant; That if there should any oath be found, into which any Ministers or others have entred not warranted by the Laws of God, and the land, in this case they must teach themselves and others, that such oathes call for repentance, not pertinacy in them; which words being suitable to what the Reverend Dr. Hardy said I shall here adjoyn his words, That See his Pious Vo­tary, p. 16. those Covenants which ingages men instead of keeping the Laws of God, injuriously to violate both the Laws of God, and perfidiously to break their own former oaths, are no better then Leagues with hell, and Covenants with the Devil; Now mark, will the [Page 26] Law of God warrant any persons whatsoever in the swearing a Re­formation against their Kings consent? will that Law, which com­mands me to yeild obedience to the King as Supream, warrant me in my disobedience and rebellion against him for to carry on my work of reformation? Can that Law which enjoyns me to be sub­ject to Principalities and Powers, warrant my throwing that sub­jection off because I have the face to affirm, and pretend it is for the fulfilling of it? That this is the tenour of this impious Covenant, we need no other witness then it self, which plainly testifyeth to all the world, that the swearers thereof took up arms meerly to alter Re­ligion, And that disobedience to God in the rebellion against the King, was the very matter and subject of the Covenant, is exceed­ing plain to any who consider the famous assertion of the now most learned Primate of Armagh (one of whose words weighs more in the judgement of any understanding person, then ten thousand of of such bablings as our wily factious Presbiters keep such a chatting in the Nation with) See his fair war­ning. p. 30. Subjects (saith that most accomplished Spea­ker) vow to God and swear one to another to change the Laws of the Realm, to abolish the discipline of the Church and the Liturgy lawfully established, by the sword (which was never committed to their hands by God or man) without the King, against the King, which no man can deny in ear­nest to be plain Rebellion. So that unless they can make the Law of God to warrant that which it no where commands, but severely con­demns, Their League and Covenant according to the exhorters own affirmation, calls for repentance, and not continuance in the keeping of that, which the several takers had either the confidence at first rebelliously to swear or through the horrible seductions or threats, and menaces of the Delinquent Imposers, took it (not consi­dering the venom in it) without, and against the Carolian Martyrs consent in perfect defiance of his legal sworn onely supream authori­ty; And as for its being warranted by the Laws of the Land, hear in the first place what the reverend Judge Jenkins saith in general; It is an oath (saith See his Lex Terrae p. 158. that famous Lawyer) against the Laws of the Land, against the Petition of Right, and he gives us a reason for it presently after thus, No man (saith he) by the Law can give an oath in a new case without an act of Parliament, and therefore (saith he again) the 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 [Page 27] 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 its esteemed high Treason? 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 25^th 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 42^th 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 [Page 28] 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 D^r. 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? 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 [Page 29] 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 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) 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 [Page 30] 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 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) 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 [Page 31] 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 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 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 [Page 32] 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 See the Ima [...]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, its 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 [Page 33] 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 [Page 34] 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 hath once read, and reading, well considered the Primates Fair Warning, to beware, and take heed of this Scottish Cockatrice, he will find cause enough to perceive a vast contradiction between the Protestation and this: Yea, and as different a sound between them both, as there is betwixt two bells in a steeple, and so by good consequence see too the horrible impiety of their solemn League and Covenant; The Protesters vow too according to the duty of their Allegiance to maintain and defend His Majesties Royal Person, Ho­nor, and Estate, without any cursed destructive Limmittation of that defence; All which are diminished decreased and taken away by Sir Johns Holy League, which therefore can admit of no accord between them; The late Carolian Martyr in his discourse upon the covenant professes he could not See Ei­kon Basi­like. See how they wil reconcile such an in­novating (observe that, O Leaguer!) oath and Covenant with that former Protestation, which was so lately taken to maintain the Religion established in the Church of England, since they count discipline so great a part of Re­ligion, But if all that hath been said, cannot (which in my weak judge­ment hath sufficiently) prove the opposition of the one to the other, That there is a great deal of difference between them, may be easi­ly perceiv'd by his Majesties deep silence, when the Protestation was taken under his nose, (as we use to say) when they were hard by him at Whitehal, as well as by his Publick Printed proclamation as far as Oxford, against the taking of that Seditious and Traiterous Vow and Covenant (as he called it) in the day he heard thereof, and his pro­hibition of all people upon their Allegiance, not to swear it, as inga­ging the takers in Acts of high Treason; yea, and by the late order of the Lords and Commons for the Hangmans burning of it, when they did not so much as mention the Protestation, which if it had a­greed with the Covenant, sure enough those Loyal Houses would never have suffered it to have lain still, but had sent them both one way together; Upon consideration of all that hath now bin said by way of evidence, to prove the great contradiction between the two Legal Sacred Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, the Protesta­tion and this jugling League and Covenant; for my own part I can­not [Page 35] but submit to the Primates truth, See his Fair War­ning. p. 31. That this Covenant is neither valid, nor lawful, nor consistent with our former oaths, but deceitful, inva­lid, impious, rebellious, and contradictory to our former ingagements, and consequently obligeth no man to performance, but all men to repentance; And therefore the difference being so great between them, I appeal to any Casuist living, whether the former must not be kept, as well as the latter rejected; the one stood to, and maintained for fear of its true consequence, Perjury, as well as the other to be renounced, and disclaimed for the very same cause by those that took any of the three former; and so (according to the exhorting Leaguers own words) it calls for repentance and not pertinacy in it; which makes also palpable and manifest, the great necessity and justness, of that me­morable Vote of the two now most Honorable Houses, when out of a noble disdain to all Religious Rebellion, and Seditious Leaguing principles, as well as out of a true fear of God and the King, they ordered this Presbyterian Scotland whore to be burnt by the hands of Smectymnus the common hangman.

§. 18. Having now gone through this peerless Covenant, and proved (as far as my poor understanding enables me to see,) the great sinfulness thereof, both in the form and matter of it; and also its jugling contradictions in it self, as well as its absolute opposition to former Legal Oaths, (and so by consequence, undeniable, the great necessity of every takers sad and serious repentance, renuntia­tion, and abhorrence thereof.) I shall desist from saying any more now of it, but shall from hence proceed to the consideration and examination of a certain seditious Paper-book (entituled BERITH ANTI-BAAL) set forth by one ZECHARY CROFTON, (a Presbyter of the Right stamp) whose contradictions, and shallow Arguings therein against the reverend Lord Bishop of Exeter, made it so much the fitter task for me to set down my Animadversions on it; I know indeed the man is looked upon as the Diana of the party a­mongst the Brethren, and the ablest to deal with such unlearned Ceremonialists, as the short-sighted proselites Judge the Profound Episcopalians (how learned soever they be.) But certainly they are either deceived in their Judgements of his parts, or else the man was so hampered with what the Bishop replyed to him, that (as he affirmes of the Bishop) in this Rejoynder of his See the fifth side of his pre­face. Having loosed from the Haven of Reason, true Religion, and the fear of God, he runs a drift wherever the wind of his own words can hurry him, and leades his Reader into a Wilderness, where he hears no sound but the shrieks of Satyrs, bark­ing and howling of beasts, at best; raging and rayling of men, or wild and [Page 36] improper discourses that tend to no certain end; For in my judgement, (which is none of the wisest I am sure, but nevertheless what I write, I commend to the censure of the impartially Judicious) this book of his (for a great part thereof) contains nothing but sedition and justification of rebellion, to the debasing of the Regal Supremacy, & power of making Laws, or of giving his consent thereunto (for Crof;­ton tell us the two Houses may exercise their Legislative power without the Royal consent) and sneaking away from the question in hand, like a meer shifter, and acting in some places the part of a pitiful Caviller. And by that time I have set down what I have to say of it, I leave it to every Readers judgement to make answer whether it be not so in his; And to that end and purpose I shall set down what in my short cursory perusal of the Book, I found worth tak­ing notice of to be answered; He (good man!) in a fit of piety cries out, The Lord deliver me from rendring railing for railng, And yet (to Page 8. give the world a specimen of his breeding, and manners, and good words) in the second side of his Preface, he saith, he fears nothing more then to be bound to his good behavior, for misbehaving himself so much as to answer a fool according to his folly, (meaning the learned Prelate) and to show his meekness, humility and aversation to rayling (for he tells us p. 8. he doth not delight to rake in that puddle,) In the very first side of his Preface, he compares the Bishop to the Devil, in the fifth and sixth, to the Heretiques, and Harding the Jesuit, Pag. 62. to an envi­ous, and cruel Vulture: the book he stiles, a Pag. 3.swoln Toad, the Bishop himself he calls Pag. 42. a proud Pashur, and shameless Semaiah, a Pag. 49. Runegado, an Apostate Presbyter, a Pag. 51. man of Fancy: Pag. 61. An envious Runegado and Apo­state, Pag. 63. A shifting Runegado, and a Pag. 67. subtile Sophister: and yet behold, and wonder! this is the man that cries, The Lord deliver him from rendring Railing for Railing. The Bishop having said in his Anti-Baal-Berith, Page 191. ‘That the late Primate of Armaghs Redu­ction of Episcopacy, was propounded, not in order to binde the hands of, or limit Bishops in England and Scotland, but as a conde­scension, and expedient to disarm and binde the hands of Presby­ters and People.’ Crofton, in answer thereunto, thus profoundly Quaeres: Pag. 13. Sir, Who told you that this was the politick stratagem of that pious Bishop? Did not Bishop Wren? It would make a man mad, and t'would make a man laugh, to see such pitiful arguings used in a re­joynder to an Antagonist, and yet to be believed as excellent, and invincible by some people, to hugge themselves up in their delusi­ons? Just as if a man should make such a like Quaere to him, Who told people that it was little Mr. Croftons Politick stratagem, not onely [Page 37] to whipp his maid behinde, but before too? Did not the Church-War­dens, and several other of the Parishioners of that Parish, where that noble Ministerial act was done, to administer somewhat to the maids necessities? So again, The Bishop having said, That the League which Joshua, and the Rulers of the people made with the Trap­panning Gibeonites, was to the damage of no honest men, but themselves: Crofton cries out, Pag. 48. Was the Oath of the Gibeonites no way to the inju­ry of honest men? Was it no injury to Israel to loose four Cities out of their inheritance given them by the Lord? Whereas the Bishop had said, It was to the injury of no honest men, but themselves, which two last words, Crofton very cunningly leaves out, to make his Readers believe the convincing force of his Arguments: But alas! he knew to set down the whole Proposition, was not for his turn of disputing, but would have broke the neck of his cause and design, and made it evident to every one, that he was a meer shifting caviller; one that was mind­ed more to quarrel with an Antagonist, then to answer him by good Reasons and Arguments; which practise of his brings to my remembrance, the like cavilling tricks and shiftings, of the most learned Bishop Mountagues Puritanical Informers in the very self­same case; who thereupon told them, that the setting down of his whole passage and Proposition See his Appeal to Cesar. p. 145. Stood not with their prime purpose of calumniating; directly it gave check to their detraction in chief, and so they passed it slightly over.

§. 20. So again, The Bishop having said, ‘That See his Anti-Baal-Berith, p. 146. a King, though never so Supream and Free, yet may not Vow and Covenant to the diminution of his own just Sovereignty, and Authority and Power, which is his by Law:’ Crofton thinks fit to give no other answer but this Pag. 32. Which all people of the world must, and will contradict; and leaving out (like a wrangling Sophister) the principal Clause, and Hinge of the Bishops Sentence, on which hangs the force of the preceding words, which is this: And necessary for his high calling, to protect the Church and State, himself, and his good Subjects. And doth he, or any one in his wits, think that any Prince may Vow to diminish that, whereby his Subjects are defended? to extenuate and give away that Power he hath given him by God, to Preserve and Protect those people, over whom, by the same God, he is set as Ruler and Supream? To cast his Subjects, in a maner, out of his Protection, and give leave to others to Domineer, and Tyrannize over them, and do them what rapine and mischief they will, and he himself sit still, as a Cipher? Certainly those people that are in such a case, may well cry out of an Egyptian slavery, and sadly proclaim, [Page 38] to their great grief and sorrow both of heart and minde, That eve­ry man doth that which seems right in his own eyes, as though there were no King at all in Israel; That a Prince may vow the di­minution of his own just Sovereginty and power (which is too hard for his Subjects to bear, and when such diminution tends to their ease and benefit) no body indeed in the world I think will deny; but that is nothing at all to what the Bishop saith: But that a Prince may not Covenant the diminution of his own just Soveraignty and Power necessary for his high calling, to protect his Subjects (which, and which alone is what the Bishop says) is a truth as cleer as the Sun, and in that case our Presbyters, all people in the world that must and will contradict it, must beyond dispute be such people as belong to the world in the Moon.

