A LETTER OF DUE CENSURE, AND REDARGVTION TO Lieut. Coll: JOHN LILBURNE: touching his Triall at Guild-Hall-London in Octob: last. 1649.

WHEREIN If there be contemper'd some corrosive ingredi­ents, tis not to be imputed unto malice: The intent is, to eat away the Patients proud, dead flesh, not to destroy any sincere, sound part.

2 SAM: 16. 5.

And when king David came to Bahurim, behold, thence came out a man of the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shimei, the son of Ge­rah: he came forth, and cursed still as he came.

6. And he cast stones at David, and at all the servants of king David: and all the people, and all the mighty men were on his right hand, and on his left.

7. And thus said Shimei when he cursed, Come out, come out thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial:

8. The Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul: and behold, thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a bloody man.

11. And David said to Abishai, and to all his servants, &c. Let him alone, and let him curse; &c. It may be that the Lord will look on mine affli­ction, and that the Lord will requite good for his cursing this day

LONDON: Printed by Fr: Ne [...]le. 16 [...]0.

YOu Benjamites which envie Judahs Crown,
Cursing weak Princes, when their hands hang down:
Which limit God by your intayles, and spight
Scepters transported by his soveraigne right:
Which scorn the Son of Noble Jonathan,
As a desponding, poore, unhearted man,
Because he can behold without regret
His Fathers Flowers in Davids garland set:
Expect black-mouthed Shimeis tardie fate,
The sword of Heaven trenches deep, though late.
SIR,

GODS strict injunction obliges us all, to reprove sin, wheresoever we finde it: and as far as reproof has any vi­gor in it, to endeavour the reducement into the right way of all such as wander from it through ignorance. I being therfore to direct this my reprehension, and censure to you, desire you to accept of it, as injoyned by God himself: For I have read the relation of your Arraignment in Octob: last, (the same as is verified, and avowed under your own hand) and my conscience tels me, I should deal unfaithfully with you, and neglect Gods command, if I should not strive to convince you, of the great scandall, that has been given by it to all good, and wise men. If I my self erre, or trans­gresse my bounds in this censorious, redargutory addresse of mine: I desire the like freedome from you; well knowing that in many things, we offend all: and therfore, God forbid, but I should be as readie to ask pardon, where I give offence, as to grant pardon where I receive any. Nay I am not more forward in begging your pardon when I know I have offended, then I am in challenging your cen­sure, wherein I have offended, when I know not the same my self. Alas, it is a wofull obstinacy in some men that they will not hear, and it is as wofull a timidity in others, that they will not give just, and due reprehensions. I doubt you are hardned in your errors, be­cause so few declare against you: yet I hope, this will easily sink into you, that other mens silence, when you are really become a publick scandall, will neither be able to acquit you before God, nor disob­lige them. This man pretends you are a stranger to him, that man intimates you are belowe his reprehension: a third, objects, that you are mordacious, and so wilfull, that you are beyond the benefit of any ingenuous reprehension: but sure, Gods command of an office so just, and charitable, as Christian objurgation is, is not so to be su­perseded, or eluded. Your sin becomes mine, upon my silence, be­cause I endeavour not to cure you: and my sinfull silence addes to your trespasses, because it renders you the more incurable. For, first, All English Protestants are to regard you as a brother within Gods command, and not as a stranger without it, for our common Mother the State of England, and our common Mother the Church of Eng­land, [Page 2] has a share in you: and necessarily must suffer losse by the loo­sing of you, or gain by the reduction of you: and so in both these re­spects, or consanguinious relations (religious, and politick) you are to be tender'd as a brother, though perhaps your face be strange to us. Nay Gods command of reprehension is so large, that he that may be made my brother by it, though he be not so as yet, is capable of, and may require at my hands all faithfull brotherly offers from me. 2ly, If you were bred a man of Trade, and not of letters: no man, how learned soever, can therfore alledge, that tis too inglorious a task for him, to contest with you. Your want of literature at the last day will not make you uncapable of charity, or absolve them, who fail in the offices of charity towards you; the duty of reproof was not imposed upon us by God, that we might gain victory to our selves, but that we might recover souls to him: wherfore if any man make use of reproof only for triall of his wit, and affect therein a garland above truth: that man setting himself on work is to receive wages from himself: he remains still a debtor unto God, but tis not to be expected that God should be made a debtor unto him. 3ly: others testifie not against you for fear of your maledicency and in­flexibility: but neither are these so to be acquitted before God. For God does not call all men in the forenoon, nor in the third, nor fourth houre of the afternoon: it belongs to us, early and late to ad­monish, and advertise, and with patience to expect Gods time, and good pleasure whether he will prosper our first, or our latter endea­vours. Besides if Gods call has preceded, yet we still must wait with patience, for his call does not alwayes work a sensible change in the first moment, especially in men of rugged dispositions, and in those things which are most congeniall to the ruggednesse of their dispositions. Lastly, if a sensible, apparent change has been wrought by Gods call, yet still more patience is required of us, forasmuch as there is so much instability, and lubricity in the best men, that none of us are absolutely free from temporary relapses, and strange defe­ctions at sometimes. These things therfore will charge justly all of want of charity, or pusillanimous despondence, who see other mens deviations, yet seek not to reclaim them, and receive scandals often times, yet use no endeavours to amend them.

But I hasten to the principall scope of this Letter, and to the par­ticular heads of those things, for which you are lyable to reproof.

1. The first thing, which in reading the manner of your Triall gave me scandall was: your prolix urging, and repeating of very [Page 3] many impertinent things, and yet complaining withall, that a just, and due freedome of speech was taken from you; tis most evident, (though you were not satisfied with your own vain loquacity) that a multitude of frivolous things fell from you too unworthy to de­tain the meanest and idlest of your Auditors, much more unworthy to entangle a Bench of such honorable, and sage Commissioners.

2. The second was: your laying hold of divers shifting cavils, and shufling exceptions in Law which were only fit to waste time, and procure trouble to the Court, (they were far from making any de­fence for you at all) and yet complaining at the same time, that the Law was forced, and violented to your destruction.

3. The third which convinced me of your ignorance, if not of your impudence, was the utmost strength of your most formal pleas, and reasons in Law: for in my minde even those, though you de­meaned your self strangely presumptuous upon the justice of your cause, and upon your knowledge of the Law, were exceeding defe­ctive, and insufficient.

4. The 4th. thing which gave me deep offence, and left you total­ly inexcusable in my judgement, was your bitter raylings against the Judges, nay your most filthy reproachings against all Law, and Au­thority, I might almost say against humanity, and Divinity too; and yet still whilest you treated your Judges as the most despicable crea­tures in the world, your complaint was, that you were most villa­nously treated your self.

5. The 5th. thing which deserves a keen reproof from all honest men, was your assayling the sincerity of your Jurors so diversly, it was very plain that by the insidious clamors of your disciples, you attempted them one way, and by other subtill blandishments you seemed to winde your self into their favours another way. For though you had the hap to amuze your 12. men, there is scarce any honest man in England, that is not moved to a great deal of disdain at the grosse attempts which you made to debosh them both wayes.

Of these in this order.

1. In your Arraignments first entrance being call'd upon to hold up your hand▪ acco [...]ding to the old custome and Law of England, by way of anticipation you demand freedome of speech: a thing you could not d [...]ubt of, provided you would not extend the bounds of your freedome too far. But it should seem your demand was for freedome of speech void of all bounds, and that your Judges might put no difference betwixt matters alleaged proper for the time, [Page 4] place, and triall in hand, and matters utterly improper: you must have it as free for you to waste time away, and to abuse the Courts patience by trifling, as to defend your self by opening the true state of your cause, and giving judiciall answers to your Indictment. You begin therfore with long harangues of what had passed at Westmin­ster, and Oxford, at some Arraignments of yours before the House of Peers, and Judge Heath: and then making no just use thereof: you descend as causlesly to speak against clandestine Trials, and upon that occasion you inform the Court, what had once been debated betwixt M: Miles Corbet, and your self at a Committee for Examina­tions. From thence you slide to the great exploits that were done at Brainford against the Kings Army by your self, and some few others. From thence you digresse to some conference betwixt the Lieutenant of the Tower, and your self, wherein is laid open what faith you had given him to be his true Prisoner. You next rove further from thence, and inform the Court what the L: President Bradshaw, and M. Cook had pleaded for you in 1641. against the rigorous urging of Oaths by the Lords of Star-Chamber: likewise, what your City friends formerly had suggested for you in their Petition: what estate of yours had been seiz'd upon by some Ministers of the Parliament: what incivility the Souldiers had shewed in apprehending you: what Coll: Walter Long had spent the King during his imprisonment in the Tower: what you had read in the Law-books against speciall Commissions of Oier and Terminer: how requisite it was that your Judges should expose their Commission to your exception, that their power of judging you might so be submitted to your power of judg­ing them.

To conclude, (though you concluded not so) after much more ob­streperous contestation about so many severall impertinences, you vouchsafe at last to arrive at your Trials Introduction, to wit, the first ceremony of holding up your hand to the Court, and even that ce­remony also must afford you a larger field for your eloquence to ex­patiate in. This was your preludium in the forenoon of your first day: and to trace you further through all your extravagancies, for two entire dayes would be endlesse: but by this preludium any man may easily discern what lessons were played afterwards, when your pipes were once throughly tuned. You will perhaps say, though these and some other passages (by you repeated more then once,) were forrein to the main issue of guilty, or not guilty, yet inasmuch as they did some way tend to move commiseration in the people, they were [Page 5] not altogether unseasonable, or improper. But this supposes that you were brought to the barre aswell to work upon the multitude, and catch the affections of the injudicious, as to satisfie your sworn Judges and Jurors in matter of Law, or Fact: which is a thing not at all to be supposed. For you must needs grant, that it belongs not to the common people that are admitted to see and hear, to passe any judgement at all: that it belongs not to the Judges to see or hear, as the common people do: that publick persons are to devest them­selves of private affections: that if your Judges might not look upon you with private eyes, or acquit you of present guilt in regard of past merits, or former sufferings (which is not allowed to them) yet they are not to be swayed at all with your bare averments of your own merits, and sufferings without sufficient testimony, and examination of others. You know the old Theorems of Law: Judges are to pro­ceed, and passe sentence not secundum allegata, bu [...] secundum allegata & pro [...]ata: and therfore in all Courts of Justice, things not made appa­rent, are in the same predicament, as things not existent. It appears therfore, that all these discourses of yours, wherein so many houres were consumed, were improper, and extrajudiciall; and this appear­ing so cleerly: with what front could you pretend, and clamour as you did, that freedom of discourse was taken away from you, and that all that was due to an English man was denyed you? Is it possi­ble, is it reconcileable to sence, that you could be abridged of just li­berty in pleading things pertinent, and yet at the same time range abroad so wildly, and profusely lavish away your oratory in things so impertinent? Two entire dayes were spent in your Triall; and yet it is most evident by the short issue you were put upon, (viz: whether you were the Author or no of such, and such Pamphlets) that as much businesse of other mens uses commonly to be dispatcht in a quarter of the space, as was dispatcht then of yours. Your own Nar­rative also set forth by your own approbation (if not order and di­rection) shews, and ocularly demonstrates, that in your long Triall, neither the Commissioners on the Bench, nor the Counsel [...] at Barre took up half so much time in speaking, as you your self did. There can be no error in this, if we will but number your leafs, and lines of your own panegyricall, ostentatious Relation. Besides not only the prolixity, but also the acrimony of your language testifies against you: for men that are restrained from speaking, are much more re­strained from speaking insolently, maliciously, and abusively: and the same Authority that checks modest language, wil serve to choak [Page 6] up, and obstruct all immodest expressions. Sure, you were not wel advised, when you suffered this book of your Triall to passe the Presse: for it either contradicts you, or it self; inasmuch as in some places it contains very passionate complaints to yours against the Court, as if it triumph'd over you, and debarr'd you of a free de­fence: yet the whole tenor of it from one end to the other declares amply, and pregnantly, that your Judges were by you treated as the most abject captives in the world, and, as it were, dragd up and down before the vulgar only to grace your chariot wheels. In due place I shall instance to you, and give in particulars how insulting you were, how the ears of your Judges were alwayes deafned almost with their own reproaches, and all other mens mouthes stopped with your hyperbolicall boastings. Such odious shamelesse things were scarce ever vented by any brawler whatsoever, in any place what­soever, much lesse did ever any prisoner at Barre presume to spit such things in the face of Justice it self. But my order leads me next after your meer impertinences to your frivolous cavillations.

