Anti-Baal-Berith JUSTIFIED, AND ZECH. CROFTON Tried and Cast in his Appearance before the (so called) PRELATE-JUSTICE of PEACE; In an Answer To his seditious Pamphlet, Entitled, BERITH-ANTI-BAAL.  
Wherein his Anti-monarchical Principles are made manifest and apparent, to deserve his Just Imprisonment.  
Together with an Answer and Animadversions upon The Holy-Prophane League and Covenant, Wherein, according to their own words and ways of Arguing, it's proved to be null and invalid, and its notorious contrariety to former Legal Oaths, is in several particulars plainly demonstrated.  Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, Luke 19 22. Circumferamus oculos per omnem Historiam, quod unquam saeculum tot vidit subditorum in Principes bella sub Religionis Titulo? & horum Concitores ubique Reperiantur Ministri Evangelij ut quidem se vocant. Grot. de Antichristo. p. 71 
By ROBERT CRESSENER, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  

Licenced and entered, according to Order.   
London, Printed by Tho. Johnson, and are to be sold by Fr. Kirkman, and Hen. Marsh, at the Prince's Arms in Chancery-lane. 1662.   

A Paraenesis to the Reader.  
THe Guisian Leaguers in France having sworn their Associations and Leagues (which they blasphemously termed, The Confraternities of the Holy Ghost) and in 1588. having tormented and vexed the Dukedom of Bovillon with their troublesome Military Suitors, The principal of the Pack assembled at Nancy in Lorraine, where there was great consultation held how they might advance themselves, and overthrow the King. There they agreed to present certain Articles to the King, which they would have him agree to, and those were such as tended to the utter destruction of the King and the Ancient Nobility of France, and the safety of themselves. First, They requested the King to join more nearly with the League. 2. To establish the Spanish Inquisition. 3. To put such Castles and strong Towns into their hands, as they should name unto him. The King considering how wonderfully they did derogate from his Crown and Dignity, and that they tended directly to the weakening of himself, and strengthening of the League, would by no means be induced to condescend unto them. And as the Leaguers sought by such devices to weaken the King, so they would not be quiet till the King of Navarre and Prince of Conde were both dispatched out of the way; the latter whereof they murdered, but the first for the time escaped. Guise, the principal Head of those Monsters, had in the mean time caused such infamous rumours to be raised of the King's Actions, and by secret practices had so disgraced him among his subjects, that he was almost grown into contempt with the Commonalty, and was counted no body in comparison of Guise: who knowing that he had stolen away the people's hearts from the King, away posts he to Paris, and notwithstanding the King had truly mistrusted his mischievous designs against his person, and therefore commanded him not to come upon pain of his displeasure, and being looked upon as a Traitor, and the Author of all those miseries wherewith the Land was so encumbered at that instant, yet he not regarding the Message, followed the Messenger close at his heels, and was almost at Paris as soon as he; and not long after went very confidently to see the King, and with all humble reverence with his knee to the ground, saluted him; but the King being displeased with his coming, frowned on him: He seeing that, stays not long at Court, but into the City runs he, and by his and his Companies instigations, the City risen up in Arms, and down they went to the Lovure to take the King, either alive or dead; which he seeing, and having not forces to resist such a rabble, determined to leave the Lovure, at the persuasions of sundry his most faithful Councillors, who advised him to give place to that desperate Rebellion, and to seek his safety some other where, and so incontinently he went from Paris. Hereupon Guise conceiving that the King would seek to be revenged of so great an indignity offered to his person, forthwith seized upon the Arsenal, and his Treasure, removed Perrense the Provost of the Merchants there, from his Office, and the rest of the chiefest Officers which he knew to be affectionate to the King, and placed such as were the most factious and seditious Leaguers in their rooms; wrote sundry Letters to his friends abroad, and to the principal Towns, requiring them to join with him, and be in a readiness when he should have need. When he had taken this course for himself and his friends, he wrote Letters to the King to disguise all his Actions, and to persuade him that he had no evil meaning against his Majesty, but had always been, and still remained his most dutiful Subject, and therefore besought the King to be his Gracious Lord, and to accept of him as his most faithful and loyal Subject; whose damnable hypocrisy and villainous practices had their just reward given them soon after, by some of the King's servants, in their setting upon and slaying him. But yet having left others of his Leaguing Conspirators behind him, men of the same traitorous Regicidian Principles with himself, they never left contriving and hatching of mischief, till their murdering ends were accomplished in James Clement (the 