§. 21. Again, the Bishop having set down p. 149. ‘That the two Houses alone, no nor the King alone, or with them, have any Legi­slative power to decree or execute what is unrighteous against God or man:’ The Shifter answers with a p. 32. So that the Legislation is founded in the piety and justice of the decree, and rebellion against authori­ty is acquitted by the iniquity of the command; not at all caring to con­sider, that what the Bishop saith in those words, must needs have re­ference to the Law of God; and his meaning thus, that by that Law neither King nor two Houses, joyntly or severally have any lawful power to decree or execute what is unrighteous: for its impossible that that Reverend Prelate should ever forget what he hath read in the Scriptures of wickedness established by a Law, and the possibility of Governors Legislative power to execute Isa. 10. 1 unrighteous decrees by the Woe, that by God himself is pronounced unto them that decree such: Nay, the very language of the Bishop in that assertion of his, doth convince me cleerly that he was wholly guided by this very Scripture in what he said (which Crofton so much carps at) and so (as I just now said) must needs have reference to the lawfulness of such power for such ends, and purposes by the Law of God which expresly hath prohibited it, and pronounced a woe against the Actors of it. But hark what the man makes a matter of complaint of! why, that Rebellion by the Bishops saying (oh how loyal he is all of a sudden, and fearful of maintaining any Rebellious principles, not above eight lines before he hath point blanck affirmed (nay, and as though it were a convincing truth too) what I shall prove before I have done with him, not onely to be sedition and rebellion, but an open denial of the Supremacy, Power, and Authority of His Most Sacred Majesty: but lets hear what he can say for himself, why sen­tence [Page 39] of condemnation should not be passed against him for a wrang­ler; he saith, that by the Bishops assertion it follows, that Rebellion) against authority is acquitted by the iniquity of the command; Pray Mr. Caviller tell me, whether an impious decree must be done or per­formed at the Command of any Prince whatsoever, by any one that hath the fear of the King of Kings before his eyes? Is not rebellion in that case against man, loyalty and true Allegiance towards God, and so by Sacred Rules Justifiable and acquitted? What think you of that Antichristian Acts. 5: 27, 28, 29. strait command and decree, that the Jewish high Priest and Councel once gave unto the Apo­stles, not to teach in the name of Jesus? And of their stout noble Christian answer, we ought to obey God rather then men? Was not their Rebellion (if it must needs be so called) here against the Jewish Governors justifiable, and acquitted by their loyalty to­wards God, in performing of that which he had commanded them to do, & miraculously inspired them with his holy spirit for that end? Certainly the man is either out of his wits in this complaint, or else an evident Rebel against his Savior, as his party (if not his own self) have bin formerly against their Prince; for where the Laws of God and man, run counter, and come in competition one with another, I conceive its no Rebellion at all to observe the former in what he commands, & not at all the latter, and he that shall make it a matter of complaint of a mans Christian refusing in such a case and terming it by the odious name of Rebellion, he must certainly be an Atheist, one that regards not the injunctions of the 1 Tim. 6. 15. blessed & onely Potentate, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords; I remember an observable saying of one of His Majesties Loyal Subjects to this purpose, though he tels us that See the right Rebel p. 28. It appeares, that that which sometimes is esteemed and termed Rebellion by men may be, and is in truth, and in Gods accompt, not onely law­ful, but necessary also, and so not rebellion indeed, but duty; As when (saith he) the commands of inferiors in authority, are disobeyed in obedience unto the lawful commands of those that in authority are their Superiors; So the Sovereignty of God, being absolutely Supream, as himself is the most high over all, if men (though the highest upon earth) command that which is forbidden by God, or forbid that which is commanded by him, it is not un­lawful, but necessary Rebellion (if it may be so called) to obey him, though they thereby be disobeyed.

§. 22. Again, The Bishop having said, page 146. That the King ‘may not Covenant to diminish or destroy any honest subjects, in any of their just Rights, much less to extirpate or expel out of his Dominions, any Rank, Order, and Degree of men that are use­ful, [Page 40] and in some sense necessary for the being, and well being of his people: Nay, neither Prince, or any party of the People may Vow to extirpate the meanest Calling, which serves the body Po­licick, any more then men may Vow to cut off their feet or toes,’ (for I love to set down the words as I find them in the clear Foun­tain, and not as they run in the unclean, muddy Streams of the Wranglers giddy brains.) The Shifter contents himself with one of his merry whimsies, to laugh out his Reverend Antagonist, ra­ther then to give out a solid answer to the Bishops Assertion, and saies, (behold, Reader, the profound quality of his Argument!) Pag. 32. Tinkers, and Pedlers, and men of the like Order, will certainly cleave close to this Conservator of their Liberty; where the man wants ability to answer, there he he affords his Readers one of the marks of his Crazy Brain, as conceiving that his Proselites, See his Preface. doting on the bare say-so of an holy Leaguer, will the sooner perswade them to believe the strength of his cavilling Objections; when he wants wherewith to convince an Opponent, he thinks its enough if he can but give him a Jeer, and afford him matter of laughter; which in a wise mans judgement, redounds to the discredit and shame of none, but the pittiful gasping Asserter, who being destitute of sound Reason­ings, for the supporting of his Sandy Building, and the holding up of his tottering Cause, thinks it sufficient if he can but get so much breath as may enable him to sling a Jeer at his Antagonist, before he, and his Covenant, do joyntly breath their last. He resolved, it seems, to say somthing, rather then be thought to want wherewith to gainsay; and therefore laid down the preceding Position, to sooth up his Proselites with a belief of his Abilities, when (if they are no better then that I have hitherto taken notice of) they may well be compared to those of fools, the upshot of whose wisedom is to be wise in their own conceits: and were he any more then See p. 8. of his book. The shadow of a Disputant, we should never have seen such shallow an­swers made to convince his Reverend Antagonist of his supposed Error about the Holy League: but such Pittiful evasions in Argumen­tations, well becomes, indeed, the men of his stamp, in the defence of their peerless Oath; which as it ingaged men in Acts of High Treason, can certainly be maintained by no other means, then either by such sneaking cavilling tricks as these, or by Pag. 40. Stating of damnable Doctrines of Sedition, yea Rebellion.

§. 23. Again, the Reverend Prelate, having according to the tenor of those words in Numb. 30. shaken the force and validity of the Covenant, as to its binding force upon the takers of it, because [Page 41] of our Onely Superiours Prohibition of it, Crofton very cunningly (to show the excellent skill he hath in the Art of cavilling, and run­ning away from the question in debate) that he might be thought to be some body in the eyes of his Classical Admirers, is pleased to set down what he would have, in this maner, Page 34. Will Doctor Gau­den please to frame his Argument a Pari, for little Mr. Croftons rescue, he conceives it must run thus: Numb. 32. directeth that the Oath or Vow of a Daughter, Wife, or other Inferior, made without the knowledge of Father, Husband, or Superiour, should be at the pleasure of the Superior confirmed, or made void; Ergo, No Scandalous, Disgraceful, Dishonor­able Oath may be taken, if taken, must not be kept, if kept, it must be well interpreted. No, Mr. shifter, your Ergo is rotten, and invalid, and serves for nothing but to stir up peoples laughter and admira­tion of your cunning Sophistry; for if you had acted the part of a Scholar, and a sound Disputant, we should have found your Ergo according to the Bishops Arguings, to have been thus expressed, Numb. 30. ‘Directeth that the Oath or Vow of a Daughter, Wife, or other inferior, made without the knowledge of Father, Hus­band, or Superior, should be at the pleasure of the Superior con­firmed or made void, Ergo this unsacred Covenant being taken with­out the consent or knowledge of our Regal Superior,’ (or as the Bishop alledges, by the See the 144 page of his book. Subjects of England, who were by Law and Oaths inferior to, and dependents on the King, obliged to duty and allegi­ance) by his open Proclamation against it, according to that Scrip­ture, is frustrate, void, and of none effect: but ingenuons Arguings would have quite and clean spoiled the design of such a Page 232 Sophistical Caviller, and therefore he craftily forbore the pursuit of true Dispu­tations (not quarrellings and envious cavillings) with his Reverend Adversary, lest thereby his 2 Tim. 3. 9. See p. 10. of Croftons book. folly should have been made manifest to all men, yea even to his Presbyterian proselytes, who are pleased with a sound against the Bishops book, and consider not the certainty of it, and are ready jurare in verba Presbyteri, be they never so groundless, with whom the Say-so of a godly Presbyter is esteemed a sufficient reason of their Faith; And yet the man thinking how bravely he had drawn the Bishops Arguings to serve the base ends of his own vain talking, he presently begins to crow and vapour, and cries out of a Syllo­gism, Currens quatuor pedibus, running of four feet, and tells his Rea­ders a Tale of a tub, a story of his godly Brethren, the Jesuits Con­ference at Ratisbone, who (just like his own Argument here against the Bishop) set down thus their profound Determinations of the Ar­ticles of their Faith, Qui negat articulum fidei est hereticus, sed hereticus [Page 42] est qui negat Tobiam habuisse Canem: Ergo, (just like our matchless Disputer) sequitur articulum esse fidei quod Tobias canem habuerit; He that denies an Article of Faith, is an heretick: But he is an heretick that denies Tobit had a dog; Therefore it follows, that it is an Ar­ticle of Faith, that Tobit had a dog; Not considering that in his Pa­rallel he fights with nothing but his own shadow, that he utters his minde for the disgracing and vanquishing of no body but his own dear self, not at all of the Bishop, who hath no such rotten Argu­ments in all his Book. And that we may perfectly see the mans de­sign in Writing (even to fill up his Book with cavilling) he tells us in his Preface (side 3.) of the Bishops writing Mr. Grafton, as if he should answer Dr. Gaudie, when as one that could not reade, he takes no notice of what the Bishop had set down at the latter end of his book to read Crofton for Grafton through the whole Discourse; If his eyes were so dim he could not see it, he should have said so, and then I should have done my best to have got a clear pair of Spectacles for him, that he might by that means have read what the Doctor had said for him to correct, as well as others, seeing he was one of his Readers: but alas, he wanted somewhat to say to fill up his Pre­face, and therefore sets down this for a part of it, to make appear his invincible ways of disputing; His quotations of the Bishops words are such, that (besides those imperfect un-scholar-like ones I have al­ready set down) there are no less then fifteen or sixteen several o­ther quotations, which are either imperfect like the former, or else absolute false ones, as upon a true examination I have found them, and such as leads his Readers into a wilderness for to see the truth of them: but I consider his cavilling Discourse was made in a great deal of haste, and his mad-brain'd tricks have made his Book good for nothing, but to be the subject of some mens laughter and indig­nation; for my part, Mr. Crofton, I See the 8. page of his book. will excuse you for your wrong, imperfect, false quotations (though not for your Antimonarchical, seditious Principles and Assertions up and down your Book) if your very friends do not with blame to you, say, You are come a great deal too soon, and have verified the old proverb upon your self, The more haste, the worst speed. And truly I am afraid it had been better for your outward and inward safety both, that your Book had been like the Bishops, which you madly profess and say, contrary to the judge­ments of many sober understanding men, Page 5. whosoever in his right mind doth but read, will finde it a Rudis indigestaque moles, a meer Chaos of Confusion, (where by the way, whosoever is not of the same judge­ment therein with you, is censured to be out of his wits, like your [Page 43] self, whose Wits run a wool-gathering) rather then that which you are pleased to stile methodical exceptions, which denies the onely Supre­macy of the King; Its but a sad merriment to play with edge-tools, to laugh at your Adversary with Rebellion in your mouth, and (if the mercy of our most Gracious Sovereign prevent not, which I know no reason in the world for) you will finde it so to your cost, be­fore you are let loose from the reins of your Just deserved Impri­sonment.

§. 24. Again the Bishop said (pag. 196.) That ‘he peremptorily determines, that the King, Lords, and Commons have no prudent, moral, religious, and lawful power, to change an ancient, universal, and excellent Government by Bishops, To any that is (AS new and Schismatical, SO) far worse, and unsutable to England every way. Christian Kings and their Parliaments, are obliged to the Laws of God, and Rules of Christian Piety, and Polity too, of which the whole Church in its Primitive example, and constant custom, is the best interpreter; As no Legislative power, is impowered by Gods Laws to bring in Heresie, and Error, and Superstition, so nor Schism, Faction, or Confusion, by causelesly nuding or taking from the Essentials of sound Doctrine, or Christian Communion, e­ver owned and maintained in the Church of Christ;’ Here's the Do­cters whole sentence, word for word, as I took it out of his own Book, and not as its mangled by our Presbyters paultry delusive false quotation, where he makes the words run thus: ‘Doctor Gauden peremptorily determineth, That Parliaments, Kings, Lords, and Commons, have no Prudent, Moral, Religious, and lawful Autho­rity, to change the Ancient, Universal, and excellent Govern­ment by Bishops, for Christian Kings and Parliaments are obli­ged, &c.’ leaving out those words of the Doctors, which made his learned Assertion unanswerable, and true beyond any sound contradiction, which are these, (To any, that is, AS new ‘and Schismatical, SO far worse and unsutable to England every way) that so his own arguings might thereby appear the better,’ and sound more pleasingly to the ears of his factious brethren (a pra­ctise somewhat like unto one that pictures a man with the greatest deformity of body he can, for no other end, but to make his own na­turally deformed one, appear the neater and beautifuller.) But I consider, otherwise he could not hide his folly from being palpable and open to every person (that is not possessed of a Bedlamers un­derstanding) nor his Book from being thrown into the fire by in­genuous persons, rather then they would vex themselves so much as [Page 44] to read his lies and juglings, his cavillings and sedititon, his false quotations, and confident language, both of the judicious Asser­tions, and person of that Learned, Reverend Prelate, whom this Holy Leaguer may well put to silence after the usual Presbyterian ways of Disputing: for indeed it will soon make any wise man leave off medling with such notorious Salamanders, who loves to live in peace and quietness, and endeavour to advance the Unity of the Church, and delights not to live in contention with them, to kindle the fire of Combustion and Sedition, both in Church and State. But we will see, however, what the man conceived fit in his Scotized noddle, to say for himself, and make it the matter of his Answer to the words of the Bishop, as he had filthily mangled them in his false quotation of them; and that I finde, upon search, to be this learned one that follows, with a P. 25. of his Book. But Sir, have you not stretch'd too far, and stept into a Premunire? Little Mr. Crofton should fear to be made less by the head, as guilty of Treason, Sedition at the least, should be thus confront King and Parliaments in what all their Sta­tutes declare to be their own creature and constitution, changeable at their pleasure, even from the Statutes of Carlisle, and 25. of Edward the 3. Declaring against the Pope, That holy Church was founded in Prelacy by their own Donation, Power, and Authority, and so by the same way changeable. Where is, Sir, the Kings Prerogative (why not Supremacy? Would not that word have choak'd you?) over all persons in all cau­ses Ecclesiastical? What is become of your oath, of Supremacy? Can you make this peremptory determination (as your self calls it) consist with it any more with your Covenant? Hath a gracious King lately advanced you to debase, nay, dethrone him, and his Parliament too? And then tells his Readers a story, How it hath been observed to be the fatall chance of the Bishops of England, to run themselves into a Premu­nire.