2. I shall here only recite, with much brevity, some of your prin­cipall subterfuges, and demurring pretences, and then let the world judge, whether ever any Tribunall before would suffer Justice to be so bafled: or any Prisoner before ever thought it worth while to lay hold of such poore advantages. The ceremony of your hands ere­ction must first be explained to you; and when by its explanation it appears harmless, and of a reasonable signification, you will agree to do something equivalent, and tantamount, but the ceremony it self, and its ancient Authority you will not submit to. For your Judges Commission, you must first be advised whether it be generall, or speciall: and when you are advised that it is not speciall: yet you must have leave a great while to shew your learning and reading against speciall Commissions. When you are to plead to your Indict­ment of Treason (Guilty, or not Guilty:) you must first spend time in pleading against such pleading: and when that will not prevail, you give in a conditionate, delusory plea, such as you think is good enough for the triall to proceed upon whilest you please, but may be revoked at your pleasure. When your Indictment is read, you must have a copie of it, you must have space for eight or nine dayes to put in exceptions against it: you must have Counsell assigned you to pre­pare those exceptions: and if these things be granted, (which you know were never granted in England, or elsewhere) you will vouch­safe to make an absolute, binding plea. When the question is put, [Page 7] by whom you will be tried: you will not say by God and your Countrey, because that is a form anciently prescribed, but after some time wrangled away, you will yeeld to the same in substance: that is, you will be tried in the presence of God by a Jury of your Equals, according to Law. When you see your sophisms are not able to blinde your Judges, you carp at the very Honour of your Triall: you repine at the Bench for being adorned with so much learning, and for being filled with so great a number of Judges, Aldermen, Knights, Esquires, &c. no lesse then fourty in all: nay neither your Judges, nor the Grand Jury (though they were choise men also) could escape the brands of suborned persons, and conspirators against your life. When the Judges, to pacifie your impetuous noise for Counsell, promise you shall have it, as soon as matter of Law arises out of matter of Fact, and in the mean time assure you they (according to their duty) will be faithfull Counsell to you, you an­swer, that your Indictment is nothing else but matter of Law. When a second day is granted you to produce witnesses (a favour not ex­pected by other Delinquents, who at their perils are to be alwayes readie with their witnesses to purge themselves of any crime) in­stead of bringing witnesses, you begin that second day with a dis­avowing of your Plea. When you have used all art your self in con­suming, and dallying away time, you demand leave for your Solli­citor that he may come in upon the Court, as a fresh Reserve of yours. When the Petit-Jury appears to be sworn, you are not con­tented to except against them your self upon your own discretion; you desire your friends may be admitted also to except against them, because perhaps some of your Friends may know some of them better then you do. When witnesses appear to prove you the Author of such a book, you prescribe them to swear to this indivi­duall book, viz: that this identicall book was delivered to the Printer, and this identicall book is intimated in the Indictment. When a single witnesse appears against you, though he be seconded with never so many pregnant circumstances, and strong presumpti­ons, yea though others contest also to the same thing, only not act­ed in the same place, and at the same time; you then waive the mu­nicipall Law of England, and prefer the Civill Law before it: tis in vain for your Judges to cite Statutes against you: for either you are wiser then the Statutes of England, or you are a wiser Interpreter of the Statutes of England, then your Judges. When three competent witnesses depose against you as to the same seditious book, you say [Page 8] those books were not without errataes, and tis possible that the same book had had no seditious passages in it, had it not been for those Errataes of the Printer. When some of the books carried the signa­ture of your own hand upon them, you put the Atturney Generall to his proofs that that was your hand: and if that be proved by the Atturney, you tell him plainly, He gains nothing by it, for except the book be proved yours otherwise, the signature of your hand proves it not so. When the Printers Errataes will not help you, you say the book perhaps might be misdated, for if the book was made and dated before the Act of Parliament (which condemned such books as seditious) it was not seditious. When the Act of Parlia­ment is proved precedent to the date, you say, perhaps the Act was not duely proclaimed, or else the copie of the Act read now, was not examined duely by the Clerks book at Westminster, or else the Clerks book at Westminster was no true Parliament Record. Let it be suppo­sed also that you are proved the Author of such books, and the same to be treasonable; yet still you defend your self with this, that in those treasonable books, you had no treasonable intent, and then you are still upon this guard: Mens, non Actus facit rem: The Law con­demns none for a Treasonable Act, except his intent be proved trea­sonable. Alas, what is there, that can escape your exception? From the Judges, and the Laws, and the Witnesses, and the Informers, and the Jurors, you proceed at last to except against the Door-keeper of the Jurors. You pretend, forsooth, that the very Door-keeper has exprest something of bitternesse against you: and therfore you move that the Doore of the roome where the Jurors are to agree of a Ver­dict, may be kept by some other man more impartiall towards you. Who ever heard of such dallying capritioes before in any Court of Justice? who ever heard of any Judges hands bound up before by the like nugatory cavillations of any Prisoner whatsoever? You think your life a strange prey, that all the world should be such greedie hunters of it: but I think your soul a strange Purgatory ra­ther, that so many jealous, uncharitable thoughts, like Zim, and Ohim, should be disquieting haunters of it. The Parliament is par­tiall, and conjured against you, because some Members of it have been provoked by, and put at a distance with you by some enmity of yours: The Atturny Generall is no competent Prosecutor against you, because he is a Burgesse of Parliament: The Judges are except­ed against, because they are created by the Parliament: and all the rest of the Bench are to be suspected, because, forsooth, they may be [Page 9] mislead, and over-born by these creatures of the Parliament. Thus to you justice can never be administred, till the world be new mould­ed, nay nor yet so, except you have the new moulding of it. But I pray tell me, do all these objections, and prolongations of yours sa­vour of a dejected, oppressed spirit, or could they proceed from an imprison'd, over-awed tongue? Judicet Orbis. Surely you did direct these futilous, empty umbrages of reason either to sway wiser judg­ments, or onely to infect, and trump the ruder multitude: if the first, you render your self a very deliring man notwithstanding all your reading of the Law, which you vaunt so much of: if the second, you merit the brand of a frontlesse impostor, and seem to prefer Maho­mets politicks before Machiavels.

3. I come now from your impertinencies, and cavils to the more rationall, and formall part of your defence: but what true strength there was in your best arguments, and pleas; let the world judge, and decide.

You begin with the Commission, by which the Court sits upon you, and is qualified to absolve or condemne you. You argue stifly that you ought to hear it read, and passe your censure of it; nay you pretend all other Commissions, besides those ordinary ones, wherby the Countrey Assizes, and Quarterly Sessions are held, are against Law.

By this, it should seem, the Judges come upon the Bench to be judged of by Prisoners at the Barre, aswell as Prisoners at the Barre come to be judged by the Bench. For if the partie arraigned may freely question, and dispute the Authority before which he is ar­raigned, there must be some other Court to determine betwixt him, and his Judges, or else he and his Judges being both cloathed with equalty of jurisdiction, must depart upon equall terms, without any judgement passed on either side. And if so, what issue, what effect can Justice have? I do not deny, that a Prisoner may be wrongfully condemned, I do not denie that a prisoner so wronged is remedia­ble: I onely deny, the Prisoner to be a competent Judge of such wrongs. Upon this reason it stands, that a Prisoner may appeal to a higher Judge from the lower, but his right of appeal derives to him no right of Judgement: nor can appeals lie but onely from infe­riour Courts. For if there were a freedome of judging due to Priso­ners, aswell as of appealing, all impeachments, and criminall char­ges would be endlesse, and utterly uncapable of determination. Commissions hereupon are directed to the Judges, not to Prisoners, [Page 10] and being Warrants for the Judges to proceed upon, and to justifie their sentences, not rules, or Laws by which Prisoners are to stand or fall, they ought to be read, and examined by the Judges, but not so by Prisoners. Besides, though it may be proper for a Prisoner in some cases to appeal at last from his Judges, where they have not rightly pursued their Commission: you he cannot plead at first to the vertue of the Commission, forasmuch, as in so doing he appeals not to, but from the Supreme Authority: nor can he plead want of legall form in the Commission, forasmuch as that pertains to the danger, or indemnity of his Judges, not of him: and if he were as much con­cerned in it, as his Judges (which he cannot be) yet twere absurd that his judgement should be made equall, or superior to the judge­ment of his Commissioners. Tis by you taken for granted, that the speciall Commissions of Oier, and Terminer in the North (which were first granted by Hen: the 8th: and after continued by all his Succes­sors) were illegal, and unformall: if we should grant this too (as we do not) you may conclude, that the Commissioners which acted thereupon, were answerable for acting without a sufficient warrant: but you cannot conclude notwithstanding, that any Delinquent, or Defendant suffered unjustly therby, or was condemned contrary to Law therupon. Moreover, it is high arrogance in you to condemne all extraordinary Commissions of Oier, and Terminer; and to say that the Stat: of Westmist: the 2d. (where the Supreme power of the Nati­on, King, Peers, and Commons, was present, and did cooperate) by which such extraordinary Commissions were establisht, was an irra­tionall innovation. You may as justifiably say, that Ed: the 3d. and all the Kings, and Parliaments since to this day have deserved your correction, and subjected themselves to your vile exprobration, for that they also have confirmed, and kept in force the same irrational innovation. What an unlimited liberty do you take to your self? such things are irrationall Innovations, because you affirm, they are contrary to Magna Charta: and yet you know well, the power and Majesty of England, the same as created Magna Charta it self, by seve­rall Statutes, and by a continuall confirmation of practise for the space of above 300. yeers, have declared them neither to be innova­tions, nor contrariant to Magna Charta. Wherfore since your judge­ment cannot bow to any, nor can pay a reverent submission to the Authority of so many Parliaments, or to the prudence of so many ages, what satisfaction are you capable of? You will say this Parli­ament in 1641. when it consisted of 4. or 5. hundred Members, and [Page 11] when it was an undeflowred Counsell condemned, and abolisht the Northren Court. Let it be so: that particular Court had declined from its primitive institution, and so was thought fit to be dissolved: but you know after much debate about the abuses of extraordinary Commissions in generall, and after a full poizing of all that could be urged on both sides, nothing was concluded further against them; and so the Parliaments resolution at last makes as much against you, as its debate at first makes for you, Exceptio in non exerptis firmat regulam. More was delivered at your Triall by the Atturny Generall, and the Judges touching this subject: and that this Commission by which you were to be judged, was not speciall but generall: I shall not therfore adde any more at present upon the subject, but refer you to your own memory. I shall onely supply this advertisement, that whatsoever illegality can be objected against speciall Commissions, it more befits and imports the Commissioners, then their Prisoners arraigned before them, to dispute the same. And wheras you appeal (as it were) from this present devirginated Parliament, to that which sate in 1641. which acted so gallantly, as you say, for univer­sall liberty; and not for self-interest: you must be reminded, that none but Parliaments ought to judge of Parliaments: and that Par­liaments become no Parliaments when they are liable to the cen­sures of private persons. You may be also further reminded, that the Parliament of 1641. which was so pure, yet in 1642. afforded a great number of revolting Members to the King: such as you your self then judged revolters. Nay the same Parliament in 1647. afford­ed yet many more revolters in your construction, for your first quar­rell against the Parliament was, that it did not then purge it self of the degenerate Members that assembled with M. H: Pelham. This is therfore a contradictorious humor in you to decry the Parliament in 1649. that you may extoll the Parliament in 1641, when ac­cording to your own former judgement, the Parliament of 1649. is only the unrevolting remainder of the Parliament in 1641.