See the mutability of France.  Dominican Friar) his stabbing of their King with a poisoned knife. He that shall well mark this Breviate of the Leaguing Story, and consider with me of the actions of those (whom some are pleased to call The long Parliament) how after they were once got into their Den, and the King had unfortunately Enacted their Continuance, they began to present their Nineteen destructive Propositions to His Majesty, utterly derogatory to His Crown and Dignity, That all such as they were pleased to miscall Delinquents and disliked, should be put out of their Offices. That the Militia (that ancient Flower of the Crown) should be plucked off thence, and put into the hands of such persons as their seditious humours should agree with. That they murdered Strafford, and took away the life of the Archbishop of Canterbury; How by infamous Rumours of the King's actions, they thereby lessened His Subjects affections to him, and made Him so contemptible in the eyes of the people, that some had the audacity to throw seditious Pamphlets into 
Witness that, To thytents, O Israel.  His Coach as He passed along the streets; how by their own instigations they caused the Citizens of London to come down to Whitehall in tumultuous Companies, saying, No Bishops, no Bishops, no Popish Lords, and so audaciously too, that they set a Bill upon Whitehall-gate, to give the people notice that it was to be let; that the King was thereupon persuaded to leave the place, and give way to that popular Commotion, and did leave it accordingly. How after his departure, they raised an Army to send against Him, seized upon his Treasury, as well as Militia, and ordered it which way they pleased themselves. How they removed Sir Richard Gourney then Lord Major of London from his Office, and put in a fiery persecutor of the Loyal Clergy, (whose name, as one saith, should more properly 
Isaac Pennington.  have been Julian) in his place; as well as others who they knew, or suspected to be affectionate to the King and his Legal Cause, and placed others of the most factious and seditious Covenanting Extirpaters' in their rooms. How they wrote their Letters to the French Protestants abroad, and sent their Agents into all parts of the Nation at home, desiring the one, and requiring the other to join with and assist them. How they set up a Disciplinarian Inquisition among us, that cast out more Ministers in three or four years, than all the Bishops had done in fourscore years before. How before, and after all this, they wrote their Letters, and sent their printed, demonstrating, declaratory Knacks to the King, to disguise their actions, That they had no ill meaning against His Majesty, but had been, and still remained his dutiful and loyal Subjects. How yet by their leaguing together, and prospering in their wickedness, they came at last to a peerless act of Regicide, of murdering their Sovereign before His own Palace windows, Shall quickly and easily perceive, that they were sworn Leaguers together in one and the same Cause of Extirpating Reformation, and Covenanted Rebellion, and yet both hypocritically pretending their Loyalty and Allegiance, which manifests the Serpent's art in beguiling people into the snares of wickedness, and into the ways of impiety and profaneness, and then showing his servants the way to delude others, to disguise their Villainies with the show of Godliness; and their seditious actions with the vizard of faithful Obedience and Subjection; for there is no more difference between our Covenanters here, and their Dear Leaguing Brethren of France, as to the main end and scope of their Leaguing Designs, than there is between Guy Faux with his Mine and dark Lantern, and Bradshaw and his execrable Confederates in Westminster-Hall; both whose intentions we know well enough, was clearly the Murder of Kings, though upon different grounds. The first endeavouring to blow up the Father for being too much an Enemy to the Popish Ribaldry, and Massing Trinkets; The latter actually cutting off the Son, because they thought him in their cauterised consciences to be a Popish Tyrant: but murder we see was the aim of both.  
The world (saith 
a See his Survey of the pretended holy discipline. p. 7.  Archbishop Bancroft) now adays is set all upon Liberty. Everyman almost is of their humour, which thought scorn that any should be lifted up above the Congregation, Numb. 16 1. Crofton at least hath wedded himself to their murmuring fancy for Ecclesiastical parlty, and is very well pleased with his confused thoughts of it, or else we should certainly have never found him affronting his Episcopal Antagonist, with his Jangling Discourse of Falsehood and Sedition; more particularly asserting this palpable whimsy against the general current of Venerable Antiquity, viz. That 
b See p. 25. of his book.  that which was charged upon Aerius by Epiphanius, for Heresy, was an undeniable universal truth. Knowing man! Excellent Disputant! that can daub over his own errors with the untempered mortar of confidence and falsehood! There's no meddling with such kind of people, who (with the men of China) conceit two eyes to themselves, and that leave all the rest of the world in arrant blindness; No hopes of ever prevailing with fanciful creatures, who will (for no other reason but because they will) be in the right order and way, and have voted all their Antagonists to lie, and stick fast in a muddy ditch of error. It's very strange to me I must needs say, that an Ecclesiastical Historian should not know what he wrote, at the same time he wrote it, better than one of his Juniors at many hundred years' distance, that should at that time point blank affirm, That what he said was false; but when men are resolved once to have their wills, no Truth nor History must dare to control them, for fear of being taxed of speaking untruths: But seeing its an Affirmation without proof, 'tis but answering No, to his Ay, and then where is he? He hath a wish behind still, a request to the Bishop, to ease him of his unprofitable, unlucky pains, which is this that follows.  