The man would fain make people believe that Bishops are Sedi­tious persons, and in particular his Reverend Antagonist, and there­fore the best course will first be to consider what the Bishop hath said, and then see whether it amount to the Sedition supposed by the Leaguing Rhodomantado, and in order thereunto I shall begin with the first particle of the Bishops words, ‘That Kings, Lords and Commons, have no prudent, moral, religious, and lawful au­thority, to change an ancient universal Church-Government by Bishops, to any that is (As new and schismatical So) far worse and unsuitable to England every way,’ and see whether they may be found to be either contrary to truth or a derogation to His Ma­jesties [Page 45] legal Supremacy, and therefore first, that they have no pru­dential authority to change Episcopal Government, (much less swear to extirpate them root and branch) is evident, not onely by the despe­rate excommunicating antimonarchical brasen tricks and practises of the Godly partie (forsooth!) in Scotland against the excellent King James, in walking direct contrary to his Royal Commands, and stirring up the people in Rebellion against him, because he did not submit himself to their traiterous imperious humours, and mak­ing him for his own safety to flie out of his own capital City of Edin­burgh, but also by that Kings famous Motto; No Bishop, no King, and by the sad woful experience of the truth thereof, by the late never to be forgotten Rebellion in 1642, and the Regicidian genuine is­sues and effects of it; knowest thou not Sir John Presbyter, the undeniable truth of that Assertion of the noble L'estrange, which he put forth to the view of the world, That See his Interest mi­staken: or, The holy Cheat, pag. 88. by those very Troops that cryed down Bishops, was the King murthered? Knowest thou not Sir John, what the wise King James said to Dr. Reynolds's desire at the conference at Hampton Court, for the rearing up a (domineering Tyrannical) Presbytery within this Kingdom? if not, then I shall for once declare it unto your Honor, the Royal Answer ran thus: See the Conference at Hamp­ton Court, p. 81. Stay I pray you for one seven years before you demand that of me, and if then you finde me pursey and fat, and my wind-pipes stuffed, I will perhaps harken to you, for let that government be once up, I am sure I shall be kept in breath, then shall we all of us have work enough both our hands full, but Dr. Reynolds, till you finde that I grow lazie, let that alone; If Kings and Parliaments have a mind never to be quiet, and to be alwaies in a combustion, I know no better advice can be given them, then for to set and rear up this Presbytery, but if they desire to keep them­selves in rest, peace and unity, they'l find I am confident no prudential authority to extirpate Episcopacy by a Baal-Berith, and bring an headless currish Presbytery in its room, but will abandon the Cove­nant, that See Mr. L'estrange his Interest mistaken, p. 35. popular Sacrament of Religious disobedience, as the very poison of hell, and the secret underminer of the Regal Authority and Supremacy, but then

§. 25. Again secondly, that they have no religious authority (for as for moral authority, that is an authority secundum morem, according to former custom, their authority is so altogether in the negative there, that its in vain to blot any paper with an answer: but I say that they have no religious authority) to change Episcopal govern­ment, is evident too in regard of the Apostolicalness, and primitive use thereof by the Apostles while they lived, in commanding obe­dience, [Page 46] and controuling the subordinate governors, and their disor­ders as well as the peoples in the several Churches they planted, and enjoyning the same to be done by his Episcopal deputies at Ephe­sus and Creet, (and in them all their successors in the Episcopal office) in those several Churches over whom they had their jurisdi­ction; Certainly he that tells me, that 1 Tim. 3. 1. he that desires the office of a Bishop desires a good work, gives me no religious nor lawful authority to vow and swear with an Anti-regal Oath to extirpate it, and make an exchange for one of the plagues of Egypt to overwhelm us in­stead of that; That the Apostle said the one, and that therefore for that very reason Kings and Parliaments have no religious authority to do the other, None but a Crofton and his crafty companions would ever have had the confidence to deny it, which makes me proceed to the next thing, and that is,

§. 26. That they have no lawful authority to change it, which must needs have reference to the Laws of God according to the subse­quent words of the Bishops, where he explaines his meaning by ju­diciously asserting, That Christian Kings and their Parliaments are obli­ged to the Laws of God, and rules os Christian piety and polity too, of which the whole Church in its primitive example is the best interpreter, and so his position in short is this, That they have no lawful authority by the Laws of God, and rules of Christian piety, and polity to change Episcopal Government, which is a cleer evident truth to me, for I consider with my self, that those Laws and Rules will admit at no hand of any schism, ataxy, confusion, or division in the Church, which are con­trary to true Christianity (for the abounding whereof amongst the Corinthians, they were so often taxed of their too much carnality) and that Bishops were set up by the Apostles themselves in remedium Schismatis, for the preventing of schismes and divisions, and that none of those errors and heresies were so prevalent or apparent to hu­mane eyes in the Bishops times, as since their Julian extirpation for the setting up of Prsbyterian practical-jesuitism, was the ground of a day of fasting, and humiliation amongst the Godly rebels, and a Sermon thereupon preached by our unsacred Covenanter; What shall we say to those things, that men should show so much pretence of goodness in appointing a day to humble themselves for the errors and heresies of the times (the true proper effects, of their arrogant ways of Rebellion, in setting up Presbytery as a distinct Govern­ment by it self, without Episcopacy, in direct opposition to the practise of the Catholick Church, as well as to the King and his Laws, which is, and hath bin the head and fountain from whence [Page 47] the unclean muddy streames of heresies and blasphemies have had their rise and product) And yet forsooth, must have the means still kept for the production of the same ends of disorder and confusion, Ʋpon the consideration of the whole, I cannot but subscribe to the great truth of the Bishops words, ‘That as no legislative power is impowered by Gods Laws to bring in either Heresie, Error, Su­perstition, Schisme, Faction, or Confusion, so neither have the King, Lords and Commons any prudent, moral, religious, or law­ful Authority by those Laws or those of this English Nation, and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity, to change the Ancient, universal, and excellent Government by Bishops to any that is, As new and schismatical, so far worse and unsuitable to England every way.’ If one part of the sentence be true (which by Croftons silence is absolutely concluded.) No man need fear to affirm the o­ther without any derogation to the legal, rightful, Supremacy of the King; That which speakes against Schisme and faction, con­fusion and disorder, will not surely give me any lawful power to extirpate Bishops, the main preventers of it, by being the constant promoters of love and unity.

§. 27. Thus I have examined the words as I found them imper­fectly quoted in Croftons Discourse, without that additional clause which I have set down in my true Citation of them, which he most unworthily and basely had left out, that so he might have some what to fill up his rambling discourse with; for a true Citation would have fo confounded his understanding, as immediately to have commanded him into a becoming silence and ingenuous conviction of the Bishops truths: but rather then he would depart from his ca­villing art and shiftings, he'l mangle the words of an Antagonist to make his own way the smoother, for credulous poor mortals to set their steps in; which hath brought to my remembrance the answer of a most Reverend person to the Miltonian Justifier of Regicide and Rebellion, depraver of verity and breaker of the Kings Image, That he See the Image un­broken, p. 153. broke sentences and truths, lest he should breake for want of matter; And the words of the Bishops with that additional clause in it, is so cleer a truth as can no waies be darkned by a Presbyters Argumentations (which was seen evident enough by Crofton him­self, and so very craftily left it out) and therefore needs no other defence but the bare words themselves which carry truth in their forehead, to the convincing of any opposer, which I have no sooner done but I took a resolution to follow the mans pattern for once, and turn Quaerist too,

Where's the Premunire that the Bishop hath stept into now? Is speaking of a known Truth, confronting of King and Parliaments? Suppose the Bishop had lived in Queen Maries days, and had said, That neither Queen nor Parliament had any lawful power by the Laws of God, and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity, either to change the King Edward-Reformation, or to set up and establish Popery in the kingdom, Was it fit for any mans mouth but a cursed Jesuits, to charge him with sedition and treason against the Queen, in confronting her and her Parliaments, by saying black is black, and white is white, by asserting a known truth? Blessed be God, we live under a Prince that desires not to have His Supremacy stretcht so, as to make it an Instrument of Justification of the Lawfulness of His Actings, either against God, or his Truth, or the Defenders of true Christianity; that desires to have His Supremacy carryed on, and maintain'd for no other ends and purposes, then those for which it was first established, To make Clergy-men as well as Lay, know that he is their onely Supream Governor, and in case of offence, that His Power will reach to the punishment of both; that they shall not be exempted from the Civil Magistrates sword of Justice, either by the wicked pretence of a foreign, Papal, superior Juris­diction, or Antimonarchical Sentence or Determination of the trai­terous seditious Consistorians, if they do that which is not justifiable either by the Laws of God, or this Land? Where's the Bishops se­dition, I wonder? Where's his treason, that he needs to fear to be made less by the head for (as this Leaguer cants it)? Why he saith, in affirming the defect of the Kings and Parliaments prudent, moral, reli­gious, and lawful power to change Episcopacy to one that is worse, and far unsuitable to England every way (for that is it which the Bishop saith, which our unsacred Covenanter hath dared to contradict with his shabbed pratling). Ay but, saith Crofton, The Statutes of the Kings declare against the Pope, That Holy Church was founded in Prelacy by their own donation, power and authority, and so by the same way changeable: Ergo, What? That they have any prudent, moral, religious, and lawful authority to change it to a worse? After what rate doth this wily Covenanter argue? Can they that swear to govern a people well, and according to the Laws of the Land, have any of that qua­ternary Power, to change one Government for a worse? Will the people in such a case think (or can they?) that they are well gover­ned, or that their Prince mind their peace and safety? If I may be so bold with the world as to tell them my simple judgement of those words of the Kings, I humbly conceive (with submission to those [Page 49] that are wiser) That those Statutes were made meerly to cut off the spring of the Popes universal Supremacy, and as much (as in them lay) to cast out his bold, unwarrantable, antichristian En­croachment upon the English Liberties, and to give acheck to his Lordly domineering over them, that the Kings (as now) might have their due rightful Supremacy over all persons in all causes with­in their dominuous, Over Clergymen (who were humble servants, to the principles and injunctions of the Papal Ʋsurper) as well as over Common people (who were led by the nose by them,) In all causes Ecclesiastical, to reform Abuses in the Church, and punish Clergy-men for their Errors, Heresies, and Seditious principles, as­wel as Civil, To execute wrath upon those that do evil, either by Re­bellion, or Treason, or Speaking, or bellowing out from Press, or Pulpit their damnable positions against their Persons Crowns Dig­nities, or Governments upon any accompt with any person or per­sons joynt or seperate whatsoever; This I understand to be the grounds of that Royal saying, That holy Church was founded in prelacy by their own donation power and authority, and not for any intentions of theirs to extirpate Episcopal Government, or the manifestation of the lawfulness of their power by the Laws of God, and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity for the doing of it.

§. 28. But the man hath not done yet, but hath some more quest­ions (such as they are) to be answered still, and therefore Ile ha­sten to the consideration of them, and what should they be but these paultry impertinent ones that follow (which are as proper Queries for the Bishops true position, as if he should have put his pen in's tail, and held them both up to the Sun to look at,) Where is (Sir) the Kings Prerogative over all persons in all causes Ecclesiastical? What is become of your Oath of Supremacy? Can you make this peremptory determination (as your self calls it) consist with it any more then with your Covenant? Weighty questions indeed, but such as are more worthy of laugh­ter at his folly, then of any answer to his proud boasting Quaeries, but seeing the Scotized Presbyters aim therein (if I hit him right, if not, let him or any of the gang inform me how I shot amiss,) is to make the learned Bishop by his saying, to savour of the guiltiness of perjury by his pretended contradictory assertion to the noble Oath of Supremacy, which he like a true Christian and faithful Sub­ject had sworn, its high time to look about us, and stand up in de­fence of this vilely slander'd Prelate against this Covenanting Goliath of the City of London, and make answer to his sorry (though insolent) Quaeries, which though they seem to be of a ternary quality, yet [Page 50] in sum, the three amount but to one: and first he asks, Where is, Sir, the Kings Prerogative over all persons, in all Causes Ecclesiastical? Good lack! what a great Upholder of the Regal Supremacy you are be­come, Mr. Caviller? What Sir, do you turn Quaerist after it? Do Presbytery begin to shake hands with the Supremacy of His Sacred Majesty? Doth the devil plead for God? and Baal for the worship­ping of Christ? Certainly then there needs no great fear of danger from the Apostatical Calvinian Hierarchy, or of Letters of horning from the Scotized Presbytery; But good now, Sir Presbyter, Why Prero­gative? Why not Supremacy? Was that word like a Bishops Lawn Sleeves to your party, that it would have choaked you to have na­med it? In all my little reading did I never meet with that word Prerogative joyned with that sentence before, put in in stead of the rightful word Supremacy, which makes me think of a tacit denial of the thing, at that very time he saucily corrects the Bishop for his see­ming contradictory Position to it, as giving a back-blow to the Kings Supremacy in his seeming paultry defence of it, else surely he would have made use of the usual word Supremacy, and not impotently ask Where is the Kings Prerogative over all persons in all causes Ecclesiastical? Come, come, Mr. Zechary, you are a cunning companion, and lie al­together upon the catch, to see how you can take away a Prelates credit from him, but all wont do, you are horribly deceived if you think to meet with any unbyassed persons, to trap them into your cheating Snare with you; for there's none that compares one Book with the other (as I have done) but will see your cunning Sophistry, and infamous ways of arguing, and thereby learn to detest the Lea­guing Author of the one, and honor the reverend Writer of the other. If he that saith, That the King hath no prudent, moral, religious and lawful Authority by the Laws of God, and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity, to change Episcopal Government unto any one else that is AS new, and schismatical, SO far worse and unsuitable to England every way, (and so not to bring in Schism or Heresie) denies the Supremacy of the King, certainly the great and invincible maintainers of it against the joynt encroachments of Papist and his brother Presbyter, will be quickly found to be against it (and so indeed every one else that un­derstands Christianity, sense, or reason); Take the Supremacy in that notion for which it was first established, and this Assertion of the Prelates may very well consist with the Oath; but if this Calvinian prater for a little cavilling sport, (for its for no other end be be sure, for he is either no Presbyter, or if he be, he is no more a friend to, or pleader for the Kings lawful Supremacy, according to [Page 51] the true intent and meaning of the Framers of the Oath, then the rigidest Jesuit at Rome) will take it to reach to every thing, that he that denies the Kings lawful power to do that which is unrighteous by the Laws of God, is presently against His legal Supremacy, Then not onely the reverend Prelates and Episcopal Divines (the onely constant Assertors of it all along, against the several wilde fancies of Jesuits and Scotized Presbyters) but the Kings Sacred Majesty himself wil be found to be vehement opposers of it. I'm confident His Highness desires no such thing, but that His Supremacy might onely reach so far, as he may lawfully exercise it without breach of the Laws of God.