The next thing you complaine of, is: that you are not arraigned in your own County at the Assizes, and that you were not appre­hended by the Civill Officer, although the Nation be now in peace, and you one that neither sought to flie, nor make resistance. Here you suppose that you are an ordinary person, that these are ordinary times, that the crime you are Indicted for is an ordinary crime, and so you infer, that this apprehension, and arraignment of yours be­ing extraordinary is against the common right and Freedom of the [Page 12] Nation. But. 1. for your person, you are not a common malefactor; you are presumed, upon no light grounds, to be the Head, or one of the heads of a dangerous, and desperate faction; and faction that has already been in Arms, and is still watching new opportunities of rising again in Arms; a faction that has used all endeavours to dis­band, divide, and debosh the Army, and to effect the same is willing to combine with Royalists, or any forreigne Invaders whatsoever: the Crime charged upon you is as hainous as can be, tis vigorously attempting by all manner of practises, and correspondencies, espe­cially by seditious Pamphlets, to imbroyl this Nation in a third Ci­vill war, and so to subvert the settled Form of Government. The for­mer Wars have been exceeding bloody, and long it was before the Nations wounds could be stanched, wherfore another tearing open of the same wounds, would in probability make them more mortal, and more hard to be healed, then they were before. 3. For the times they are not so calm, and secure, as your party, together with the Royalists, would fain make us to believe they are, to the end that you might the better incense the people against Taxes and Excise, and so wrest our Arms out of our hands: We have not indeed En­signes flourisht against Ensignes in the field, nor weapons openly drawn against weapons, but every Summer almost we have new In­surrections, and even now we keep our Colours unfurl'd, that we may keep yours furl'd: and our Swords remain unsheathed to daunt you from unsheathing yours. Non recurrendum est ad extraordinaria in iis quae fleri possunt per ordinaria: we grant you so much: but you must then as freely grant to us; that where ordinary remedies are not so safe, and available, we must have resort to such, as are extraordi­nary. Judge Jenkins never read this maxime of the Law to you, that a private mischief is rather to be chosen, then a publick inconveni­ence. For certainly neither he, nor you would so confound perpe­tually all persons, cases, and times, and be so oblivious of all neces­sity, and reason of State, as to put a private mans liberty in ballance against publick safetie, and to value some formalities in practise equall with the highest of all Laws, if ever you had seriously studied this incontroulable, unerring maxime. Besides, were that Law by which you challenge an ordinary Trial at the Assizes in Surrey, every way equivalent to the Empresse of all Statutes, Customes, and for­malities (Salus Populi): yet neither so would your challenge hold: forasmuch as your Treason (if proved against you) was committed not onely in Surrey where perhaps your books were written, but in [Page 13] London also where your books were Printed, yea in every County of the Land where they were publisht, and disperst amongst the people. There is not a Parish in England, or Wales, but may appear to prose­cute you for a generall disturber of Peace, and mover of sedition, and one that has most desperately conjured against his whole Countrey, and every part of it.

The 3d: thing you argue against is the plea of Guilty, or not Guil­ty: tis against the Petition of Right, you say, that any man should be compell'd to answer Interrogatories against himself: that the Star-Chamber Court was abolisht for forcing such Interrogatories upon us: lastly, that the practise of Christ himself, and his Apostles, discharges us from answering to such Interogatories. You run here into a grosse mistake, for that you distinguish not betwixt the abu­sive framing, and inforcing of some speciall Interrogatories upon oath, where the crime is not of publick concernment, and where other proof is failing, and where they extend further then to the point in issue: and demanding an affirmative, or negative without oath to the direct point in issue, where according to valid evidence a legall charge of publick concernment is preferred. If these things were distinguisht, you would not finde any thing in the Petition of Right repugnant to the old Interrogatory of Guilty, or not Guilty. For since the 3d: of K: Charls Delinquents have been tryed, and held to this old plea, as well as before in all ages, and none of our Judges ever yet sprung any such new interpretation, as you now spring, contrary to the custome of all times, and all Nations. The odium that now lyes upon some Interrogatories has been contracted either by the fraud of the party interrogating, or obstinacy of the party interrogated: wherupon the sweet-temper'd Law of England, to pre­vent the mischief that might arise from either of these parties, that neither the one might strain questions too high, nor the other de­cline them too far, finds out a channell in the midst of the streame, neither totally abandoning them, nor giving too wilde a license to them. The civill Law is very rigorous, and in many places uses racks to extort evidence from ordinarie Delinquents, where there is but moderate presumption against them: and yet doubtlesse this rigor is more salubrious, then such a fondnesse as you now contend for, when you would reject all Examinations in all case whatsoe­ver. The Star-Chamber was grown to a great abuse of Interroga­tories in private Suits and differences, and was therfore wisely abo­lisht: but this proves not, that the first institution of the same Court, [Page 14] yea and its long continuation after under so many wise Parlia­ments was unpolitick. For in times of Reformation it often hap­pens, that even good things, when they have been far deboshed, are prudently layed aside, and sometimes justly burnt, yea ground to powder, and made subjects of our detestation. Well therfore might the Lord President (whom) I shall alwayes mention with as much honour, as you with contempt, nay whom your contempt confirms to me to be the more honorable) well might He detestate Star-Chamber Examinations, as they had been abused in the late Kings dayes, and yet not declare himself now an absolute enemy to all Examinations whatsoever. The obstinate silence of Delinquents, when they will not confesse, nor deny their guilt, is ever taken for a Confession not onely by the Laws of England, but by the Laws of all other Nations: and 'twas more favour to you then you could chal­lenge from your Judges, that your plea, which you would not allow to be negative, was not taken for affirmative against you. Tis true, if it were sin in a prisoner to confesse his guilt, it would be sin in a Magistrate to presse him to such a Confession; but since tis rather a service to the God of truth, to affirm a truth in the midst of danger, I mean such a truth, as is of more advantage to justice, and to the safety of a State, then it is of disadvantage to the party confessing, what rigor is in the Law, or in the Judge, that requires such a plea from the prisoner? For the objection, that evill minded men will deny guilt contrary to truth, of which untrue denyall the Magi­strate by this means becomes the occasion: tis answered easily: in as much as he which is no proper cause, though he be an occasion of offence, offends not therein: in as much also as the Magistrate is not to prevent an uncertain offence by declining a certain duty: nor will the Law presume all men false, because many are not true. As for our Saviours example, who you say being examined before Pilate, would not by his own confession, or asserting of a truth, make him­self obnoxious to judgement: It shews you as pseudodox in Divinity, as you are in Law. I shall by and by make it appear, that our Savi­our who neither had any guilt to confesse, nor did refuse to give an­swer to any pertinent, judiciall questions of the Magistrate, nor had any hope of escaping condemnation by being silent, is very much blasphemed by you.

A 4th. thing, for which you conceive your arguments are valid, and concludent, is allowance of Counsell, as also time for eight or nine dayes to consult with them, before you answer your Indict­ment. [Page 15] Your reason is, because you know not the formalities of Law, as neither having Latin, nor French to read the books, and you say tis a great deal of nicity and danger for an ignorant man to be lockt up to single formalities. The Judges tell you, that when matter of Law arises out of matter of Fact, you shall have Counsell assigned you; that till such matter arise, they are your sworn Counsell, and are bound to be indifferent betwixt the State, and you: and they will take care that no niceties, nor single formalities shall overthrow you. You do as good as reply, that because you are void of Latin, and French, you must have Counsell; and because they are partiall, and you dare neither trust their Offices, nor Oaths, you must have Counsell such as you dare trust: the summe is this: because you are ignorant of the practise of Law, you may rail at your Judges, and because you may rayl at your Judges, you may claim time, and other Counsell besides them, of your own choosing: if you were not as unskill'd in the theory, as you are in the practise of the Law, you would not upon all occasions so often infist upon inconveniencies likely to ensue to your self, and take no notice of publick mischiefs. You would then be satisfied, that your Judges ought rather to ad­mit of a mischief to you, then of an inconvenience to the State: al­though you perpetually urge them to admit of mischief to the State, rather then inconveniences unto you. You pretend in the next place, that your Indictment is long, and consists wholly of matter of Law: and therfore time and Counsell ought to be assigned you. Your Judges answer you again, that though the Indictment be long, yet you need not charge your memory with every part of it, the main matter of it is very brief, and no other but matter of Fact: viz: whe­ther, or no, you were the Author of the severall books therein no­minated. Now no studie of Law in England, neither that which is publisht in English, nor that which is lockt up from the vulger in-Latin and French, can avail you in this matter, you may perfectly inform your Counsell whether you compos'd those books, or no, but your Counsell can inform you nothing at all therein. You still alledge, that after proof of the fact, it may bee too late for Counsell to assist you: and you are not able now to give answer without Counsell, because you knew not before what would be the matter of your Indictment. I wish you would at last remember, that the Judges are not to consider onely, what is most behoofull for you, but what is most behoofull for you, and the State: but still you continue your error in this, that, you suppose your Indictment to be meer matter [Page 16] of Law, when as you might as well have pretended that it was all Mathematicks, or Metaphysicks, as all Law. For is there any impos­sibility at present for you to answer without Counsell whether these were your books, or no: because you knew not before, what you were to answer to? When you say, your Counsell may come too late after confession of the Fact, your meaning is plain: tis insinua­ted thereby, that when you have disowned, or owned a thing, they cannot procure you a new liberty to own, or disown it the second time, and so not being able to nullifie your answer; they cannot procure you new Counsell, or new respite for eight or nine dayes more to give in a new Answer: but when you say tis impossible for you upon the sudden, and without advice of Counsell to own, or disown books, you seem very dark to me, I cannot dive into your meaning. You come now to precedents, and say first, that Ju: Heath at Oxford allowed you Counsell before pleading. The Judges An­swers might give you full satisfaction herein. For, 1. Heath well enough understood that your charge was not Treason: 2ly, if it were Treason, He understood, as well, that the Parliament had more prisoners of the Kings, then the King had of the Parliaments, and so the retaliation would turn to the disadvantage of the King. 3ly, The proceedings at Oxford are no fit rules for our Courts at West­minster, nor is it congruous that you who then fought against Heath, and his confederates, for subverting Law, should now cite his pra­ctise at Oxford for Law, and bring us to relye upon him as a main pillar of Justice. For another precedent, you cite the Parliament in the Earl of Straffords Case, who, you say, had Counsell assigned him before pleading, but this is contradicted by Justice Jermyn: and He better informs you, that the Earl of Strafford before pleading had no Counsell granted Him: and if He had, the Parliament was not so subject to the common rules of Law, as inferior Courts are. Your 3d: precedent alledges that Major Rolph had Counsell allowed him by the Lord Ch: Baron Welde in a Charge of Treason before the Grand Jury had past upon Him. But the Answers of your Judges clearly avoid the force of this allegation; for first, it is no more evi­dent to this Court what was done by the Lord Ch: Baron in Rolphs Case, then upon what reason it was so done. If Counsell was al­lowed, it may be Rolph confessed the Charge, or there might be some other difference in the Case: and so the allowance of Counsel might be legall. But 2ly, suppose it to be illegall, and then it has no ob­liging force upon this Court▪ That Court which is ingaged to ad­minister [Page 17] justice according to the form of the Common Law of Eng­land, may not so safely follow one example varying from the old usage, as they may a thousand keeping more close to the same.