§. 29. But this is not all, for there is one Question still behinde (a shrewd one indeed) which follows immediately upon the back of the former, and that's this: Hath a Gracious King lately advanced you, to debase, nay dethrone Him and His Parliament too? What a huge care­ful man this Presbyter would fain make himself appear to be of his Princes honor, so far as to question a learned Prelate for his seem­ing sedition and irreverence? How now Mr. Zechary? Where­abouts are you? What, will you never leave fighting with the Sun? never leave striving, and presenting the people of this Nation with See p. 18 of his book. the foggy fancies of your own giddy brain, and run away with them by your fluid and gliding tongue or discourse, as if the state of your que­stion were granted by understanding persons for the truth? you crake hugely methinks, but I doubt I shall marr your sport with what fol­lows, and to that end let me intreat this favour of your Kirkifi'd Holiness, as to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, to these few questions I have subjoyned here, for an answer either from your self, or godly partakers; Doth the Bishop go a­bout to debase and dethrone his Sovereign, as to follow your reli­gious pattern so far, as to say any where in his learned Writings (which you so much snarl at) that See his Preface to the Consi­derator consider'd The Common-Prayer Book was ex­pelled by a lawful Authority, which if it be not Treason (as the Noble L'estrange saith in his Holy Cheat) Scot and Peters were no Traytors? Doth the Bishop talk any where of See p. 51. of his book. The Two Houses Supream Legisla­tive power without His Majesty, and so give the lie to the Oath of Su­premacy and Laws of the Land, which ascertains it to be the pecu­liar Prerogative of the King? Or doth he in any of his Writings (like you) Page 31. averr, That neither the place of His Majesties retirement, nor reason of his absence, doth adde or abstract to the authority of Parliament? Or fourthly, Doth the Bishop any where bid His Majesty keep that damnable traiterous and seditious Oath (called, The Solemn League [Page 52] and Covenant) and tell him, He shall be delivered from, that distress, which Page 42.may too late engage His Majesty to send to (you for sooth!) his faithful Mo­nitor, to pray for him? Oh Mr. Crofton, you are a notable fellow at feminine scourges; feminine do I say! I am a little too short there, for male and female are both alike to you, nay and not every ordi­nary one neither; for the King himself must not be exempted from the distress you threaten him with, for not performing of a bloody treacherous Oath; but the best on't is, Curst Cows have short horns, and its very fit you should be so short kept, lest being left to your self, you should be apt to stray out of the pathes of loyalty and obe­dience, and get into the by-pathes of religious Rebellion, and play­ing the devil for Gods sake, pushing and goring at every one, nay at your own Sovereign himself, if he will not fulfil your whimsical hu­mours; Its like you would be good enough, if you were but once throughly cleansed from the Kirkish leaven of Hypocrisie and Treason, Sedition and Rebellion, but till then, they that trust to you and your party for exact loyalty and obedience, will soon finde upon any opportunity for Tumults and Sedition, that they have trusted to a broken reed, to their own fancies and chimaeraes. The Bishop might well fear I must needs confess (and that most justly too) to be made less by the head, as guilty both of Treason and Sedition, should he so confront his Prince and his Supremacy, as to set down such treasonable & seditious Affirmations as you have done: but you Presbyters have been so always constant (as Mr. L'estrange saith in his Holy Cheat) to the rule and method of doing your own business in the Kings Name, that you can plead your being His Majesties true Subjects at that very time, when you your selves are debasing and disallowing of His legal Su­premacy, and so setting a fair step for the dethroning of him, when your desired opportunities of doing mischief, shall unhappily fall out for the performance of your Antimonarchical Consultations. And now to conclude this particular, I shall put his own question to him, and all the godly Generation of Scribes and Pharisees, Hath a gracious, and (I wish he be not in the mean while too) merciful a King out of His own Princely Goodness passed an Act of Indempnity, (by which He pardons the long continued Rebellion, begun by a Club of Run­ning Lecturers (as Mr. L'estrange calls them) and their Adherents in 1642. against His Royal Father, for the doing whereof He might by the Statute have cut off the heads, as well as seized on the estates of hundreds of those primary Rebels, who yet by the mercy of a Princely Patron of Episcopacy, enjoy both the one and t'other; I say, hath a Gracious King out of His own sweet Christian Nature [Page 53] done this) for you and your party to debase, nay and dethrone him by your denial of His Supremacy, and setting on foot the doctrine of the devil, who was a Rebel and a Murtherer from the beginning?

§. 30. Ay but saith Crofton, Page 29 30. Dr. Gauden being well considered, will be found to be no less erronious in his Politicks, then in his Ecclesiasticks, So then, who ever concludes for the truth of the Doctors Assertions in his Book, he is by your heady suppositions adjudged to be one that hath not well considered them: But we'l see your reason for't first before we believe you (good Mr. Zechary) and that is I perceive the Bishops true saying, that The Hierarchy or Episcopacy is established by the Laws of England, which you (you say) have in your Analepsis Ana­lephthe denied. At this rate its in vain to meddle with you, That a mans expressions shall be true or false, according to what they seem to be in your giddy brains, That your Ipse dixit onely shall be proof enough to overthrow the arguments of your Reverend Antagonist; But such things as these (Mr. Zechary) must not be allowed of, and therefore the examination of your Denial will in this case be some­what needful. You say, You deny that Episcopacy is established by the Law; The more shameless man you, to deny that which is so appa­rent; For what think you of the very first Article of the Great Charter (which is not onely declared to be the Common Law of the Land, (as I have already said) but is confirmed by 32 Acts of Parliament) which runs thus: Salvae sint Episcopis omnes Libertates suae; Let the Bishops have all their whole Rights inviolable. What think you now, Mr. Presbyter? Is the Great Charter no Law? or are Bishops and their Liberties expresly named in the very first Article, and yet Episcopacy not established by the Laws of England? What a grand Cheater is this high-flown Presbyter, that shall have the face to con­demn his Superiors, and give them the Lie for speaking such a noto­rious truth as this, That Episcopacy is established by the Laws of England.

§. 31. But he'l Print Errors, and give a Reason for it when he hath done. I do averr (saith he, like an arch Presbyter) That the English laws finding Episcopacy conversant 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. Tis not your (I averr) nor mine neither, will [Page 54] 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, its 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 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 [Page 55] 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 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 [Page 56] 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 tis 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 23. of Jan, in the first year of her Majesties Reign; the Lords and Commons assembled by force of the same Writ, the 21. day the Queen fell sick, and could not appear in her person in Parliament that day, and there­fore Prorogued it until the 25. of the same month of January; Re­solved by all the Judges of England, That the Parliament began not the day of the Return of the Writ, viz. the 23. of January, when the Lords and Commons appeared, but the 25. of the said moneth when the Queen came in person.’ What think you now, Sir Presbyter? You see the Queens presence, and the reason of her absence was so far looked up­on, and esteemed in those daies, in relation to the Authority of a Par­liament, that her absence but for two daies, by the resolution of all the English Judges, was enough to degrade them of their Parlia­mentary title, till her Personal appearance amongst them gave them the denomination of a Parliament: And unless this man can make it out, That the late blessed Carolian Martyr, had not the same place and Authority over these Nations, as that noble Queen had, the same Conclusion will follow upon his Assertion, That the place of his Royal retirement, and reason of his absence, did so far add and abstract to the Authority of that, which our Presbyterian Jugglers so often miscal, a Parliament, that they were neither Titular, nor Re­al, neither Name, nor Thing without him, For See Lex terrae. p. 51 the King is the head of the Kingdom and Parliament, How then can a body act without a head? There hath one long since told us (to whom for knowledge in the Laws and Customs of the Realm, our Caviller is not worthy to be compared) That Pag. 156 157. the two Houses are no more a Parliament, then a body without a head a man. Two Houses, and a Parliament, are several things, Cuncta fidem vera faciunt; all circumstances agree to prove this truth: Before the Norman Conquest, and since to this day, the King [Page 57] is holden Principium caput & finis, the Beginning, Head, and chief end of the Parliament, as appeareth by the Treatise of the maner of holding Parliaments, made before the Norman Conquest; by the Writ of Sum­mons of Parliament, whereby the Treaty and Parier in Parliament is to be had with the King onely; by the Common Law, by the Statute Law, by the Oath of Supremacy taken at this, and every Parliament, it doth ma­nifestly appear, that without the King there can be no colour of a Parlia­ment See the Royal Buck ler, p. 62. The two Houses (saith Mr. Duncomb) frame the body, the King giveth the soul, for without him, it is but a dead Carcase. Nay further, saith the learned Judge in the Table of his Book concern­ing Parliaments, This became no Parliament, when the King with whom they should parley, was driven away. By what hath been said, and many more instances, that I could produce for this purpose, I leave it to every understanding person to consider, whether His Presence or his Absence (without whom there can be no colour of a Parliament) doth add or detract the Authority of Parliament: And lea­ving Crofton to the just deserved censure and punishment of Maje­sty for his Rebellious, Malignant Principles, I shall proceed on to his next Arrogant, and yet Ignorant pratling for his Seditious Vow and Covenant, which hath been the cause of so many direful plagues amongst us.

§. 34. Whatever the Libeller (i. e. Dr. Burges his sweet-tooth'd Sacri­legious Brother) did, Mr. Crofton (he Pag. 37. saith) allowed the Doctor this Text (i. e. Numb. 30. before mentioned) in its Latitude, and referred him to be judged by it, and now granteth, That the inferior in things not sui juris may have the action vowed superseded by the declared pleasure of the su­perior, and that whether it be son or servant. Doth he so? Doth Mr. Crofton grant then the truth of the Doctors Arguments? What doth he keep a kackling for then? What doth he make such a buz­zing then in the peoples ears with his perjurious Covenant? Doth he first confess his Antagonists Arguments to be good by granting what the Doctor wrote for, and yet set out another vain glorious discourse against them, so far as to run into seditious principles to keep his faithful Covenant on foot? Ay but in our case he then affir­med (he said) The Parliament sitting had over us a Legislative power to which we owed subjection; They were (in their National capacity) the Nation Collective and sui juris, and to be obeyed during their session by those whom they represented.

The Parliament? What is that? It is the King, the Lords, and the Commons, saith the Covenant at the trial of the Regicide Harri­son. That the world may not be abused by the insinuations of a man, who [Page 58] acts as if he had a spirit, and in truth is possessed, I will say (saith his Ma­jesties Learned Councel) That the Lords and Commons are not a Parlia­ment, That the King and Lords cannot do any thing without the Commons, Nor the King and Commons without the Lords, Nor the Lords and Com­mons without the King, especially against the King, if they do, they must an­swer it with their heads: See judge Jenkins Lex Terrae p. 80. The Lords and Commons make no more a Par­liament by the Law of the Land, then a body without a head makes a man, for a Parliament is a body composed of a King their Head, the Lords and Commons the Members. All three together (saith Judge Jenkins) make one body, and that is the Parliament, and no other; The Two Houses are not the Parliament, but onely part thereof, and by the abuse and misunder­standing of this word Parliament, they have miserably deceived the people. So then we see what is become of our zealous Presbyters Parlia­ment consisting of Two Houses without a King, (for its clear by the preceding words he meanes them, and them onely when he prattles of the Parliaments having a Legislative power over us) Here we finde the judgement of the Reverend Judges and learned Sages of the Law to be cleerly against him and his Titular Parlia­ment, and telling us, how the faction miserably deluded the people with the name (when they were destitute of the true nature) of a Parliament, by applying it to them, to whom it no more belonged, then the title of a man appertaines to him, who wants the conveni­ency of a Head.

As for their Legislative power; Its huge like their empty title of Parliament, and both Phantasmes of their own braines, and that it may apppear to be such, I shall bring in Croftons profound Lawyer Mr. Prynn in the front to bear witness against him, for he tells us, That See his plea'gainst illegal Ta­xes. p. 5. the Parliament Rolls, and the Printed Prologues to the statutes of, &c. (and names a great many) run all in this form, At the Parliament holden, &c. By the advice and assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and at the special instance and request of the Commons of the Realm, our Lord the King hath caused to be ordained, or or­dained certain Statutes; where the advising & assenting to Laws, is ap­propriated to the Lords, the ordaining of them to the King, and nothing but the requesting of, and petitioning for them, to the Commons. Thus he.

Other Statutes (saith See his impartial inquiry in­to the na­ture of sin. p. 211. See his Lex Ter­rae, p. 26. the Reverend Doctor Peirce) which have the force of Acts of Parliament, are known to be directed as private Writs with a Teste Meipso. And the Common stile of most others is found to run in this form, The King with the advice of the Lords, at the Humble Peti­tion of the Commons, Wills this or that, (where by the way take notice of the saying of Judge Jenkins, That Consilium non preceptum, Confi­liarii [Page 59] non preceptores, Counsel is not a command, nor to be Coun­sellors is not to be Commanders:) So the form of passing Bills is still observed to be this, Le Roy le vieult, The King will have it, And Soit fait il comme est desire, Let it be done as tis desired; plainly speaking by way of grant to something sought or petitioned for; (from whence (saith he) by some it hath bin gathered, That Rogation of Laws doth rightly belong to the two Houses, but the Legislation to the King, that their Act is prepa­rative, his only jussive.

The Acts of Parliament (saith the learned Mr Duncomb) are cal­led the King Laws. And why not the Kings Laws? Doth not he make See his Royal Buckler. p. 306. 307 308. them? The whole body, and volumes of the Statutes proclaim the King, the sole Legislator. What is Magna Charta but the Kings Will and gift; The very beginning of it will tell you tis no more, viz. Henry by the grace of God, &c. Know yee that we of our meer, and free will have given these Liberties; In the self same stile runs Charta de forresta. But wherefore evidences to prove that which no man can deny? The stiles of the Statutes and Acts printed to the 1 of Henry VII. are either, the King willeth, the King ordaineth, the King provideth, the King grants, the King ordains at his Parliament, or the King ordaineth by the advice of his Prelates, and Barons, and at the humble petition of the Commons, &c. But in Henry VII. his time, the stile altered, and hath sithence continued thus; It is or­dained by the Kings Majesty, and the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled. And why do the Lords and Commons ordain? Is it not onely because the King doth? It is so; they do, because the King doth, which onely denotateth their assent, for the Kings Majesty giveth life to all, as the Soul to the body; For did ever the Lords and Commons make an Act without the King? Never; They cannot; The Lords advise, the Commons consent, but the King makes the Law; Their Bills are but Inanimate scriblings, until the King breaths into their Nostrils the breath of life, and so that which was mould before, becometh a Law, which ruleth living souls. And as Sir Edward Cook observeth, In an­cient times all Acts of Parliaments were in form of petitions, which the King answered at his pleasure; Now if it be the duty of the Parliament to petition, and in the power of the King to receive or reject their petitions at their will, Judge you who hath the supream power. Thus far he.

§. 35. By what hath been said, I leave it to any understanding person to judge, where the Legislative power lies, whether in the Two Houses, who most humbly beseech His Majesty (under the notion of du­tiful and loyal Subjects) for making new Laws, Or in the King, who grants their petitions, makes the Law, and ordains it to be observed, who both by the Law and a Sacred Oath, is declared and sworn to be the onely Supream Governor of the Land.