In the 5th. place, you strive to invalidate the States witnesses, say­ing, there are none but single witnesses now produced against you: and the validity of single witnesses is taken away by 2. Statutes of Ed: 6. To this the Judges answer, that the Statutes of Ed: 6. are over­ruled by a later Stat: of 1. and 2. of P. and Mary. That also by the Common Law of England, where Treasons are triable thereby, one witnes is sufficient, especially when there are several facts of a Trea­sonable nature, and severall testimonies given in to each respective fact. But if single witnesses be not sufficient, yet still in this case of yours, besides a concurrence of circumstances, and a triplication of witnesses to severall facts of the same nature; and other strong pre­sumptions, there wants not the compleat number of 2. or 3. witnes­ses to one, and the same matter, and such as lie under no just or rea­sonable exception.

In the 6th. place therfore supposing the books proved to be yours, yet you say, there might be Errataes either in the dating, or Printing of them: and you are not to suffer for other mens errors. Here is a great weight hang'd upon a small threed: you must not be admitted to be the Author of such, and such treasons, because there is a possi­bility, a very remote possibility, that you were not the Author of them. You strike, and wound a man that dies immediately, and have nothing to plead for your self, but a meer distant possibility that the man might have some other mortall inward disease, of which he would have falne down dead at the same instant, though your hand had not been upon him. This plea will not hold good, you are here the affirmant, and the proof lies on your side, you must make it appear by Chirurgions, and Physitians, that your blowe was not mortall, and that there was indeed some other mortall cause, or else your meer alledged possibility will advantage you no­thing at all. And if one possibility in that case will not acquit you, how should you be acquitted in this Indictment, where many sediti­ous passages in many severall books are charged against you, and you have nothing to ward them all, but possibility upon possibility that all those seditious passages might be caused by so many several mistakes of the Printers? You having no proofs, nor colourable pre­sumptions to offer, that there were indeed any such mistakes? He that affirms (whether he be Plaintiffe, or Defendant, if the matter [Page 18] affirmed be very important) must prove, so far as he affirms, this is a rule in Law, and Logick not to be dispensed with. And thereupon the Defendant, if by good specialty it has been proved by the Plain­tiffe, that money was lent, shall not avoid the Action, by pleading payment, and satisfaction given, unlesse he prove, and make the same evident. Away then with these toyes of your Printers possible Errataes: away likewise with the possible misdating of your books. For the Act of July last did not so much make, as declare your books treasonable: and you know in my L. of Straffords Case, when he insist­ed upon this, that where there was no Law, therewas no Trans­gression: twas soon returned to him for answer, That endeavours to subvert settled Government, was against an internall Law, if there were none written against it, being malum in se, not quia prohibitum: and for that reason every man in such transgressions without writ­ten Law, is a Law to himself. It was also further pressed to him, that after the Statute of the 25. Ed: 3. wherein Treasons were specially enumerated, the Parliament neverthelesse had attainted divers De­linquents, whose Treasons were not enumerated in that Satute, & it was no relief to the offendors to plead, that they had offended with­out warning, and were made the first examples of publick severity. There is nothing more notorious then this, that the Peoples safetie is supreme to all Judiciall Laws, as well in order of time, as in order of Nature: and that as it was, the prime judiciall Law ingraven in our breasts at the Creation: so it ought to be the most fundamentall Law inrolled in our publick treasuries.

The 7th ▪ prop of our cause is, that you are only acoused, and im­peached for words, and by severall Statutes, you say, of Hen: 4. Q. Mary, and Q. Eliz: it is manifested, that they in those dayes detested the making of words, or writing to be Treason. He that rightly di­stinguishes, rightly delivers, and teaches truth: but you relying up­on a contrary art, an art of confounding things, not of distinguish­ing, render your self justly suspected, that your aime is subtilly to infuse, and inspire falshoods into your disciples, not to hold forth, or teach truths. You cannot but know there is sometimes a wide difference in words, yea in the same words; that some words signi­fie more then others, and at sometimes sound forth greater matters then at others. For example, words in writing are more permanent, then words spoken: and words written are of a more transient na­ture then words printed, forasmuch as they intimate lesse of pur­pose, and premeditation: and the same words spoken, written, or [Page 19] printed by a discontented man, or at the point of death, or directed unto persons aggrieved, carry much more weight in them, and use to make deeper impression, then they would if they had been utter'd by another person, upon another occasion, unto men of another condition. Therfore the Prophet, who regards some mens words no more then the crackling of thorns under a pot, or croaking of frogs in a pudle: yet likens other mens words to sharp arrows, and poy­son'd darts, yea, and other mens counsels to the venome of asps, and to the eggs of cockatrices. Adonijah had a request to present to his brother Solomon, and for the more reverence sake He would use the mediation of Solomons mother therein: the matter also of his request was onely for a wife, for a wife of ordinary parentage, who in Law could have no pretension to the Crown: Howsoever Solomon who found a great danger wrapped up in this plausible supplication, di­stinguishes further neverthelesse, and by the sentence of his oraculous breast, that same designe which deserved death, and was treasonable in his brother supplicating, was simple, and altogether inoffensive in his mother interceding. Achitophel was onely of Counsell with Absolom, we finde not that He furnisht Horses and Arms, or raised men with his manifestoes, yet doubtlesse his words were more perni­tious to David at such a time, then the swords of ten thousand other Revolters; and David was more earnest with God to disappoint the inductions of Achitophels tongue, then to rout and defeat all the other brigades, and stratagems of his Son Absolom. Tarquin when his Son consulted with him about the destruction of a neighbour State, conveighed his fatall, subversive plots by signes, and dumb gestures: for even by doing execution with his staffe upon the highest grown, and fairest Lilies in the garden, He sufficiently taught, and instructed a young Traytor to despoil a Common-wealth of its most potent, and most politick Grandees. What Tarquin did without words, or writings against a forrein Enemy, may be practisde neerer at home by an intestine conspirator to the ruin of his own Countrey, and shall we say that no Law ought to take hold of such a conspirator, because his treasons did not amount to so much as words, or wri­tings? Good Sir, study the superior Laws more, and the inferior lesse, at leastwise when you have attained skill enough to render to every private man what is his due in chattels reall, and personall, make a further progresse, and strive to satisfie your self in that which is the due of the whole State, and concerns our generall preservation. Mounsiur Du Bartas, as He is Englished, advertises well (you may [Page 20] finde Law in verse sometimes, as well as in Litleton)

Treasons are like the Cockatrices eye,
If they foresee they kill, foreseen they dye.

The story of the Basilisk perhaps is not to be credited in Physicks, yet it affords us this wholsome mythologie in Politicks, that when we come within any neer distance of Traytors (where their designs like poysonous beams of the eye may possibly reach us) we must ex­pect to surprize, or be surprized, to anticipate, or be anticipated. Away then with all your niceties in Law, wherby you retard justice, if our safetie cannot be provided for without some incommodity of yours, nor the absolute Empresse of all Laws be served, and obeyed without infringing some priviledge of yours: you must give us leave to prefer the being of England, before the well-being of any English­man: nay the well-being of England, before the being of any Eng­lishman whatsoever. Two whole dayes are now consumed in one issue of yours, (whether such books were yours or no) and 2. whole months had been consumed, if all your Arguments of dilation and respite had been hearkned unto: but if such a priviledge be indul­ged to every prisoner in cases of Treason: what unprofitable, unef­fectuall things will justice, and judgement become in England? how will Treasons like Hydraes-heads spring forth? whilest one Delin­quent is upon his triall, ten more will start up in his place: and ei­ther there will not be found Judges enough, or the Judges will not find time enough to arraigne any considerable part of them. If words could not amount to Treason, Achitophel, and Adonijah would as ea­sily purge themselves, as you can, and so will a thousand other delin­quents: but if you will grant that Adonijah might couch Treason in an humble Petition for a wife, and Achitophel do the like in his ad­vices to his Masters sons, grant also that the Laws of England may be as severe against such Traitors, as the Laws of the Jews were. And for all your other subterfuges, except you think your self a better pleader then that Gilonite was, you may well think, his would have been as legall as yours are: grant him such a Triall, as you claim, and as much prolongation of time, and he will make his cause as fair as yours: nay leave him to be his own Judge (as you in effect challenge to be) and he will justifie Absoloms defeated Army, and prove them, as holy Martyrs, as you do your Burford brethren. Con­sider also, that there is now more Law against you for seditious books, then there was against Adonijah, for petitioning his brother: [Page 21] and consider withall that the Laws of England now, are not therein more rigid then they were in former times. You professe your self exact in all the body of our English Law (except only in the pra­ctical formalities of it) therfore I question not, you have read Burtons Case in the 10th: of H: 7. the Duke of Norfolks Case in the 13. of Eliz: together with Owens Case in the 13th. of K: James: and you know these (with divers others cited against the Earl of Strafford, since the beginning of this Parliament) do inform you sufficiently, that ma­ny have suffered for meerly traitrous words, even when no further traitrous act, or intent was proved against them. Correct therfore at last your own impudent arrogance, by taking notice that there is nothing due to you, but what is due to every man in England: and that if every man in England shall baffle Law, as you do, and there­fore accuse the present Government, of Tyranny, and usurpation, because it refuses to be baffled: there remains nothing but that we all dissolve into our first chaos of confusion.