That there is no difference between a Son and Servant, to his Fa­ther and Master, and the Two Houses to the King, is clear by one oath they took, wherein they swear To bear true faith and allegiance to our Sovereign Lord the King, and by the other they acknowledge (cutting off all pretences of Co-ordination) His Majesty to be the onely Supream Governor of the Land; which implies His Lordship and Dominion over them; And they in all their Addresses and Declarations, stile themselves His dutiful and loyal subjects, (and so servants) and in rela­tion to the Kings stile of Pater Patriae, may be very well called sons too. And seeing the Two Houses imaginary Legislative power by the Laws of this Land, is not able to impower and authorize them, either to make new Laws, or to repeal old ones, without the Royal Con­sent of Majesty, it clearly follows, That their vowing to extirpate Bishops, established by Magna Charta (confirmed by 32 Acts of Par­liament, and irrepealable) was not sui Juris, it lay not in their pow­er, nor had no right to do it without His Majesties consent, and so having not that, according to Croftons own grant, the Action vowed was superseded, (and might very well be so) by His Majesties publick Proclamation, (his declared pleasure) against the taking or imposing of it, in regard it was a traiterous and seditious Vow and Covenant, and therefore null and void to all intents and purposes. But further, our Leaguer affirms, That

§. 36. Their power in this Covenant was no less Legislative, then in the Protestation of May, 1641. What doth he Jabber thus for, of non en­tities, of things that never had a being? of a Legislative power in the Two Houses, which they never had, which neither Divine nor Eng­lish Lawes ever gave them? If I should for once allow of his non-sense, and lawless Assertions, yet I should spoil his sport there too; for their power in the Covenant was not so Legislative (I speak ac­cording to the Presbyters canting tone) upon these grounds:

The Protestation was made and taken in the presence of all the Members of both Houses, and giving their free consent, it was con­fined to established Laws, had a Parliamentary authority (as it were) by His Majesties deep silence (though nigh at hand) and thereby implying His tacit consent to the doing of it, many thousands took it, who yet utterly damned the wretched Covenant, detesting it as the venome of hell, and not without just cause; But when by the Midwifery of Tumults and Armies, this devouring Brat of Abiram was brought forth, See Iudge Jenkins Lex Terrae p. 126. All men know, That of 120 Peers of the kingdom, who were Temporal Peers before the Troubles, there were not above thirty left in the Lords House, and in the House of Commons about 200 of the principal [Page 61] Gentlemen of the kingdom, left the Houses and adhered to His Majesty. The Covenant it self destructive to the former, directly contrary to above 30 Acts of Parliameat, The King himself protesting against it as far as Oxford, by his publick Proclamation, as engaging the ta­kers in Acts of high Treason; Doth our Leaguer think, that when 290 Voices are taken away out of 600, that the remaining part hath as great a power as when they were all together? Or doth he think that the Kings silence, or his Protestation doth not adde or diminish the authority of the thing sworn? But I must needs say indeed, See Crof­tons Be­rith-Anti-Baal, p. 51 Sup­positions are sufficient supports to a man of fancy, who all along this Dis­course plays at Bo-peep, begging what must never be granted while his Nose is between his eyes; which I leave him to see at large his ignorance and folly, his seditious and treasonable Principles against His Gra­cious Sovereign.

§. 37. Crofton citing out of his Analepsis, p. 12. That the two Hou­ses of Parliament are Co-ordinate and Sharers in the Legislation of Eng­land, and the Bishop asking (p. 148.) What, and can they legally exer­cise this power without, yea against the Kings consent, being out of his non­age, and not out of his wits? This furious offspring of Smec cries out, (p. [...]9.) That they may do it without the Kings consent, none do, or can deny it, common practice, with the peoples constant obedience, doth plainly manifest it; as also the Protestation of May, 1641. (never doubted as to the validity of Authority) which you say was precarious; but Resolves of the House declare to have been Authoritative; The Votes, Resolves, Orders and Ordinances of one or both Houses do proclaim it; And the Priviledges of Parliament, That the King can take no notice of what is debated or voted, ordered or acted by them, until it be by themselves formally presented unto His Majesty. And the very nature of Co-ordinate power (if the Doctor un­derstands it) with their Actings, in case of his absence by minority, or other­wise, doth determine it; As to the exercise of it against the Kings consent, I shall conclude nothing, but commend Mr. Prynn's Sovereign Power of Parliaments, to your serious study. And the Legislative power of their Votes, Debates, Resolves, Orders, or Ordinances, were never gainsaid by His Majesty.

O Lump of wickedness and sedition! What do, or can none deny that the Two Houses may exercise (that Ʋtopian Fiction, their fancied, imaginary) Legislative power without the Kings consent? Why is your lawless Assertion so true, think you, that it is past all contradiction? Alas poor Presbyter! why do you hug up your self so in your own delusions? Its pity you should go on uncontroul'd in your wild po­sitions, and therefore Ile try for once what I can say against it: [Page 62] Are the Two Houses any better then the Kings Subjects? If you say otherwise, the Law affixes the deserved name of Traytor upon your forehead; Can they convene and assemble together in the House, without the Regal Summons? Are they any more then the Kings own creature? Can they stay one minute there (when met together) to debate or consult of any thing, without His Majesties free leave? Can the creature do any thing what he please, without the Creators consent? Suppose they should (as your Long-Parliament­idol did) reproach their Sovereign, maintain five trayterous Antimo­narchists in their treason and villany, hatch a Conspiracy, and bring forth Rebellion, cannot the Creator have so much power over his for­lorn creatures, as with the breath of his mouth immediately to com­mand their speedy departure by a dissolution? Oh Crofton, Crofton, beware of the perjurious consequence, and stop your mouth, left the Ax for your treason, make no difference between your own and those heads of your fellow-rebels on London-bridge. But this is a Sco­tized Assertion, an opinion of See Bish. Garden's Anti-Baal-Berith, p. 151. Seminary Presbyters, who have been the Protoplasticks of a rebellious generation both in Church and State, & agree­able to their all along rebellious practises, & by vertue of their legisla­tive power (which our profound Lawyer saith they have) and which they may, he averrs, exercise without the Kings consent; and so by con­sequence they may rebel against their Head, kill and murther His loyal Subjects, imprison and impoverish others, take away His Im­perial Dignities and Pre-eminences from Him, seize upon His Forts, Ports, Magazines and Towns, and plague and oppress their fellow-English-men, by seizing on their goods and estates, how and in what proportion and maner they please, send armed men through perju­ry, to fight against their lawful Sovereign, leave out the defence of his person out of their Commissions, impose what cursed Leagues and Covenants they please (all actions of high treason by the known Laws of this Land) without His Majesties consent; sell and impri­son Him, until He agree to their imperious humors and demands, and Christen their Actions too (like a pack of dissembling false hypo­crites) with the title of Reformation, Loyalty, Advancing the Glory, and promoting the kingdom of Jesus Christ, yea play the devil for Gods sake, and all this they claim a right and lawful authority to do, by force and vertue of their Idoliz'd Diana, their new Goddess lately come down from Jupiter, their phanatick, frenzical whimsie of Legislative power. And because these things have been done, and justified with impudence beyond example, by See Pres­bytery Po­pish, not E­piscopacy, p. 6. a Tumultuary Rabble that pretended to be a Parliament, and their graceless adherents, therefore this Leaguer [Page 63] concludes the Lawfulness of the Act done, and the Justifiableness of re-acting the same again; But A facto ad jus, non valet argumen­tum, is an old and a true Position, To argue from the Action done, the lawfulness thereof, becomes a subtile Sophister, a Trappanner and Cheater, more then a sound Scholar or a Disputant.

As for the Two Houses Legislative power (so called) or their Co-ordinacy therein with their (by them sworn) ONELY Supream Go­vernour, I have said so much already concerning that grand delu­sive Cheat and Fiction, that a question will now be enough against it; How can the two Houses be affirmed by any (having regard to the Rules and Customes of the Realm) to have the whole, or a Co-ordinacy, or share in that, which the very Prologues to the Acts and Statutes denies them to have any right or claim to, either in Possession, or Reversion?

As for the Protestation, I told you before, Silence gives consent, and his Majesties suffering such a thing to be done by them, under his nose, without a Prohibition, argues plainly his Tacit fiat to it, but yet proves not at all their supposed Legislative power, or Coor­dinacy in the same with their Head, nor the legality of their exer­cise of it, without the Kings consent. It's true, the Bishop tells you; It was precarious and personal, upon this just Ground and Foun­dation, P. 278. That the two Houses had not power to make, or take, or impose any Oath contrary to the Laws of England, which they were trusted to ob­serve, not break, nor yet to abrogate or change, without his Majesties con­sent: And that the House of Commons have not power to require an Oath of any (except perhaps of their own Members.) And you in opposition to him affirm, That the Resolves of the House declare it to have been Au­thoritative; very good. I pray answer me then, Was not the dete­stable Rebellion against the Carolian Martyr, Resolved to be Autho­ritative too, and (O strange parcel of non-sense!) to be Loyalty, and Obedience, and in the then blinde Conscience of your profound Law­yer, to be lawful and necessary, both in point of Law and Conscience? Was not their Votes of Non-Addresses to be made or had, to or from their Supream Lord and Governour (with its immediate attendant, unmatchable perjury) Resolved to have been Authoritative too? Did they not Resolve all the Villanies, Murthers, Blasphemies, Seque­strations, Imprisonments, and utter Ruine of his Majesty, and his Noble Adherents; and in fine, all their Actions from beginning to end, to be Authoritative too? Was not his execrable and perfidi­ous Murder, Declared to have been Authoritative, when that Perjured, perjured, perjured, Infamous Lower House (next door to Hell) Decla­red [Page 64] and Adjudged, 1⁰. January, 1648 for a New-years-gift to the Nation, That by the Fundamental Laws (which was the creator of the two Houses fictious Legislative power) it is Treason in the King of England for the time being, to levy War against the Parliament and Kingdom? Was not the lawfulness of their Perjuries, and violent Murthers, Oppressions, and lawless Actings Justified, and Declared to be Autho­ritative too, when by a couple of Trayterous Votes three daies af­ter they had the impudence to tell the Nation, 1. That themselves be­ing chosen by, and representing the people, had the Supream power in the Nation; and 2. That whatsoever was Enacted or Declared for Law by the Commons in Parliament, hath the force of a Law, and the people conclu­ded thereby, though consent of King and Peers be not had thereunto? A­las, Mr. Crofton! Its not the Resolve, or Vote of a Party (much less of that dismal black Faction in the long Parliament) that can make their Treason and Rebellion, their Perjuries and Blasphemies, their unparellel'd Murthers, Violence, and Oppressions, seem the less wicked and abominable, or pretend to be more lawful and Authori­tative, either by the Divine, or English Royal Laws. It is not the Thieves justification of his action, that will any whit the more exte­nuate the nature of his horrid crimes, nor the Turbulent spirit's ap­plauding his Faction and Sedition, speaking evil of Dignities, and de­claiming against the Legal Supremacy of his Prince, and then cry out with his Brother Jehu, See my zeal for the Lord of hosts, and think that all this while he is beating down the enemies of the Lord Jesus, that will make his Rebellion less odious, or his blinde zeal without knowledge, to be ever a whit the more rewardable; but the Laws of God and man must be the Touchstone, the Judge to justifie or condemn their respective actions, according to their different waies of obedience, or neglect and refusal to obey: So that to conclude this particular, I say, Its not the Resolves of the two Houses that will make that to be lawful and Authoritative, which neither the Laws of God, nor of this Land declare to be justifiable and blameless; their Votes and Resolves you speak of, do proclaim nothing else but their matchless Treason and Rebellion.

You tell us further, That the Priviledges of Parliament, That the King can take no notice of what is debated or voted, ordered or acted, until it be by themselves Formally presented unto his Majesty; And the very na­ture of Co-ordinate power (if the Doctor understands it), (What, do you think the Doctor to be such a learned Coxcomb, such a Legislative dreamer as your self, that you question his understanding of a Co-or­dinate power, with an If?) with their actings, in case of his absence by [Page 65] Minority, or otherwise, doth determine it. What It, doth it determine? Oh! you mean, I suppose, your so much adored Diana, the Legisla­tive Fiction, placed in the two Houses. You are an egregious Ar­guer, but like all the rest of the Scotized party, arguing from the mo­mentary prosperity of an execrable Rebellion, the Legality of the Traytors actions: and because in the contriving, and devising of a Statute, the two Houses have a Priviledge excluding the Kings ta­king notice of them, till such time as it is finished, and presented for the Royal assent; (for without that, its no Law) Therefore this wilful Sophisticator concludes, or would have others believe that from thence it follows, by good consequence, That the Rebellious two Houses, after they had taken the Oathes of Allegiance and Supre­macy, (which bound them to assist and defend the King against all his enemies) might by vertue of their Legislative whimsie, take and im­pose a Negative Oath, and stoutly swear (with Perjury in their bra­zen brows) not to assist the Forces raised by their Gracious Sove­reign, for his own defence, against his Rebels, against the Trea­sons and villanies of themselves, who had the face without his pre­sence or consent, to call themselves A Parliament; That they might by vertue of such Priviledges raise a Rebellion, and swear to extir­pate the Legal established Government of the Church, justifie their Members in their Conspiracies and mischiefs, send armed men a­gainst their Prince, to fight with, and shoot at him and his Loyal Subjects, and other Abominations not to be parellelled (like their Matchless Covenant) and all this without, and against the Kings con­sent; because, as I have said, they have a Priviledge to be free in their debates and consultations about the devising of a New, or re­pealing of an Old Law, without the Kings taking notice of it, until such time as they present it to him for his Fiat. Truely, Sir Pres­byter, you are fitter a great deal to dispute with Females, with a rod of Correction in your hand, then to prate with a Reverend Prelate with such shallow arguments as these, which discovers nothing else, but the Authors folly on the one side, as well as his high imperious spirit on the other. As for their Co-ordinacy in the Legislative power, (which our godly Rebel jabbers so much of) and their act­ings, in case of his Majesties absence, by Minority, or otherwise, which he fondly supposeth doth determine the truth of his bold frantick assertion: If the (I say so) of himself will be taken for a sufficient proof thereof, the business then I must confess is clear, be­yond any contradiction; but that they cannot Legally act any thing (for I do not come here to contradict the prosperous Rebels actions [Page 66] when they hold the murthering sword of lawless Treasons and mur­thers in their hands, instead of the sword of Justice, but I say, that they cannot Legally act any thing) in the time of the Regal Minority, without a Protector, nor in the interim of his absence, without De­puted Nobles under the great Seal (both which are purposely appoint­ed to supply the place of such Regal absence for the time) is mani­fested plainly by what I have already said, and, in my weak judge­ment, so clear a truth, that it is not in the power of any Factious Presbyter to contradict me, that keeps in the way of verity; and therefore I shall not trouble my Reader with any further answer of it.