Your 8th: help, or strength upon which you rest, is the power of your 12 Jurors. For you first pull down the Judges from their Tri­bunall as meer ciphers, and as Clerks that have nothing to do, but to cry, Amen: and then into their seats you promote your 12. men, wherupon you grow confident, that this gratification of yours, to­gether with your condiscending to be their City brother, will bring them to your devotion, and cause them to imploy their new given jurisdiction only to the advantage of the giver. We perceive hereby plainly the substance of your Levelling philosophy to be briefly this: The Judges because they understand Law, are to be degraded, and made servants to the Jurors: but the Jurors, because they understand no Law, are to be mounted aloft, where they are to administer ju­stice to the whole Kingdom. The Judges because they are commonly Gentlemen by birth, and have had honorable education, are to be exposed to scorn: but the Jurors, because they be commonly Mecha­nicks, bred up illiterately to handy crafts, are to be placed at the helme. And consequently Learning and gentle extraction, because they have been in esteem with all Nations from the beginning of the world till now, must be debased; but ignorance, and sordid birth must ascend the chair, and be lifted up to the eminentest offices, and places of power. Coblers must now practise Physick instead of Do­cters; Tradesmen must get into Pulpits instead of Divines, and plow­men must ride to the Sessions instead of Justices of the Peace. The pretence of levelling is to put all men upon an equall floore, by ad­ding [Page 22] to the inferior so much as may match him with his superior, and taking from the superior so much as may match him with his inferior: and this is sufficiently heretical in policie. But the intention of our Levellers, we see, is more diametrically opposite to the order of Nature, for it leaves an inequalitie amongst men as great as ever; It does not partially alter, but totally crosse Divine Providence, whilest it elevates that which was depressed, & depresses that which was elevated: and so makes that the Head which was the Foot; and that the foot, which was the Head. The turbulent Kentish spirits that followed Cade, and Tyler, as they intended the ruine of all men gene­rously born, and qualified, so they professed their intention, and upon all occasions fell foule upon any, whom they found guilty of Ink­horns and pens: but our modern perturbators intend one thing, but professe another; their mystery is to destroy Law under pretext of Li­berty; and to supplant Liberty under pretext of Law. You which sometimes would appear the grand Patron of Law, yet at other times deride the whole profession of Lawyers, revile all the Benches of Justice at Westminster, spurn at Statutes more then 500. yeers old, set at nought the wisest of our Kings, and Parliaments, yea and the most salubrious Acts that ever our Kings and Parliaments passed. If any Law crosses you, you break through it as great flies use to do through copwebs: tis sufficient for you to say 'twas a part of the Norman yoke, or an irrationall innovation: nay some of our ancient customes, such as holding up of hands at the barre, are so beyond all exception, that no man can see why they should be unsuitable to your phancie, but onely because they are ancient, and bear the stamp of Authority. You a prisoner judge, and condemne your Judges for going against Law: and yet nothing can be more against Law, then for Judges to be so judged, and condemned by prisoners; especially when the sense of the Law also is manifestly distorted by such pri­soners for upholding things illegall, and opposing things most legal. The like may be said of Liberty, that also as well as Law finds you a propugner in shew, but an impugner indeed; you bear a buckler in one hand to defend it seemingly, but a sword in the other hand to wound it really. You had the breeding of an Apprentice to inable you for Trade, and want Latin and French to inable you for Law, or for the true understanding of its terms: yet you neverthelesse must interpret Law to the Judges, and by your interpretation make them meer Ciphers; and this is your birth-right due to you, as an Englishman: when as the Judges notwithstanding, because perhaps [Page 23] you deny them to be Englishmen, or to have any share in your birth­right, have nothing to do but to submit to your magisteriall Inter­pretation; by your doctrine the Flower of the Nation must be sub­jected to the bran, or else Libertie cannot prosper: the Gentleman must be order'd at the pezants discretion, the Judge must do the mean office of a Clerk, and cry Amen to the Juryman, (which all hi­therto have judged villanous, and servile) or else villanous servili­tie is introduced amongst us. But if Liberty be a publick, common benefit, does it not appertain to the Gentleman, as well as to the pe­zant, and to the Judge as well as to the Juror? nay does it not ex­tend to the securing, and preserving (as far as is possible) of every man in every due right? or is there not something that is the proper interest of a Gentleman quatenus a Gentleman? and of a Judge quate­nus a Judge, as well as there is of a pezant quatenus a pezant, and of a Juror, quatenus a Juror? That most excellent, harmonions eutaxie in Heaven which God himself settled from the beginning amongst the Angels, is a thing more perfect then that which we call Politi­call liberty on earth; yet even amongst the Angels there are different thrones and Preeminences, and though all oppression be excluded, all subordination is not. How Levelling therfore should stand with Liberty amongst men, when it stands not with that more perfect Order which is amongst Angels, I canot see: and yet Levelling it self is far more tolerable, then that extreme Ataxie which our Level­lers seek to introduce under that more plausible name. But you bring Authorities for what you say, concerning the Jurisdiction of your 12. Men, and cite Litleton and Cooke for that purpose. All that is affirmed by Litleton, and Cooke is this, that in some Cases the In­quest may render a verdict at large upon the whole matter: that they may have cognizance of the condition of a Lease, where they have cognizance of the Lease it self: that a speciall verdict may be given in any Action, whether the issue be speciall, or generall: that where the Inquest may give a verdict at large, if they will take upon them the knowledge of the Law, they may give their verdict gene­rally. In the application of these Authorities, you rush hastily upon three grosse errors. For first you strain these your Atthorities to all cases and questions of Law, whether easie or uneasie whatsoever, and this cannot be done without manifest violence to the words of your Authors. 2ly. You strain these Athorities to all Jurors whatsoever, whether they have knowledge of the Law, or not: and yet the words themselves cry out against such a torture. For both Litleton [Page 24] and Cook are expresse in this, that the Jurors must be such, as take upon them the knowledge of the Law. Now we know well that some Cases are so plain in Law, that the meanest men may understand them: and that Jurors at sometimes have been so chosen, that they might well take upon them the knowledge of the Law in matters of greater difficulty. But he that shall conclude from hence, that all Jurors in all cases understand Law, or that their verdicts ought to sway, though they understand not Law, shall shew himself strange­ly ridiculous. For we all know, that of common Tradesmen, and Husbandmen, such as ordinarily use to be impannell'd, there is not one of a thousand that understands Law in a point of any intricacy: and we know as well that scarce any thing in the world could be more mischievous in a State, then to leave differences, and Suits in Law to Judges utterly ignorant, and unlearned. I make no doubt, but if our Levellers could obtrude this imposture upon the world, and procure any favourable reception for it, it would advance their cause much, and exceedingly hasten that generall confusion and disorder, which they aime at, I know nothing more conducing to their ends. 3ly, You strain the word Verdict here beyond Litleton or Cook, for they only say they may give their judgement upon the whole matter; but you infer, therfore the Judges are meer ciphers, therfore the Judges have no right or power to deliver their Judge­ments, therfore the determination of the Judges is no way forcible, or obliging. This is a Non sequitur. For though the Verdict be given in upon the whole matter, and so inclose Law as well as Fact, yet the binding Force of the Verdict, as to matter of Law, may be deri­ved from the sanction, and ratification of the Judges, not from the jurisdiction of the Inquest. And it may well be supposed, that the Jurors may erre in matter of Law, in which case the Judges must alter the erronious verdict by a contrary judgement; and that judge­ment questionlesse shall nullifie the erronious verdict, not the erro­nious verdict the judgement. Whereby it plainly appears, that in a verdict upon the whole matter there is no new jurisdiction acquired by the Jurors in matter of Law, nor lost to the Judges, forasmuch as the Judgement stands good, and obliges not as it is rendered by the Jurors, but as it is confirmed by the Judges.

But in case all your Forces should be routed, you have yet ano­ther place of strength to retreit to; you say, Mens non Actus facit reum; if the books be found yours, if the matter of the books be found treasonable, yet you having never had any treasonable intention [Page 25] in those books, ought to be judged according to your guiltlesse in­tention, not according to your guilty books. This rule of yours can­not be denyed to hold in cases where the intention is as manifect as the Act; but in other dubious cases, where the Delinquent hath no evidence for his guiltlesse intention, besides his own averment, Judges, and Juries observe it not. God therfore before whose all-piercing eye nothing is obscure, to whom the inward intention is as visible as the outward act, judges of the Act by the intention: but in humane Courts it is otherwise, for man cannot judge the secret in­tention, but by the overt act; and so where any doubt is of the In­tention, he leaves that, and safely passes his judgement upon the act, which proof has put out of all doubt. And therefore by Gods own Law, in cases of Chance-medly, where one neighbour unwit­tingly and unwillingly had slain another by the fall of an ax, &c. the casuall delinquent was absolutely free before Gods unerring Tribu­nall above, but not so before his earthly, deceivable Judges here be­lowe, for if he made not haste to exile himself from his own habi­tation, he remained obnoxious to the sword of the Marshal. Where­fore if the innocency of the minde did no further absolve in contin­gent transgressions, where no testimony but the act it self came in against the transgressor: you have little reason to expect absolution in such studied, premeditated crimes as you are arraigned for, when no testimony of innocency but your own comes in for you. I have now done with all your more plausible, and specious justifi­cations, and if I have proved most of them to be ungatory, sinew­lesse cavilations, having only the shadow of reason, but nothing of the substance in them, blame me not for handling them under both Notions. I come now to your scurrilous, opprobious, unchristian language, wherein the detestable eructations of your mouth (being but the envenomed, imbitter'd ejections of your proud heart) have violated Heaven, as well as earth, consparcated Laws, as well as Ma­gistrates, and denigrated the actions of our Forefathers, as well as ours of modern times. A man would think, that the abysse of Hell it self had been ransackt, and rummaged for the making up of some railings, that issue almost daily from your mouth, and of some se­ditious passages that flow almost weekly from your pen: howsoever I will not say as Peter said to Magus, you are in the gall of bitternes, I will only say (as I may safely) the gall of bitternesse is in you. He that was the Recorder of your story, as if you had been too short in your incivilities, has made his Margin a supplement to help out [Page 26] what was wanting, and therefore to confute Mr. Nutleys testimony against you, He addes, This as an arrant lie. pag: 81. and to confute Judge Nicolls, He adds, What a lying Judge is this Mr. Nicolls? p. 34. also to cast an odium upon our Laws, He cals our Terme Judges the intolerable bondage of Westminster-Hall, and all proceedings in Law there, Outlandish, the meer introductions of the Norman Tyrant. p. 20. But you were not the penman, you onely approved of this story thus being penned, and set your hand as a License for its publication. You say well, you need not to be loaded with more then what you must needs avow to be your own. Some that were absent, as the Lo: President, p. 12. some that were dead, as the King: p. 36. did not escape your lashes: nay the whole Army, p. 145. though not appear­ing at all in this busines, escaped not without this brand from you, that they had twice rebelled against their Creators, Lords and Ma­sters. But I hasten to those that were present in Court, or that were interessents in the Courts proceedings. The Atturny Generall, though a Member of the Parliament, and a servitor to the State in place, and trust very eminent, is more then ten times abusively treat­ed by you. You ask him, p. 143. What basenesse is this in you to use me thus falsly. p. 114. you say He used you, as the Scribes and Pharisees did our Saviour: p. 60. You call him Your Prosequutor, and that in an extreme foule, and dishonest way. Upon divers occasions you tax him of notorious, grosse, impudent untruths. See p: 145. 142. 141. 99. 52. 17. &c. The L: Commissioner Keeble, told you no prisoner had ever such favour as you; to which you answered immediately, that to disprove what He said, you could shew an hundred precidents to the contrary. p. 49. the Margin has this tante also: Take notice the Judge stood up, and spake out an appeal to the people. Moreover, p. 121. when He told you the Commissioners could not bear any further delays from you, you return'd presently, Will you not give me breath? if you thirst after my blood, and nothing else will satisfie you, take it presently. your unreverence to the whole Bench is incredible, sometimes you single out the Judges, as the principall members, and sometimes you discharge your rancour against the whole aray of your Commissi­oners. P: 34. You say tis the unjustest thing in the world, that you for your life should have to do with all the Judges (who are all engaged men) that have had above six months time, with the assistance of divers Parliament-men your enemies, to beat their brains together against you. P: 35. O Lord, was there ever such a pack of unjust and unrighteous Judges in the world. My life is before you, you may [Page 27] take my blood if you please. P: 40. You make the Judges greater Ty­rans then the King, and pray God to deliver you again, and again from all such Justiciaries. P: 44. I am willing to die the object of your indignation, and malice. P: 46. Contrary to your solemne promise you make my ignorance in the formalities of Law, to be the means of my destruction: you divers times call them faith-breakers, cruell, bloody men, Norman intruders; and wish your innocent blood may be charged upon them, nay and upon their posterity for divers gene­rations. You frequently tax them of surprizing, circumventing, in­snaring, murthering you with nicities, and puntilioes. I could cite more then 20. more passages to this purpose. As for the whole Court, you handle them also no lesse ruggedly. P: 146. you oppresse me first, and then go about to hang me as a Traitor, for crying out of your oppression: the Lord deliver me, and every honest man from you the vilest of men. P. 148. There was never such a Triall upon English ground as this, where all the legall rights of an Eng: have been de­nied. P: 31. All the proceedings hitherto have been so absolutely ar­bitrary, that twas impossible for me to come provided. P: 64. You make your Protest against their unjust and bloody proceedings, and in other places you sometimes appeal from them to the Jury, some­times to your Auditors, sometimes to all mankinde, sometimes to God. Many quotations might be to this effect. Next after the Court, your spightfull, exulcerated minde breaks forth extreamly against the Parliament, the supreme Power of England. P. 146. you say you were imprisoned most unjustly by their Power, without any the least shadow, or colour in Law many months before their Acts were made. P. 117. Tis very hard for me to contest with the present Power, whose Agents have free liberty to say any thing against me, whilest I am denyed all the priviledges of an Englishman. P. 86. when the Parliaments Act of Treason was pressed against you, you say, as there may be counterfeit money, so there may be Statutes too, and for ought you know this may be one too; and then you desire proof that these are true Acts of Parliament. P. 79. you except against the testimony of Coll: Purefoy, because a Parliament-man, and so a par­tie against you. P. 47. Imprisonment, and many provocations were long since put upon me, to make me cry out of oppression; but to hang me therfore by a Law made after the pretended crime, is not just. P. 34. You and the Parliament set us long since together by the ears with the Caveleers, to fight pretendedly against their injustice. P. 31. I have been imprisoned seven months for nothing. P. 14. All my enemies base, wicked Petitions, Papers, and books preferred [Page 28] against me were hugged, and embraced by the Parliament: but my friends, p. 13. could get no Answer to their Petitions, but received slights, abuses, and scorns. P. 11. Contrary to the Petition of Right, and other wholsome Laws (though there hath been eight yeers wars in England, pretendedly for preser­vation of Law, and Liberty) was I by force of Arms apprehended, and pro­ceeded against. Thus rash, and harsh you are against this present Par­liament; and yet not onely against this present Parliament, for for­mer Parliaments also, as often as they side not with you, finde you the same man. Ex: gratia all the Parliaments that settled, or establisht Terme Judges, and Commissions of Oier and Terminer, you charge of bringing in upon us intollerable burthens, and irrationall inno­vations. And thus in taking upon you a censorian, and Pretorian Power over all Laws and Law-makers, you raise your self above all that is called God upon earth; and in so raising your self, you affect a tyranny over us not so truly unchristian, as Antichristian. Give me leave now hereupon freely to expostulate with you, and lay aside all partialitie. 1. Why will you, being a private person, rise up so fierce­ly against the government of a State, when you see you must either perish in the designe, or compasse the same with so vast an effusion of other mens blood? By Gods Law, every soul is to be subject to the higher Powers, and whosoever refuses to stand to the finall sentence of the highest Power, is punishable by death. Upon this account the Magistrate is owned by God, as his anointed Vicegerent; and the good King of Judah giving a charge to his Judges before they went forth to execute his speciall Commission of Oier and Terminer, there­fore presses them to integrity, because they were to judge for God, and not man. Our Law directs you also to be tryed by God and your Countrey, but you except against that direction purposely, be­cause you conceive God is not in the Court present to passe upon you, but has onely an ordinary presence there, such as he has every where. But if the judgement-seat be Gods, and not mans, and if the sentence which the Judges speak upon that seat be Gods, and not mans, (as we must needs beleeve it is, if we will beleeve the expresse words of Gods book) how can you deny God to have an extraordi­nary judiciall presence in the Court? a presence to try and passe up­on you? for this is most plain, if God were not judicially, and extra­ordinarily in the Court, the Judges then should be said to determine for man, and not for God, to give sentence in their own names, and not as Gods ministers. You will answer, that the men in present au­thority now at Westminster, which granted this Commission are U­surpers, [Page 29] and we are not to look upon Usurpers, or imagine that they so represent God, and do Gods businesse, as other legall Magistrates that are rightly invested by God himself. Hereunto I shall reply, that judgement in this case (whether the present Parliament be rightly the Supreme Authority of England, or no) belongs not to you being a private person, more then it does to me, or any other man in England. You know also, that when such judgement belongs not to one private person more then to another, and the judgements of all private persons are so apparently divided, as now they are, that no one can decide without indangering the peace of all; that private person can never discharge himself of sedition, and Treason, which breaks the common Peace out of a fond preference of his own phancie before other mens. In England there are now some that hold the Supreme Authority to be in the last Kings Heir absolutely, and their endeavours are to bring him in upon his own terms; you and your party, hold it lawfull to joyn with him, upon your terms, but till you joyn with him, and He submit to your terms, the supreme Authority is not in him: We, and our side, which is now prevalent, after a long dispute in Arms, hold this to be a true Parliament, and that the true Parliament is ever the Supreme Authority of England; and we have not onely the decision of the Sword (which in such like dubious cases after the last appeal hath been made to it, is no con­temptible plea) but also the strongest reason, and majority of suffra­ges of all the people throughout the Land on our side. Tis your ma­nifest regret that your party, and the Royalists, though they corre­spond, and conspire together, cannot both counterpoize the third greater, and better party, that stands for the Majestie of Parliaments. You, and the Royalists, have divers times endeavoured to perswade the people, that they are generally against the Parliament, and by severall acts, and attempts against the Parliament, you have put it to the triall, whether the people would adhere to you, or the Parlia­ment; yet still the major and better part of the people have declared against you, and continued their loyalty to the Parliament. The City of London, if it had been so adverse to the Parliament (as was presumed by you, and the Royalists both) was strong enough to master the Army, (the onely advantage of the Parliaments you cry out upon) yet when it came to proof, would not draw a sword against the Parliament: if these demonstrations will not satisfie you, but you will still plot new commotions, and study to ingage the people in new bloody broils, you shew yourselves to be thirsty of hu­mane [Page 30] blood, and all your endlesse cavilling pretensions will not ab­solve you before God. Jehoiadah the Priest of the royall line, and a publick person, affords us an excellent example; his part was to sub­vert a manifest Usurpres, and Idolatresse, and to reinthrone a true Prince, of whose title there was not one man in the whole Nation that could make any doubt, yet to avoid bloodshed, and the mis­cheifs of a dubious, open war, He divers yeers concealed the right­full Title, and submitted to the yoke of a heathenish murderous Ty­rannesse, making no insurrection at all, till he was sure to do right to the young King, without causing any destruction of the people. How unlike are your actions to Jehoiadahs, who being no publick person, nor interessed extraordinarily in the present differences above any other man, will needs hazard the peace of the Land against a lawfull Authority, when you have little hopes of effecting what you strive for, without a vast expence of blood? But in the next place, suppose the power of the Parliament were indubitably usurped, as you can never prove it, (for it is still but the Nations power, and what Nation ever usurpt over it self?) yet by what Law of God, or man, is it lawfull for such a common person as you are to machinate against it? Herod had usurped over the Jews, the Romanes had usurped over Herod, Caesar had usurped over the Romans, yet our Saviour shews himself submissive upon all occasions to all these Powers. When He is brought before Annas, he comports himself humbly, and as becomes a prisoner when he is lead to Caiphas, and presented before the Jewish Counsell, he yeelds to be examined, and makes there such answers as He knew would be adjudged blas­phemous, and capitall. When he was turned over to the Tribunall of Pilate the Romane Deputy, and transmitted from thence to Herod the Deputy in Galilea, He still made reverent dutifull confessions up­on all legall Interrogatories, though to the eminent forfeiture of his own life. Yet no man will suppose all these had a proper jurisdiction over our Saviour, or such power as was free from all force, and usur­pation. All the Apostles also walked in our Saviours steps, for we read that they though innoent were examined, scourged, imprison­ed, and did suffer martyrdome by Magistrates in all Nations under Heaven, and we read not that any one of them at any one time un­reverently treated, or declined any Court, or Counsell, except it were by appeal from the inferior to the superior Judge: yet we may safely beleeve that some of all the States, and Potentates before whom they were convented, might be liable to this exception of [Page 31] yours. You will say, all men in justice ought to be enemies to Usurp­ers, and Friends to such as are unduly depressed. I reply on the con­trary, that private men, let the case be what it will, of their own heads, or upon their own conducts, are not to rise against a settled Usurper, or enterprize any thing that may disturbe the common Peace: nay even publick persons are to prefer the safetie of the people, before any lower interest, or right, or Law whatsoever. The story of Jehoiadah justifies this, during so many yeers as He suffered Athaliah; and the story of David also, who by right, and Law, was to proceed against Joab for murther; but the superior right, and Law of Common safety bounds his hands many yeers from doing justice: and yet we cannot say therein, that the not doing of justice was the doing of injustice, inasmuch as He obeyed the superior Law rather then the inferior, and chose to spare one guilty murtherer, rather then to expose thousands of innocent men to the chance of war. But in the 2d: place, if you will needs suppose you have a right to pro­nounce this Government usurped, and so justly lyable to your op­position, yet why do you not then circumscribe your self within the bounds of this Government? how is it, that you assume to your self as great a prerogative of censuring the acts of other Parliaments, as you do of this, and the ordinances of our Ancestors as imperiously as you do ours? If you did seem wiser in the Laws of England then all the Judges, and Lawyers of the Land, you did arrogate too much to your self: but when you will pretend to be wiser then the Laws themselves, when you will with opprobrious terms revile the Le­gislative power of this Nation, and say, that for six hundred yeers together our Ancestors, assembled in Parliament, were the Introdu­cers, or continuers of foolish and slavish Acts; you arrogate more to your self, then any man till this day ever arrogated. In this you challenge the obedience due to some great, new-rais'd Prophet, such as Mahomet pretended to be amongst the brutish Arabians; or that Vice-God at Rome, who amongst a more dementated, obdurated ge­neration changes times, and customes at his pleasure. In the 3d: place also if you will beleeve that you have a Dictatorian power over all times, and Laws past, and present, and so may justifie all that you act against them: yet why do you not act against them without such detestable cursings, odious raylings, and unsavoury derisions, as your mouth is perpetually defiled with? Michael the Archangel when He was in the lists ingaged against Gods most rebellious ene­mie, broke not out into any distemper'd expressions, nor thought it [Page 32] beseeming his holy cause to passe the bounds of just reproof. Tis likely Satan which found no matter in Michael worthy of reproof, was diverted by his malice into blasphemous provocations; but Michael notwithstanding all the bitter provocations, and all that matter of scandall, which abounded in his traytrous adversarie, re­strained himself from foule retortions. So our Saviour in the Gospel died praying for his murtherers, that they might obtain remission, even for that desperately flagitious cruelty, which made the earth tremble, and the Sun contract his beams. Stephen also the first disci­ple of our Saviour that exposed himself to Martyrdome, yet in the very agonie of death recommended his sanguinary persecuters to mercy. Wherfore if the Son of God, if Angels, if all the Apostles use blessing instead of cursing, and if all holy men still pray for their most mercilesse executioners, instead of rayling where guilt is never so evident: what is it for you to imprecate heavie judgements upon Gods Judges sitting on his Bench to speak his sentence? and from what kinde of spirit do your filthy upbraidings, and sarcasms pro­ceed, when you powre them not onely upon Magistrates, but upon righteous Magistrates, such as offer you no wrong, but suffer much at your hands? Certainly if these things proceed from a right Chri­stian spirit, we must beleeve that the milde white Dove which de­scended upon our Saviour in the river of Jordan, has now changed wings with the black, carnivorous raven. Paul once out of a sudden passion, and incogitancy call'd an high Priest painted wall (a term not undue to the man, though ill applyed to the Ruler) but being presently returned to Himself, He recovered his wonted meek, and patient temper; and though he had suffered a most unparralleld peece of injustice from a wicked man, He was not ashamed after to retract, and check himself publickly for deriding a wicked Ruler. Tell me then seriously, is this contumelious spirit that rages in you the same that possessed Christ and his Disciples? can you imagine, that you who not onely defie Gods Ministers of Justice, in the place of Judicature, and speak vilifyingly of the highest of Powers, but also harden your self therein, and trumpet it forth to the world, as if you had atchieved thereby some glorious conquest, are of the same spirit, as those which went like sheep to the slaughter, and ne­ver opened their mouthes before their shearers? St. Paul condemnes in himself an unwitting, precipitated taunt against a Judge very im­pious and scandalous, but you think you may justly pride your self in blaspheming many righteons Judges, and this you do at such a [Page 33] time, in such a place, and before such an Auditory, that your blas­phemy must needs reach God mediately, though it strike his anoint­ed vicegerents immediately. I can say no more but this, the same thing which in your own practise makes you boast, makes me being practised by another, tremble. Lastly, if you must have a license to oppose Authority; to oppose all manner of Authority, ancient as well as modern; and further, if you must be licensed to joyn all man­ner of reproaches, execrations and blasphemies to your opposition: yet what means this, that you ubraid other men most of that, which you are most apparently guilty of your self, and for the most part af­perse, and columniate those whom you take for enemies with such things, as all men know to be most apparently false? when you have insolently tyrannisde over our ancientest Laws, and Customs, and the Powers from whence they were derived; when you have pursued our high Court of Parliament with bitter exprobrations; when you have entertained the whole Bench of your Judges with such lan­guage as is onely due to the basest, and worst of men; when you have obstructed the proceedings against you with the most trifling nicities, and scruples in Law that everwere invented; when you have spent your strength, and tired your lungs (as your self com­plains) not by pleading, but by seeking an exemption from plead­ing, and therfore have scarce allowed any freedom to the Court to answer you; you neverthelesse complain, that all Law, and right has been denied to you: that tis the sworn designe of the Parliament to compasse your life by indirect means: that your Judges have inso­lently over-awed you; that you have been insnared with meer pun­tilios, and formalities of Law; that freedome of pleading hath been taken from you. Never was case more cleer in the world then yours is: if there were no Court to judge your books seditious, nor no te­stimony to prove the books yours, yet I am perswaded there is scarce a man in England that doubts of either; That very Jury that pro­nounced you not guilty of composing those books after proof by witnesses, I am most confident did in their hearts beleeve you unque­stionably the Author of them, before they heard any witnesse speak at all. Violent presumptions heretofore were held ever sufficient con­victions, and as good as legall testimonies, and yet though all mens consciences in your case are satisfied with violent presumptions, and violent presumptions are now seconded with competent, pregnant, abundant testimonies, that you are the Author of these books: and though you your self think not fit to deny them, yet you are not [Page 34] ashamed to inveigh against them, that judge you to be the composer of them. I cannot indeed imagine that thing of which you are asha­med: if you are ashamed of any thing, tis the absolute deniall of your books, for which you are Indicted; but I am perswaded tis some other respect, and not shame that makes you abstain from that deniall. You seem frontlesse enough, when you cry out upon your easie, contemned Judges for intrapping, and oppressing you: but when you cry out upon their snares, and oppressions at the same time that you call them shadows, and non-entityes, ubraid them as Normane Intruders, denounce against them as willfull, perjured mur­therers, and in very deed make yourself a Judge at the Barre, and ar­raign them as your prisoners on the Bench; you seem more impu­dent then Impudence it self: your want of blushing is enough to make not only Friends, but even strangers, and opposites to blush for you. But you that acknowledge no Law, unlesse it be consonant to your own humour, and unlesse it receive its obliging force from your sanction, how can you offend? and you that cannot offend, why should your face be stained with that ordinary tincture of modesty that abashes other men? Humane rules and precedents are all liable to your condemnation: if you say they are irrationall, or savour of innovation, thats sufficient to over rule them: and as for Divine Authorities, tis in your breast to interpret them, and no mans else, whereupon they are made Lesbian rules to you, and they must not conform, but must be conformed to your judgement. Ex: gra: The 4. Evangelists testifie, that our Saviour being presented in judgement before divers Tribunals, made such pleas, and confessions as drew on upon himself a capitall sentence, and were the only evidence, that either the Jews had to condemne him of blasphemy, or the Romans of sedition. You neverthelesse say, that our Saviour by silence avoid­ed the danger of his Examiners, and left you a warrant thereby to conceal your guilt from the Judges, and to evade that danger of condemnation which the prescription of our Laws would else in­tangle you in. When the States Atturney Generall presses you for an answer to his proofs, and not meer allegations, which make you the Author of seditious books: you more then once aver, that our Saviour shook off his Interrogators with an eluding answer; and therefore in imitation of Christ you say, Thou M: Prideaux affirmest, I am the Author of seditious books, but prove it if thou canst. This is ruffe handling of humane Magistrates, and Laws, but this is worse hand­ling of Inspired Writers, and worst of all is the false glosse you set [Page 35] upon our Saviours actions. Our Saviour being demanded by Caiphas in the Counsell of the Jews, whether he were the Son of God, or no, according to Matthew and Luke returned answer, Thou saidst it: and Mark repeating the same Answer, makes it a pure affirmation, or an assent confirming what the high Priest said. For Marks relation which must be the same as the other Evangelists was, answers posi­tively and fully to the question: I am the Son of God. 2ly, All these E­vangelists record this further of our Saviour, that immediately after his answer to the high Priest, He proceeded to tell the Counsell, that they themselves should one day see him sitting on Gods right hand, and so be convinced of that now they would not beleeve. 3ly, The Counsell understood our Saviours Answer to be affirmative, and po­sitive, for upon that Answer, according to all the Evangelists, He was instantly condemned of blasphemy from the confession of his own mouth. Neither did our Saviour, being examined before Pilate concerning his regall interest, give an evading Answer: Pilates que­stion was, Art thou a King? our Saviours answer was, Thou sayest it: but to shew that this Answer was a positive affirmation of the thing questioned, our Saviour added immediately, To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witnesse unto the truth: And we finde that Pilate doubted not of our Saviours meaning, whe­ther it were affirmative, or elusive. This is therefore an high viola­tion of Divine Authority, that you should call those Answers, and pleas of our Saviour dilatory, and fallacious, which the Evangelist makes to be so plain, and the Jewish, and Romane Magistrates both entertained as so positive: and that you should flatly say, our Savi­our patroniz'd obstinate silence in all Delinquents, and therefore would not reveal truth, when He saies directly of Himself, that He was born, and sent into this world to bear witnesse to the truth. 4ly, How can you imagine, that our Saviours silence to some imper­tinet questions, was any justification of your not pleading, when our Saviour had not the same reasons of silence, as you, and other Delinquents have, and pretend for? For first, our Saviour was guilty of nothing, which in justice could take away his life, or expose him to any other the least lash of the Law. If you will beleeve the Ro­mane Judge, before whom he was tryed, He was convinced, and thrice labour'd to save him, knowing that the Jews of envie prose­cuted against him; and being driven to wash his hands of so foule, and murtherous sentence, argued with the Jews, that He had not onely examined him himself, and found no capitall delinquencie [Page 36] in him; but had also sent him to Herod, and by Herod He was also sent back acquitted: this makes our Saviours case very different from yours. 2ly, Our Saviour knew his doom was unavoidable, and so He could not make use of silence upon the same grounds as you do. 3ly, Our Saviours silence was not obstinate, against any clear Law, as yours is. 4ly, It was not generall, or continuall: when he was questioned either about his Divinity, or regallity (things que­stionable in Law) He gave direct answers: and even when He was questioned extravagantly about his Disciples, or the nature of truth, or his doctrine, after some space of modest silence, He gave reasons of his silence; He told them they were resolved before hand not to believe him: and that he had alwayes taught openly, and not in cor­ners, so that the testimony of his auditors, and spectators, would be more proper in matters of that nature, then his own. Hereupon Pi­late received satisfaction, as also Herod, though all their impertinent questions were not presently answered: and when Pilate washed his hands before the people in token of his innocency, and pleaded ear­nestly for his inlargement more then once, or twice: He told the people plainly, that Herod to whom He had sent him to be exami­ned, had sent him back again, being of his judgement, and finding nothing worthy of death in him. Lastly, if our Saviour had refused to answer Caiaphas, Herod, and Pilate, who had not due jurisdictions over him, this affords no plea, nor patronage for your peremptory silence: forasmuch, as our Saviour was a King de jure, though He would not take upon him the office of a King de facto: and it may be beleeved, that in some acts of his He did transcend the capacity, and condition of a meer private person: in which He is not imitable by you. I shall infer therfore, that you, when you cite our Saviours ex­ample, and practise to justifie your opposing Judges and Laws, and to smother Treason, and frustrate judgement, contrary to that which is asserted by all the Evangelists, you do blasphemously, and impu­dently make God the countenancer of sin, that you may make man the apter to sin against God.