Well; We have seen now the Presbyters Allegations concern­ing the two Houses exercise of the Legislative Fiction, without the Kings consent; and weighing them in the ballance of right Reason, and Laws, and Customes of the Realm, have found them to be too light and weak to bear that stress and burthen, which our filthy Dream­ers lay upon them. I'le now try what he saith of those Long-Par­liament-Legislative Thieves exercise, of their whimsie against the Kings consent: and here we finde him foreseeing a palpable Trea­son, in asserting an Affirmative Proposition; and yet that we may perceive his willingness to have an Affirmative maintained, he thus breaths forth his doubtful fancy: As to the exercise of it against the Kings consent, I shall conclude nothing, but commend Mr. Pryn's Sove­reign power of Parliaments to your serious study. What a Seditious minde, and Treacherous heart this Crofton is possessed of? We are beholding to a wise King, and a lawful Parliament, for his avoiding of his Cackling, and concluding of nothing in the case at this time. His faint-hearted seeming Negation of the Legality of those Re­bels exercise of their Usurpation, is just like the Olivarian-Machia­velian-Pro-Traytors denial of the Kingly Title, even full sore against his will: He would not say AY, for fear an Ax, or an Halter might presently attend him; nor won't say NO neither, lest his seared Conscience should look him in the face, and contradict him with a Truth, That a Negative, was by No means agreeable with his Clas­sical rebellious spirit; and therefore very cunningly commends ano­ther mans unreasonable Jangling (as full of Treason and Rebelli­on, as a Toad is of poyson) to the Bishops study. If he had com­mended it to the Bishops, and every mans study, and detestation, and abhorrency thereof, when they had read it, as well as indigna­tion against the Treasonable venome of the Authors heart, he had spoke more truth, then a Presbyter is wont to do. What that book [Page 67] is, and how worthy to be Commended to a Bishops reading and study, I leave to every one to conclude something (seeing Crofton will conclude nothing) by that just Sentence and Condemnation, which the learn­ed Mr. Duncomb (upon ferious study thereof) past in these words a­gainst both the Author, and the Book it felf. His book (saith he See his Royal buckler, or a Lecture to Traytors p. 240.) is such a Rhapsody of non-sense, a bundle of Rebellion and Treason, a Pam­phlet so Seditious, Pernicious, Sophistical, Jesuitical, Trayterous, and Scur­rilous, that I want Mr. Pryn's Epethites to give his own book its deserved odium. Truely, I must needs say, That the Author of that heady, Trayterous discourse, (who (as the same judicious person saith) set­teth P. 243. the body above the head, maintaineth that the two Houses, or the Major part, have the Sovereign power, may act without the King, levy War against him, and kill him too, by defending themselves) hath very little or no cause to return thanks to his Seditious Brother, for the courtesie he hath done him, to conclude nothing in the argument him­self, but commend the others Book to his Reverend Antagonists serious study, the true English whereof, amounts but to this conclu­sion, I dare not maintain such a Treasonable Position as that my self, for fear of having my reward on a block, or a Triple tree; but I'le commend a book to you, wherein it is asserted and justified, and made known to the world by a deluding Trap-door of the Sovereign power of Parliaments. Its but a sad commendation of Mr. Prynne (especially from a Brother of the Sacred Covenanting Tribe too) to do as good as tell the world, that his Book is the Store-house of Seditious, and Treasonable Principles; The Shop to furnish others with what, and as much as the Rebel plea­ses; For if the justification of an Affirmative in the controverted point, be not to be found in that putrid, loathsom hospital of Tray­terous diseases, in that which the deluding Author was pleased to term, The Sovereign power of Parliaments, To what end or purpose do we hear of a Citation, or Commendation thereof to the serious Study of his Reverend Opponent? And if it be therein justified, (as who doubts but it is?) the Conclusion that I have made, doth naturally flow from the Premisses; and therefore I say, how much the one is bound to thank the other, I leave to both their considerations to decide the controversie between themselves at their next meeting; and in the mean time seeing this man of fancy, our windy Croftonian disputant, doth as it were in the dark, confess the truth of a Negative herein. I shall proceed to his next Dream, where he Magisterially affirms, That

The Legislative power of their Votes, Debates, Resolves, orders, or Or­dinances were never gainsaid by His Majesty. Here's a rare spiritual man for you now, one that peremptarily determines a notorious falsity [Page 68] for a truth; And what an incomparable mistake it is, His Majesties own words shall make appear: In his noble Answer to the 19 Ty­ranical Propositions of those Legislative Traytors, p. 1. (who so of­ten have made it their Godly work to establish iniquity by a Law) we finde him declaring, and telling of the English Nation of those pious Theives having thought fit to remove a troublesom Rub in their way, The Law; To this end (saith he) (That they might undermine the very foun­dations of it) A new Power hath bin assumed to interpret and declare Laws without us by extemporary Votes (mark) without any case judicially, be­fore either House (which is in effect the same thing as to make Laws without us) Orders and Ordinances made onely by both Houses, (tending to a pure Arbitary power) were pressed upon the people as Laws, and their obedience Required to them; Their next step was to erect an upstart authority without us (in whom, and onely in whom the Laws of this Realm have placed that power) to command the Militia, by a See his Majesties Speech to them, July 21. 1642. In Reli­quiae sacrae Carolinae. pre­tended Ordinance, which His Majesty told the Knights, Gentry, and Freeholders of the County of Lincoln, That ‘as the same was against the known Laws, and an invasion of his unquestionable right, and of their liberty and property, so I do now declare (saith the Sacred Speaker) That the same is imposed upon you, against my express consent, and in contempt of my Regal Authority, And I doubt not, but you will sadly consider, That if any Authority without, and against my consent, may lawfully impose such burthens upon you, it may likewise take away all that you have from you, and subject you to their lawless arbitrary power and government; At another time telling the Gentry, &c. of Leicester of his de­fending their Religion, their Liberties, their Laws with his life, I mean (See his Majesties Speech to them, July 20. 1642. saith he) the good known Laws of the Land, not Ordinances without my consent, which till within these twelve moneths was ne­ver heard of from the foundation of this kingdom)’ In his message from Oxford to those insinuating serpents at Westminster of the 12^th of April 1643, he justly terms the Declarations, Ordinances or Or­ders of one or both Houses illegal: And lastly (not to tire my readers patience too much) His Majesty was pleased to tell the inhabitants of Flint and Denbigh at Wrexham, That See his Speech to them, Sep. 27. 1642. By their power (i. e. that of the housed Rebels) the Law of the Land (their birth-right) is tram­pled upon, and instead thereof (saith he) they govern my people by Votes and arbitrary Orders. These I finde in those very few pieces of his late Glorious Majesty, which I have had the happiness to take a cursory view of, and yet enough to set forth Crofton in his proper dark colours, to evince the Regal gainsaying of the Legislative power [Page 69] (as our Presbyters nickname the Chimaeraes of their braines) of the Two Houses illegal, extemporary, and arbitrary, lawless Votes and Or­ders, which as it was the sole intent in my Citation, so they are an apparent proof of the notorious falshood of Croftons heady affirma­tion, and perverse disputings; Who sees not that his Seditious, and 2 Tim. 6. 5 Rebellious principles declare him to be a man of a corrupt mind? Who perceives not that his emitting to the English Nation his Legislative falshoods, do make apparent, that he is also destitute of the truth, and too much inclined to dreames and fancies?

§. 38. The Doctor having justly termed ‘Croftons urging by a Presbyterian pertness the present Kings taking the Oath in Scot­land, p. 149. bold and odious, no less then fallacious:’ Crofton cries out, p. 24. How bold and odious soever it may seem, none but a proud Pashur and shameless Shemaiah (Who is the Raker in the puddle of Rayling now O Presbyter?) could count it odious in Jeremiah to say to the King, Keep the Oath, and thou shalt be delivered (Observe his Trai­terous and shameless addition) from that distress, which may too late ingage His Majesty to send to his faithful Monitor to pray for him; Good­ly! Goodly! how delicate sweet rebellion smells in the nostrils of a Covenanter? What damnable Seditious spirits possesses them with the impudence of threatning distress to his Sacred Majesty for not keeping of that National plague, the Covenant? He that can make any other of this, then Sedition, let him lend me his spectacles; I wonder what day or hour it is, wherein these Sacred Covenanters may be found deficient in their endeavors of See the slight hea­lers of pub­lique hurts p. 29. drawing on Rebel­lion, perjury, innocent bloodshed and Sacriledge with the shoeing-horns of Religion and Reformation, of setting up the Gospel of Peace with unguentum armarium, the sword of war? Our Canting Presbyter not onely threatens His Majesty with distress, but also by his venemous speeches implies the approach of mischief, when it will be too late for His Majesty to send to him to pray for him; Nothing is to be looked for here but destruction, and damnation hereafter it seemes, if that brat and spawn of the serpent (that primary deluding rebel) the Covenant (which being hatched in Sacriledge and Rebellion, was at length brought forth into the world in blood and confusion) be not carefully looked to and provided for; See Arch­bishop Bancrofts, dangerous posi­tions. p. 51. Those Kingdoms and States, who defend any Church-Government save this of Pastors, Doctors, Elders, and Deacons, are in danger of utter destruction, says Martin Ju­nior in the time of Queen Elizabeth. The Parliament in her time, for tolerating of Bishops in stead of their new Government, were told by others of the then factious party, p. 50. That they shall be in danger [Page 70] of the terrible mass of Gods wrath, both in this life, and in the life to come, and that if they did not then abrogate the Government by Bishops, well they might hope for the favor and entertainment of Moses (that is the Curse of the Law) but the favor and loving countenance of Jesus Christ, they should not see, nor never enjoy. Birds of a feather will flock together, all Cuckoe-like singing the same tune of destruction & distress to their Sovereign Princes, if they will not bow down and worship the Golden Calf of their Presbytery; But why too late, Mr. Crofton? Is not the Murther of one King enough, but you must harp upon the Rebel­lion against, Imprisonment, and godly consequential murther of an­other? Satia te sanguine Cyre; More Gun-powder Mines still to blow up Regality? Is there another Rebellion a contriving amongst the Saints, that must needs have Sata as canonizing stamp upon't? Too late! Are you in serious Combination with the party, to stir up an execrable Rebellion against the Son for his ruine in this world, as formerly your Cursing party did against His Martyr'd Father? And all for not keeping of an Antimonarchical horrid Confederacy and Conjuration, called, The Solemn League and Covenant, These expres-pressions deserve a sharper Answer then my Pen is able to make, be­ing filled brim-full of covenanting-rebellious Malice.

But why Faitful Monitor? You live far from neighbors sure, that you are fain to crown your seditious pate with laurels of praise for a Faithful Monitor, which is as fit for you, as a Saddle is for a Sows back, or the Epethite of Godly was for the peerless Cut-throats of the Ca­rolian Martyr; He that was so impudent as to tell the King to his face, He was a Tyrant, Traytor, Murderer, and a publique and implacable enemy to the Common-wealth, was just such another Faithful Monitor as your self: But for what? meerly for the chastising and crucifying of both. But what must His Majesty send to him for? why it seems to pray for him. Alas gude Covenanter! what are all your prayers but for the de­struction of Princes, and stirring up their subjects to rebel against them, if they will not preserve your hellish Trap-door, and as the ends of that, set up and maintain your Trojan Horse of Ecclesiastical Discipline? Their worth are weighed down with a nut-shel, if they be like those which are in your Book; which prayer of yours, and your practise (like true religion, and your irreligious destructive Co­venant) at at drawn swords with each other, even in the very wri­ting of a few sheets of paper? They had need of a bird (as the saying is) that give a groat for an Owl; They must needs be in great want of prayers sure, who send to such a bold confident Kirker as you for that end, who can one while cry, The Lord deliver me from rendring rayling [Page 71] for rayling, and yet rayl your self for several times, in several pages, against that very person whom you so strangely exclaim against for the very same thing, which clearly manifests an [...], a notorious self-condemnation, and brings you within the reach and lash of the Apostles sentence, which in his Epistle to the Romans he pronounces with a Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, who ever thou Rom. 2. 1. art, that judgest, for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thy self, for thou that judgest, dost the same things.