The 5th: and last matter of scandall in your book, is, your double dealings with the Jury: for though your 12. men are most religiously obliged to bring in a verdict without favour or fear, you neverthe­lesse endeavour both wayes to force them from their religious obli­gations aswell by terror, as by arts of embracery. On one side, you are their brother Citizen, a great honourer doubtlesse of your City matriculation: some of them you know to be honest men, as you are [Page 37] a profound metaposcopist, there are lineaments of honesty drawn in their very faces, and the whole aray of them has this preferment from you, that they were the only supreme dispencers of justice in England, and that the Judges that sit aloft in scarlet robes, are but Clerks to say Amen to their verdicts: and this you pronounce as a more profound Jurist. On the other side, lest these gentle stroakings should not sufficiently win upon them, you place some hundreds of your Myrmidons behinde in ambuscado, who are ready to break forth with mighty hums, and acclamations, at the closing of your defence, and before the Atturny Generall enters upon his reply. You did conjecture doubtlesse that your 12. Jurors (half of them being congregated out of Chicklane, Pickt-hach, and the other Suburbs of Smithfield, without one Butcher amongst them all) would be apt to shrink at such a new, unexampled impression. Former times would have lookt strangely upon such attempts, and such divers assaults made upon a Jury: but in you all frauds, and riots are pious and plausible, so they may acheive to you a conquest over your opposites, nay in all your surprisals and oppressions of other men, you must have leave to complain, that you are surprized, opprest, and cut off from all right by a State of conspirators.

Sir, I could now let the rains of my discourse looser, and take oc­casion to range further, (for since the writing, and Printing of this Letter, I have seen some other Additions, and supplements of yours, or your Friends, about your Triall, and I may perhaps hereafter animadvert upon them: But I will not at present pursue you too far, I will rather choose to give my self a sudden stop.

The Angels that fell from Heaven had nothing to seduce them unto so desperate a revolt besides their own excellent Natures; there was not in Heaven any other object that could tempt, or pervert them. Had they dutifully, and piously limited their contemplations to the transcendent blessednesse, and infinite perfection of their Cre­ator, they had not so fondly inamoured themselves, upon them­selves, nor dazeled their own eyes with their own created beauty: but when their eyes were once dazell'd with objects lesse amiable, their devotions were easily alienated from objects more amiable, and that alienation in them was most ungracious, and damnable. Neither did excessive, doting self-love onely exile the Angels out of Heaven, but also, men out of Paradise; for Adam likewise, judgeing himself neerest to himself, and so thereupon confining all his passi­ons, or the supreme sway of his affections to himself, erroneously [Page 38] thought himself worthy of an equality with his Maker: and so not laying to heart the greatnesse, and goodnesse of God, but blinding himself with an undue zeal to his own person, he most unnaturally made himself Gods rivall, as if he himself were capable of Divine knowledge, or God deducible to humane imbecillty. Tis not worth inquiry, whether Adams will first darkned his understanding, or his understanding first captivated his will: we know Adam had the principle of knowing, and the principle of affecting good in an emi­nent degree: and that He sinned against both those principles when he valued a finite, derivative, obliged excellency in himself above infinite, originall, obliging excellency in his God. For in the con­ception, and birth of sins, it often happens, that at the same time the understanding contracts darknesse from the factious vehemence of the will: and the will contracts obstinacy from obscurity in the un­derstanding. And I think, we may safely beleeve that Adams under­standing was too unactive, and remisse at the same instant, for that it did not further improve, and feed the will by sublime, restlesse contemplations: and at the same instant that his will (having al| readie received so much light from the understanding) was too cold and unaspiring, for that it did not still covet solid solace from ob­jects more glorious, and to that end resollicite eagerly the Under­standing for profounder illuminations. Such was the origination, and semination of sin in Adam, & such is still the traduction and pro­pagation of sin in Adams posterity: there is no difference but this: we now are not guilty of our own sins only which we daily commit our selves, as we naturally pertake of Adams frailties, and are left obnoxious to a thousand new temptations thereby; but also of his first transgression, as we were morally ingaged in the same Covenant, and so left obnoxious to the same punishment. We remain therefore all far more apt now, then He was to adore our selves, and to cir­cumscribe our own blinde affections within the circle of our own excellencies: and this is so eminent in some men, that ignorance no sooner begets arrogance in them, then arrogance begets impudence: and impudence begets wilfulness, and an outragious hardness in malice. Sir, if you who know your self to be of Adams race, would deal strictly with your self, and impartially inquire into the cause that makes you so far to postpone all Powers, Laws, professions of men to your self, and most immodestly to boast of those things in your self, which you would disdain in other men, and which other men think as disdainable in you: you would soon discover your [Page 39] self-love had quite put out your eyes, and then betrayed you into the ambuscadoes of all those daring sins that use to fight under the banners of violent insolence, and of uncontrouled impudence. The main canker that festers inwardly, and infects your most retired thoughts is this, that you see other men promoted in the Common­wealth to places of honour, and power before you, whereas you in worth, and value promote your self far before them, nay, and all o­thers whatsoever: and this grosse error does not only swell you into disdain, and malice implacable against other men, but also inflames you towards your self with arrogance intolerable, and arms you with immodesty most unmalleable. You ought here to consider, that as to other men you are no competent Judge of their parts and de­portments, more then every other private man in England is: and when you see so many other men in England give a contrary judge­ment to yours, you ought to suspect your own judgement, rather then to despise theirs. Tis well known who those men are, that are most obnoxious to your emulation: and let but their enemies judge, let their most conjured foes give sentence is this cause, whether they deserve your emulation, or no: and even they will contradict you herein, and tell you that they fear, and admire what you deride, and rail upon. Then as to your self, whom you adore, and court as the most exquisite peice of mankinde, and upon that account cen­sure whole professions, whole States, nay and whole Ages not com­plying with your phancie: you ought to consider, that of all men, you are the most uncompetent Judge in your own case. Omit those whom you repute now your diametricall enemies, though they are the major, and better part of the Nation, and ask the Royalists, (whom you look upon as your late adopted Friends) or any others unconcerned, if you conceive there are any such: ask them what value they set upon you, and doubtlesse they will be bold to tell you, that you are an Incendiary and Innovator; as far short of Perkin Warbeck, as you are beyond Wat. Tyler. I know there is a par­tie of your Adherents, that seek to foment these prodigious high conceits in you: and they perhaps may amount to some ten, or twenty thousand heads in all: but if my intelligence fails not excee­dingly, the greatest part of them consists of women, boyes, Mecha­nicks, and the most sordid sediment of our Plebeians, and onely some few are Royalists, or turbulent Levellers, who rather make use of your furie, the admire your policie; and imploy you as an In­strument, rather then follow you as a head. But if you think men [Page 40] whether Friends, Enemies, or Neuters, are apt to deceive, and as apt to be deceived, and therefore unfit witnesses, or Informers in this case, fix your thoughts more studiously upon things: consider your own wayes, and positions, as I have here more nakedly presented them to your view. You see your main endeavour is, to open a way, and maintain, that any private, single person may dispute, nay damne any Command, Law, Custome, or Power whatsoever, and lawfully frame parties to abet him in his disturbance of the com­mon peace by any means whatsoever: that the diffusive, or rather confusive body of the people may be appeall'd unto, by malcontents in any common cause, although it be so vast a body that it is scarce to be congregated, or rightly ordered, or consulted with in any one place, or at any one time, when some one fundamentall point is to be assented unto, or dissented: and muchlesse is it fit for the ordina­rie administration, and exercise of rule in ordinary cases, as often as private men shall finde themselves aggrieved: that all study of Law and Policy is mischievous, and therefore the judgement of all difficulties, and difference ought to be expected from unletter'd me­chanicks, Plebeians, not from such as are nobly descended, such as have been verst in State-businesse all their dayes, and such as have made Law their study from their youth: that the Nation ought not to have any one common place of resort for justice, such as West­minster-Hall is: but for the better cautonizing of the Common­wealth, and dissecting it into severall independent (and by conse­quence repugnant) bodies, in each County there ought to be a seve­rall Tribunal: in which Tribunall the ignoranter and meaner saeces of the multitude ought to possesse the highest Chair: that popular liberty ought to be inlarged beyond all rationall politicall bounds, so that no private Subject ought to pay any tax for defraying the publick charge, unlesse it stand with his own liking: nor ought any Fellon, or Traitor, be examined, or held to any form of triall, further then it shall please his own humor. These are the crude traditions which your levelling sect abides by: now let not onely those which have been bred under Eng: Laws, but let all other Nations that imbrace the Romane Civill Justitutes imbodied by Justinian, nay let Heathens, Turks, Jews, let all men of former ages, as well as of this present declare, if any thing can be invented more destructive to so­ciety, and the congregative disposition of mankinde, then these tra­ditions are. No more need be said, if you professe the subversion of your Countrey, and a generall emnity to the kinde of man, your [Page 41] philosophy must be held impious, though not stolid: but if you pro­pose these things for the good of your Countrey, and your kinde, you will be held, as stolid, as impious: but what shall I say? in case self-love has wholly dementated you, all that I can presse will be to no purpose, neither can the various testimonies of men, nor the ir­refragable evidence that shines out of common maximes, nor the ex­perience of all ages convince you, that you are to credit any thing besides your self. What your present temper is therefore, whether flexible by counsell, or inflexible I cannot tell: but I must needs tell you this: for a close of all:

Since you have acted your part so outragiously, it leaves an offence, and a regret too upon me: that your Commissioners should act so tenderly: that the Jury should act so disloyally; and that London should be the Scene, where hands should be clapt so unworthily.

P: Script:

Sir, I had sooner drest, and speeded these my plain, freindly Ani­madversions, had I been in England at your Arraignment, or if I had sooner recovered my health after my coming into England: therfore let not delay, and the interposition of so many moneths expose me to your mis-interpretation. I had also kept these Papers from the Presse, had you onely been concerned in them: but when my second thoughts suggested to me, that I was bound not to reprove you alone, but your abettors, and partakers also, and that the charity of my reproof ought not onely to extend to the conviction of you, and yours, but also to the confirmation of all your dissenters, I was induced to make them publick: wherefore pray, let this apologize for me in that behalf. Adiu.

Yours in the bonds of Christianity: H: P
FINIS.

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