§. 39. But Crofton hath not done yet, but continues belching forth his own wickedness and folly against the Reverend Prelate, with a Page 51. Thus he supposeth the Two Houses into a non-entity as to their Supream Legislative power by the temper they were Page 52 then in, and the absence of the King, though they were animated by an express Statute Law, which some upon good grounds and reasons (beyond the reach of Dr. Gauden or little Mr. Crofton to resolve) have openly averred to continue them yet in being. And thus he profoundly supposeth a Parliament, swearing qua Parliament, in the fullest formality and profession of their National capacity, was a personal Covenanting. Bless me! what doth this Presbyter prattle thus for of things (he lets us know by his fanciful jabbering) he hath no more skill or knowledge in, then his neer acquaintance, the Ass? The man is out of his element sure; he is got into a wrong way, and fan­cies to himself that he's going the direct right way on to his journeys end, and therefore Ile do what lies in my power to manifest his er­ror and mistake unto him; And therefore first, Doth the Doctor suppose such a thing? Doth he suppose nothing to be nothing, that to be a non-entity which never had a being! A terrible cause indeed of a Presbyters exclamation! for we finde, that the Supream Legislative Bauble of the Two Houses, is the very, very Loadstone that draws up a sanctified Puritans zeal and affection to them, to shew us a Presbyters inclinations more to fictions and whimsies, then to those which are visible undoubted Truths; Supream! What Gimcrack, or New-no­thing have we got here? That the Body should be affirmed to be a­bove the Head? The Legs, Arms, and Trunk of the Body indeed (as Judge Jenkins See his Lex Terrae p. 49. saith) are greater then the Head, and yet not above, nor with life without it. Certainly the man hath a mind to show the profound depth of his skill in Corah's art of murmuring and rebellion against the Supremacy of the Prince and Priest. He tells us of an Observation in his Book, That it hath been the fatal chance of the Bishops of England, Page 25. to run themselves into a premunire. If he speak of any since the Refor­mation, I defie him to show me one example of any Protestant Bishop that ever since then proved disloyal, either in words or actions, to [Page 72] either King or Queen, except Bishop Williams, when he began in his old age to dote, and lean too much on that rotten prop of Pres­bytery, which taught him to fortifie his House against his Gracious Sovereign; I do not mean those pretended premunire's for which the incomparable Laud was so infamously murthered, nor by which sundry others of the Royal Adherents were the very same way dealt withal, as Traytors against His Majesty, and the Bauble (which they call'd The Parliament) for assisting him, by that Black Cabale, that Assembly of Treacherous Men before, in, and after the year 1644. But certainly there's none but can observe, the Presbyters Loyalty is good enough, when they are deficient in power, that is to say, when they cannot help it; for it is as clear as noon-day, that a Puritan ne­ver wants a will to rebel, if he hath at any time any power and op­portunity, and that the Magistrate refuse to set up the Consistorian Slavery, which made the Learned Dr. Pierce cry out, See his Self-Re­venger ex­emplified, p. 100. Blessed and happy is that Nation, where such mens Loyalty consisteth in their want of power or opportunity to make resistance. In good earnest Mr. Crofton, Ile for once make answer by a retortion, and ask you your own que­stions (you so weakly and impertinently (to say no worse) propoun­ded Page 25. to the Bishop) ‘Sir, have you not stretcht too far, and stept into a premunire? I should fear to be made less by the head, as guilty of Treason, Sedition at the least, should I thus confront the King and Loyal Parliaments, in what all their Statutes and an Oath of Supremacy declare to be the peculiar Prerogative of the King?’ And that they do so, need no further demonstration then that which follows, even the words of the Lord Chief Baron (now Lord Chief Justice) Bridgeman, in his Speech to the Grand Jury at the Regicides Tryal, where we thus finde his learned Language; ‘Gentlemen, Let me tell you what our Law-books say, for there's the ground out of which (and the Statutes together) we must draw all our conclusions for matter of Government. How do they stile the King? They call him, The Lieutenant of God, and many other expressions in the Book of Primo Henrici Septimi. Says that Book there, The King is immediate from God, and hath no Superior. The Statute says, That the Crown of England is immediately subject to God, and to no other power. The KING (say our Books) He is not onely Caput Populi, the Head of the People, but Caput Reipublicae, the Head of the Commonwealth, the Three Estates; And truly thus our Statutes speak very fully; common experience tells you, when we speak of the KING, and so the Statutes of Edward the Third, we call the King, Our Sovereign Lord the King: Sovereign, [Page 73] That is, Supream. And when the Lords and Commons in Parlia­ment apply themselves to the King, they use this expression, Your Lords and Commons, your faithful subjects humbly beseech; I do not speak any words of mine own, but the words of the Laws: Stat. 24. Hen. 8 cap. 12. Whereas by divers, sundry, old, authentique Histories and Chro­nicles, it is manifestly declared and expressed, That this Realm of England is an Empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one Supream Head and King, having the Dignity and Royal Estate of the Imperial Crown of the same, &c. 25 Hen. 8. cap. 21. There it is the people speaking of themselves, That they do Recognize no Superior under God but the Kings Grace.’ Thus that learned Person.

To the Judge, let me add Mr. Duncomb, who telling us, See his Royal buckler, or a Lecture to Traytors p. 108. That the Law of Nature shall perish, and the heavens and earth shall pass away before Lex Terrae, the Law of the Land shall deny this Oracle, Omnis sub Rege, & ipse sub nullo nisi tantum sub Deo, All men are under the King, and the King is under none but God. This (saith he) is that divine Sentence, Quod nec Jovis ira nec ignis, nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas, which neither angry Jove, nor fiery Vulcan, neither devouring Age, nor bloody sword, a worse devourer then that, shall ever expunge out of our Law-books, or explode out of the memory of every pious man. Thus he.

Bracton cited by the Reverend and Learned Judge Jenkins, tells us, Rex non habet parem in Regno suo, That the King hath not an equal in his kingdom; if not an Equal, then certainly no Superior, and so by consequence shows the fiction of the Two Houses Supremacy. There hath been so much already cited for the Supremacy of His Sacred Majesty over all persons in his Dominions, by Judge Jenkins, Mr. Diggs, and several others, that I need not trouble the Reader with any more repetitions thereof, but refer the dissatisfied to their se­veral Writings, and conclude this point with a word or two concer­ning the Oath of Supremacy, which every Member of the two Hou­ses must take before he sits in the House, or else according to Law, he stands a person to all intents and purposes, as if he had never bin elected or returned; which clearly declares the King to be the onely Supream Governor of this Realm, and of all other His Highness Do­minions and Countreys, as well in all Spiritual and Ecclesiastical things (or causes) as temporal, and so certainly by undeniable conse­quence, over the Two Houses in Parliament causes; For why was the exclusive Particle Onely inserted, but to cut off all pretences of co-ordinacy or share in the Regal Supremacy? And truly if he be Supream, there is neither Major, nor Superior, saith the Learned Lord Bridgeman in [Page 74] his Speech aforesaid. Was this Oath (think you Mr. Crofton) com­posed by the Lords and Commons in Parliament, in the time of Qu. Elizabeth, and at their suit by Eliz. c. 1 Act of Parliament made high Trea­son 5 Eliz. c. 1 for a subject to deny to take it, for to be evaded and treasonably denied, & the subject matter thereof ascribed to the Subjects them­selves, who were fain to take it, ere they could have the least colour or pretence, perjuriously to claim or usurp it from the rightful owner, and this too by such a Shadow of a Disputant as your fanciful self, who have armed your self with so much confidence, to bawl out these seditious Assertions, which deserve nothing else but the utmost ri­gor of the Law for a confutation? Nothing but self-condemnation? No other way left you to save your credit, but by writing sedition, and throwing your poison'd darts of malice against your Superiors, for the pretended denial of that, the truth whereof your own whim­sical self is found to be a real disclaimer? Cannot you dig a pit for another, but you must presently fall into it your self? These shabbed courses of yours, forces me to deal with you by a retortion, and ask you once again some more of your own questions, Where is, Sir, the Kings Prerogative over all persons in all causes? What is become of the Oath of Supremacy? Hath a Gracious King lately pardoned you, and your De­linquent party for your former misdemeanors, really to debase, nay dethrone Him by your impudent and traiterous entituling his sworn Subjects with His Onely Supremacy? Truly, Sir, I cannot blame you much now for your words in your Preface, where you tell us, That side 2. having animadverted this Anti-Baal-Berith (i. e. the Bishops Book) you finde a necessity to apologize for the very act of your Animadversion, and fear nothing more then to be bound to your good behavior, in misbehaving your self so much as to answer (not according to what your confidence helped you to prate, A fool according to his folly, wherein you may seem like unto him, but) a learned reverend Prelate with whole mouth-fuls of sedition and rebellion, wherein you are the perfect image of all the traiterous Conspirators that have been before you; why else do you divide non dividenda? make a division in that wherein none without perjury, ought or can be? make two sharers and partners in the Supremacy, which the legal Oath and Statute-Laws of this Realm (by which we must steer our course, and not by your horrible frightful dreams) declare to centre, and to be the peculiar right and Sovereignty of one alone, and that inseparable from his person too? The goodly aim and end of all your Jabbering for the Two Houses co-ordinacy in the Supremacy, is but to fulfil the Martyrs words, See Ei­kon Basi­like in 24. P. 47. That the Majesty of the Kings of England might hereafter hang like Ma­homets [Page 75] Tomb by a Magnetick charm, between the power and priviledges of the Two Houses in an airy imagination of Regality.

But the Two Houses usurpation of the Supremacy, it seems will not serve Mr. Croftons turn, if they cannot swallow up the Legislative power too from the Royal Owner; In his Analepsis p. 12. he called them then onely Co-ordinate and Sharers in the Legislation of England, now he grasps for the Suprem Legislative power alone for those long Par­liament Legislative theives, (that made it their precious saintly work to make their strength the Law of Justice,) robb and pillage and murder the Subjects of their Soveraign, by their cursed illegal Orders, quirkes and devices: and then show them the Law of their uncontrou­lable atheistical wills for it, sic volo, sic jubeo, stat proratione voluntas; I am perswaded the man hath a huge fancy to go higher and higher in his Seditious and treasonable language, till he comes to make his last as­cent at the Sacred Gallowes, or else he dreams with the Fifth kingdom Rebels, That notwithstanding any thing he saith or doth, yet that not a hair of his head shall perish. I shall not stand long upon answering him in this fiction and dream of his, but shall quickly dispatch him, by adding to what I have upon this point already said, that which now imme­diately followes; And therefore for that which he termes the Legi­slative power, (and because he is just like the Cuckoe repeating over and over, one and the same thing to lengthen his Book) Let's hear a little what Justice Hide told the Blackening Regicide Harison, at his Tryal in the Old Bayly. I am sorry (saith he) that any man should have the face and boldness to deliver such words as you have. You and all must know That the King is above the Two Houses; They must propose their Laws to him; The Laws are made by him and not by them; by their con­senting, but they are His Laws.

That either or both Houses, or any assembly or people in this, or any other Nation Governed by Monarchy, hath, or ever claimed (saith See the Royallists defence. p. 39. another in 1648.) to have a Legislative power, or so far to represent the Kingdom, as to make new Laws, and change the old, without the personal consent of the King (as they must certainly have, if what Croftons dreaming fancy suggests to him be true, That they have the Supream Legislative power) is such a ridiculous Bull, as never was heard or thought of until this frantick Parliament: Therefore when either or both Houses, without the King, take upon them to make Laws, they extend beyond the bounds of their Commission, they thereby act of their own head, not as Representatives. And as he saith in another place, p. 109. These things are done by the Members, not in their Politick, but in their Natural capacities; they are not Acts of Par­liament, but unlawful Facts of Parliament men. Thus that Author.

If he be King of a kingdom (saith ^g Mr. Duncomb) then all the people joyntly or severally in his kingdom, are under his command, and if under his command, then he onely hath power to give them Laws, be they in one Col­lective body, as in Parliament at the Kings House, or Simple bodies, at their private dwellings. Le Roy fait les Leix avec le consent du Seig­neurs et Communs, et non pas les Seigneurs et Communs avec le consent du Roy, Is the voice of the Common Law, the King makes Laws in Parliament, with the consent of the Lords and Commons, and not the Lords and Commons, with the consent of the King.

The Lords and Cowmons have power onely to propound and advise, it is onely the Kings Le Roy le vieult, which makes the Law; their Proposi­tions and advice signifie nothing, if the King saith, Le Roy se Avisera. It would be strange if the Assembly of the Subjects together, should make them Masters over their Sovereign, who gave them power to assemble, and hath power to turn them home again when he pleaseth. Legum ac Edictorum probatio aut publicatio, quae in Curia vel Senatu fieri solet, non arguit imperii Majestatem in Senatu vel Cu­ria inesse, saith Bodin, De Repub. lib. 1. cap. 8. The publish­ing and approbation of Laws and Edicts, which is made ordinarily in the Court of Parliament, proves not the Majesty of the State to be in the said Court or Parliament; It is the Kings Scepter which giveth force to the Law, and we have no Law, but what is his will. Thus far he.

That there is enough already cited to prove, that all our Presbyters prating about the two Houses Co-ordinacy and share, (and yet their Supremacy too) in the Legislative power, Observe this puddle of Treason­able, Law­less contra­dictions, but Sharers in a thing, and yet Su­pream, which ad­mits of no Co-ordina­cy. are meer nullities (as King James told Cardinal Perron See his Defence of the Right of Kings, p. 14. upon another account) Chimerical pro­jects, matters of a floating imagination, and built upon false pre-suppositi­ons, is evident enough to my shallow understanding, whatever it may be to those of deeper reach; and unless Mr. Crofton thought he should meet with none but Notorious blockheads P. 195. more blunt witted then a Whetstone (as King James tells the Presbyters Compeer the Cardinal upon the Common account, for the Popes and Disciplini­arians power over Kings) he would never have endeavoured to [Page 77] draw people to believe by his perswasion, that the two Houses are not onely Co-ordinate and sharers, but also rightful owners of the Su­pream Legislative power. But that I may hasten to a final period of my discourse, I shall in order thereunto consider Mr. Croftons ready consent to that Seditious Book, which the Dreaming Author enti­tused, The long Parliament revived, set forth by his Sacred Malignant Brother Drake, under the disguised name of Thomas Phillips; which first implies the Seditious and Treasonable nature of the subject matter of it, and his being ashamed, or at lest fearful to own or a­vow, by setting his right name to it. And then Secondly, his carry­ing on his Factious ends and purposes with colourable pretences of Loyalty, according to the constant practise of the Covenanting Par­ty, (See Pres. bytery Po­pish, not Episcopacy P. 7. The credit of whose false Doctrine (is well enough known from Dan to Beersheba) was the very leaven, wherewith the people were first moulded into a sour lump of armed malice against their Sovereign;) for he knew well enough, nothing could be more destructive to his Majesties interest, then that Pestiferous Pamphlet he then set forth, which being Examined by the Lords and Commons in Parliament in the moneth of November, 1660. was found (as the Journal saith) to be Scanda'ous and Seditious, and a charge by them ordered to be drawn up a­gainst the Author, and the Book to be burned by the hand of the Common Hangman. So easie and usual is it for Presbyters to gainsay the truth of what upon serious consideration of the whole loyal body of the Lords and Commons in Parliament, was voted Seditious, and to be burnt by the hands of Sacred Doctor Dunne, (the only Phisician for a certain infallible cure of a Covenanters brainsick disease of Sediti­on and Rebellion:) and yet so ready to brand others with the black mark of Malignant, Popish vipers, Illiterate, Ignorant, Injudicious Court Doctors and Lawyers, and Anti-Parliamental Momusses, who should so far dare to be honest, as to resist a Covenanter, in standing up in the defence of the good old English Laws, and rejecting and disa­lowing of the Legislative power (so called) of the Illegal Arbitrary Votes and Orders of that unparellel'd Rebellious Faction in the two Houses of that Long Parliament, which is so Seditiously affirmed to be Revived, to embrew the Nation again in Treason and Rebellion, in Murther and King-killing, for the enlargement of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. As for his disloyal fancy of the Long-Parliament-Rebels continuance (nothwithstanding the Murder of their Onely Supream Head and Governour) let him but read Judge Jenkins at large proving before the Regicide, what I shall give now but the heads of in brief, ^k That the two Houses did not then act by the Kings [Page 78] Writ, but contrary unto it, and so their Acts were null. That the Act for continuing the Parliament so long as both houses please, is void; because it is, First, Against Common right, for thereby Parliament men will not pay their debts; and they may do wrong to others Impune: besides the ut­ter destruction of all mens actions who have to do with Parliament men, by the Statute of Limitations, 21. Jac. Secondly, Against Common rea­son; for Parliaments were made to redress publick grievances, not to make them. Thirdly, Impossible, the death of his Majesty For the King was then alive. (whom God long pre­serve) dissolving it necessarily. Fourthly, Repugnant to the Act for a Tri­ennial Parliament, and to the Act for holding a Parliament once a year: That the end of continuing that Parliament, was to raise Credit for three purposes. That those ends were ended: take away the end, and the means thereto are to no purpose; and therefore the three ends of the Act being de­termined, it agreeth with Law and Reason, the Act should end, the Law re­jecting things unprofitable and useless. That the Writ of Summons, was the Basis and Foundation of the Parliament; that those men would be cal­led a Parliament, having abated, quashed, and made nothing of the Writ whereby they were Summoned and Assembled; that if the Writ be made void, the Process is void also. That that house must needs fall, where the Foundation is overthrown; that Sublato Fundamento, opus cadit, the Foundation being taken away, the work falls, is both a Maxime in Law and Reason. And let him but seriously meditate on the Arguments used by the learned Author of the Royalists defence, to prove, that The persons at Westminster, who call themselves the Parliament of England, are not the two Houses, nor so much as Members of the Parliament, and then tell me whether he is of Drakes minde still, That the Long-Op­pressive Tyrants, are yet in continuance, and not legally dissolved by their cursed Regicide. Nay, Mr. Prynne himself (whom he stiles by an Emphasis, That Profound Lawyer) is clearly against him, and Drake too, not onely holding with Judge Jenkins, their Legal dis­solution by the Kings Martyrdom, but also tells us, That the Kings Personal absence from his Parliament heretofore, and of late, was reputed very prejudicial to it: and his calling away some Lords, great Officers, and other Members from it, in his life time, a high way to its present Dissoluti­on, which also gives a Bastinado, and word of Correction to Crof­tons frantick denial of the Kings Presence or his absence, to add or ab­stract to the Authority of Parliament. Mr. Prynne, Lawyer-like, tells us also in another place, That the Act for the continuance of the Long-Perjured Treasonable Plotters, and Contrivers of Murther, Sacriledge, Treason, and Rebellion, was made by the King, as their Sovereign Lord, Declaring and Enacting (mark that) and the Lords and [Page 79] Commons as joyntly assenting thereunto, which absolutely confounds Croftons other Whimsie of the two Houses Supream Legislative power. See his True and perfect Narrative, Page 27, 37. Buzze! Buzze! Mr. Crofton, Where are you? Do you honour a person so far, as to adorne him with the Epethite of Profound, and yet not believe him, but go on in your simplicity, breathing forth deceit (the folly of fools) when he hath done you the honour of a Profound Confutati­on? Surely, you minde so much his Sovereign power of Parliaments, which he wrote in the time that his Zeal without knowledge had overpowred him, (because pleasant and delectable reading for your Seditious minde) that you care not for considering his subsequent Treatises, which be sent forth into the world, when the Puritanical zeal began to leave him. And thus Mr. Crofton supposeth the two Houses into a Non-Entitie, as to their damnable Treasons, and E­normous Practises by the temper they were then in; by their being Parliament men, and having some certain Priviledges, which were not time after time answered by the Royal Grant, to learn them Absaloms Trepan of Rebellion against their King, with a Sacred Covenant betwixt their teeth, nor yet to teach them to be unparellel'd Sedi­tious Corah's, under a visard and masque of Sanctity: And thus he sup­poseth the two Houses into an Entitie, as to their yet Legal conti­nuance by vertue of their being animated by an express Statute Law, which one openly averring to continue them yet in being, was imme­diately sought after and caught, and by an Order of the whole Bo­dy of the two Houses, was Voted Seditious, and his openly averring to be burnt by the New-turn'd Presbyter, Doctor Dunne.

But Crofton hath another dart to shoot at the Bishops, but its so pittiful blunt and dull, that let him aim never so well at his mark, yet there's no great fear of hurt to be received by it, and what should it be but this; And thus he (i. e. the Bishop) profoundly supposeth a Par­liament swearing qua Parliament in the fullest formality, and profession of their National Capacity was a personal Covenanting:) Say ye so? The Bishop did but (as you say) plainly suppose the former, but you tell us he doth profoundly suppose this latter; And why pray now is it such a profound supposition? Because the Bishop affirmes the swear­ing of the Absolonian Tribe, the factious part of the Two bloody Houses without and against the consent of Majesty to be but a per­sonal Covenanting (for that the true English of the Bishops undeni­able assertion?) Tis a profound cavil indeed of yours, I must con­fess; Certainly the Bishop might well suppose your black Cabale in­to a non-entity by that one Law, The Petition of Right as to their le­gal [Page 80] swearing without his Majesties consent as easily and truly, as as­sert this irrefrageable proposition that the Body cannot act with­out the Head; But because the prattles of a Parliament swearing qua Parliament (as if he would out face the Sun with his mistakes and juglings) I shall bring this subsequent counter-poyson, as an Antidote against the venom infused by an ungodly seditious pack of Puritanical knaves, into the peoples minds to keep them fast to themselves against their Prince, with Treasonable delusive princi­ples, and that is, first, The Two Houses when every one met toge­ther and assembled in the House (much less your remaining half of them) are not a Parliament (but onely a part thereof) without the Kings presence or concurrence; And secondly, That this Belials brat (the Covenant) was sworn and taken by but a part of them too, when the rest were (like Loyal Subjects) gone out of their bloody denns to the service of their Master, and so the meaning of his words bears but this diminutive conclusion, That the Covenant was taken, and sworn but by a sad part of a part of a Legal Parlia­ment, which verifies the words of the learned Judge Jenkins, That by the abuse and misunderstanding of this word Parliament you and your cross grain party, have miserably deceived the people. That the Bishop supposeth the swearing of the rotten putrified members, the stinking part of a part of a rightful Parliament (who were tainted above mea­sure with Treason and Rebellion) without the consent, and concur­rence therein of the Onely Supream Legislator, to be but a personal Covenanting, (and what can we term a Covenant sworn without, and against authority but personal, and with the due Epethite Rebel­lious annexed unto it?) I am ready enough to grant you; See p. 51. of Crofton Book. But that the Bishop doth any where affirm a Parliament swearing qua Parlia­liament (that is the King and all the Lords and Commons) to be but a personal Covenanting, Is the Sophistical groundless inference of him who knoweth the Bishop doth not so much as mention it; but give a Pres­byter an inch, and he will be sure to take an ell; If the King gives him but Liberty of Conscience in the wearing, or not wearing of a Surplice in all Churches, and places throughout the Nation, excepting his own Royal Chappel, Cathedrals, and both the Ʋniversities, they must have the Customary Rigor suspended, and Liberty of Conscience allowed them there too, or else all the fat's in the fire, their queazy stomachs cannot bear it, and their Consciences (poor harmless lambs!) they think wilbe thereby over burdened and oppressed, but let truth come somewhat might them for once (which hath bin such a stranger to them) and tell them to their faces, That they have pos­sessed [Page 81] themselves of Cauterized Consciences, that are oppressed with ☜ the sight of a garment, and eased with the practice of sedition, which stumble at strawes and swallow a Camel, that cannot away with a piece of Holland, and yet make no bones of Rebellion, who can by no meanes endure to bow at the name of Jesus, and yet fall down and worship their own Inventions; And thus Mr. Crofton profoundly sup­poseth, That a bloody faction of the Two Houses swearing an Oath without, and against the concurrence of their Princely Head, had a Parliamentary Authority to make their Oath legal, and themselves that took it, to be no Rebellious Covenanters.

§. 40. Errors (saith Squire See his History of K. Charls, p. 268. Saunderson) grow fastest in hot brains; and the most reverend Archb. Bancroft in his excellent Survey of the pre­tended holy discipline hath also told us of Beza's Pag. 53. applying himself alto­gether to strengthen and incourage his factious old acquaintance, (i. e. The Disciplinarian Canker-wormes then here in England) in their froward and perverse obstinacy. The first is made evident by the frightful language of this Hot-brain'd Sheba, The second is also proved by the open averring of one of the near Allies of those Puritanes, and rash Heady Preachers, that King James of blessed memory hath well in­formed us of) who think it their honor to contend with Kings, and to per­turb whole kingdomes; And to what end can any man think was the See his pre­face to his Basilicon Doron. wicked errors of his ways made publick by a press, but to encourage his factious proselites, and Holy-prophane Leaguing brethren to per­sist in their froward and perverse obstinacy in their old crooked pathes of Schism and Sacriledge, of blood and confusion? And all this un­der a colour and pretence to advance the power of Godliness too; But what said one once; Men (saith See the Subjects sorrow or lamentati­ons upon the death of Britains Josiah, K. Charles, p. 40. he) profess they know God, yet in their works they deny him; using the name of God and Religion (as Con­jurers in their incantations) to perpetrate those things which are most con­trary unto God, and destructive unto Religion; for as the devil never doth more hurt then when he appears in the likeness of an Angel of Light, so are men never so mischievous, as when they drive on wicked Designs under the shew of Godliness.

And thus have we found this Covenanting Corah, first praying to be delivered from rendring railing for railing, and yet rake in that pud­dle himself for several times together, after he had told us he did not delight to rake in it; Mangling, and Clipping the words of his Reverend Antagonist, so long, till he made his own way the more easie to catch others in; to make his Puritanical Gang to believe him to be some rare kinde of Phenix, at the very time when a faith­ful Monitor will sooner compare him to a Pratling Cuckoe, for his [Page 82] idle repititions, and leaving out, like a perverse Disputer, the Prin­cipal Verb, the chief words of the Bishops Sentences, See King James his Preface. for speeds sake putting in the one half of the purpose, and leaving out the other; not un­like the man that alleadged that part of the Psalm, Non est Deus, but left out the preceding words, Dixit insipiens in Corde suo. Stating of damnable Doctrines of Sedition and Rebellion, for the Honour and Hap­piness of the Kings Majesty and his Posterity, That the Common-Prayer-Book was expelled by a lawful Authority; That neither the place of his Majesties retirement, nor reason of his absence, doth add or abstract to the Authority of Parliament; That the two Houses are not only Co-ordinate, and Sharers in the Legislation of England, and may exercise it without the Kings consent, but also have the Supream Legislative power, directly contrary to the Laws and Statutes of this Nation, and to the Oath of Supremacy, which by the Particle Onely, cuts off, and ex­cludes all Rivals and Sharers therein; and which by an express Sta­tue Law, is made High Treason for a Subject to deny to take, and this affirmed by him, That the world may bear witness, that he hath no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesties just Power and Greatness, Threatening distress, and that so sudden too, for not keeping of the Covenant, as may too late engage his Majesty to send to his faithful Monitor to pray for him, and no less then twice af­firming, with an If, the yet legal continuance of those long Athenian Ty­rants at Westminster, notwithstanding their undoubted Dissolution by their unparellel'd Murther of their Prince, That the world may bear witness also, with his Conscience of his Loyalty; This, this is the person that would bewitch the world with the Bishops pre­munires, and Sedition against their Sovereign Princes. But Quis tu­lerit Gracchos de Seditione Quaerentes? Who can with patience endure to hear the devil correcting sin? Traytors, & seditious persons, exclaim­ing against the fictitious Sedition of others; Sacrilegious Rebels, a­gainst the Sacriledge of others: I say, Quis tulerit? Who can without indignation entertain any thoughts of a Covenanters speaking a­gainst Sedition, Sacriledge, Treason, King-Deposing, and Rebelli­on? For See the Bishop of Canterbu­ries Speech at the cen­sure of Bur­ton, &c. p. 5. tis most apparent to any man that will not wink, That the intention of these Fiery, Turbulent Presbyterians, and their Factious abetters, was ever, and is still, to raise a Sedition, being as great Incen­diaries in the State (where they get power) as they have ever been in the Church. The thoughts of whose Seditious Principles, and Anti-Mo­narchical Practises, made one in 1574. cry out, See The defence of the Eccle­siastical Regiment, p. 40. God of his mercy abridge their power, and continue the shortness of their horns, or else grant them greater measure of his grace, and moved another to commend to [Page 83] his Readers consideration, this one Caution, See the Post-script to the Right Re­bel, p. 164. That as ever they desire, intend, and expect to escape, they withdraw themselves from the Society of Rebellious persons, and take heed they give no entertainment unto any Re­bellious Opinions, or Principles, whatsoever extraction they be of, whether Popish, Presbyterian, or Popular, if it be not more proper to refer them all to one Original, the Mystery of Iniquity, as their Common Mo­ther; For I make account (saith he) That Popery, Presbytery, and Popularity, (rightly understood with respect to their rebellious Principles) are but as so many several Dialects in the language of that Beast, which Rev. 13. 11. had two horns like a Lamb, and spake as a Dragon. And this likewise was the reason of that Conclusion of the most Reverend Primate of Armagh, to his excellent Fair warning to take heed of the Scottish Discipline, which shall also put a period to this discourse; I would to God (saith he) we might be so happy, as to see a general Council of Christians, at least a General Synod of all Protestants, and that the first Act might be to denounce an Anathema Maranatha, against all broachers and maintainers of Seditious Principles, to take away the scan­dal that lies upon Christian Religion, and to shew that in the search of Pie­ty, we have not lost the principles of Humanity: In the mean time, let all Christian Magistrates (who are principally concerned) beware how they suffer this Cockatrice Egge to be hatched in their Dominions, much more how they plead for Baal, or Baal-Berith, the Baalims of the Covenant; It were worth the enquiring, whether the marks of Antichrist do not agree as eminently to the Assembly General of Scotland, as either to the Pope, or to the Turk; This we see plainly That they spring out of the Ruines of the Civil Magistrate; They sit upon the Temple of God, and they advance themselves above those whom the holy Scripture calleth Gods.