I would Dr. Gauden would own Dr. Saunderson as his Dictator in the nature of an Oath, he should not then so much need the Dictates of little Master Crofton. It's 
Page 45.  no marvel indeed Mr. crofton's Dictates are of such profound depth; that the Dr. should want them to enlighten his understanding: It's the unhappiest man (one of them) that ever I met with, to bring Dictator's to overthrow his own dictates. I wonder what he can get by his Citation of such a Reverend Prelates Works? What profit or advantage is there in those learned Writings, for the upholding of his Covenanting Spell? The Reasons of the University of Oxford, declares him to be a person of admirable parts, and himself to be a grand Antagonist against their sacred Covenant. The Reverend Prelate cited by that faithful Royalist Mr. Roger L'estrange, in his Holy Cheat, tell us, That no man can bind himself 
Page 35.  in things wherein he is subject, without leave of his Superior. And again, The Oath of one who is under the power of another, without the others consent is neither firm nor valid. Now unless our Presbyter can prove, that a son or servant can do any thing without the Father or Master's consent. That a part of the Two Houses (who themselves were but part of a Parliament) can lawfully, (i. e. by the Laws of God or this Land) order and change the Affairs of the Church, and thrust out, and put in what, and whom they please, without the King's consent, the learned Dictates of that excellent Bishop, clearly proves the nullity of the Covenant, and the rottenness and weakness of Mr. Crofton's Dictates; how imperiously soever they are ushered in with his I deny, and I aver, and such like examples of his brother, the Scotch Confuter of the Learned Cardinal Bellarmin.  
Dr. Gauden having affirmed, He took no Oaths, but those appointed by Law. Crofton tells him, 
c Page 63.  He might reckon the Covenant to be of this nature. And why so? Pray Reader, do but observe his pitiful reason; for the Authority of Parliament is by the Petition of Right, the legal appointment of an Oath: And what then? I cannot but laugh methinks at his folly, and wonder how he keeps his proselytes in his nose, how he leads them by the nose to believe his fooleries to be unanswerable! The Petition of Right desired no Oath might be imposed upon the people of this Land, but by Act of Parliament: Ergo, The Covenant imposed by an illegal Ordinance made by a part of a part of a Parliament, is appointed by Law. What a Non sequitur is here? What an illerate Dolt as to the Laws of England, have we got here? He might as truly argue thus: The Petition of Right declared no Oath to be lawful, but what should be framed and imposed by Authority of Parliament: Ergo, The Engagement made by a part of one, to be 
Qui semel modestiae fines transilierit, oppor et ut sit gnaviter impudens. Cicero. Page 182.  true and faithful to the Commonwealth, without a King or House of Lords, is of the nature of those Oaths appointed by Law. What the Authority of Parliament is, will be easily perceived in the subsequent Discourse, wherein you will find the Opinions of the Reverend Judges, and Learned Sages of the Land concerning it, more a great deal to be minded then Ipse Dixits, than the Chymaerical Dictates of little Mr. Crofton; who, what he wants in knowledge, profoundly supplies with a petty large measure of confidence.  
The Bishop having spoken of what happy days there were before the Covenant came, Sure (saith 
d Pa. 53  Crofton) those happy days were not real, but seeming. And why were they seeming? For the Covenant (he saith) doth naturally make for what is truly good. What man? The Covenant naturally make for what is truly good? What, have you eaten shame, and drunk after it? Truly good? Sure the goodness that is in it, is not real, but seeming; for the Serpent and your party laid their noddles so together, that they would be sure it should tend to nothing but to raise sedition in the State, and divisions and subdivisions in the Church, for the Enlargement of the kingdom of your Grandfather the Pope. I perceive a lie will not choke these men; but a Surplice and a Tippet will make their stomaches wamble. The happy days we enjoyed (before the devil began to appear in the likeness of an Angel of light, and sent forth his sacred Covenant to trap people in his delusions) was the envy of all Europe, and glory of our English Nation, and an everlasting Monument of a gracious Monarch, and made evident in the vast mass of Treasure, which was so profusely spent afterwards for the maintenance of an horrid and odious Rebellion against His Sacred Majesty, and swearing this truly evil Covenant, in prosecution thereof; which though it was imposed by 
e See his Speech, 5. Dec. 1648. p. 33. 39  a bare Ordinance of part of the two Houses only, without the King's Royal Assent thereto; which by (crofton's profound Lawyer Mr. Prynne himself) is confessed to be a new Device of that present Parliament (as he called it) never known nor used in any former Parliaments, what ever hath been conceived to the contrary; yet our profound Pulpit-prater would needs have us believe that it was imposed by Authority of Parliament. And those very words of Mr. Prynne too, doth clean overthrow his Brother Classicks' dream of the Two Houses Supreme Legislative Power. What the goodness of that Covenant is (which the Irish Parliament declared to be a grand Incentive of Rebellion) what Schisms, Separations, Divisions, and Subdivisions it naturally produced, will be pretty well seen in the following Sheets; and what the purity of that Discipline and Reformed Religion is (which the Covenant was taken for the maintenance of) will appear amongst many other Letters that were wrote by this of Gantois, a grave and learned Foreigner in the time of that Phoenix Queen Elizabeth, who being requested to write his Opinion what effects the Presbyterian Discipline had brought forth in Holland, returns this following Answer, which is but a part of the whole set down at large by Archbishop Bancroft, in his Survey of the Holy Discipline: Is any man able (saith he) to repeat the monstruous 
Page 456.  Heresies and Errors that Holland doth nourish under the shadow of Reformed Religion? This is aimed at, viz. That the Turpitude of all blasphemies being covered with this cloak, may lie hid, and that it may be lawful without controlment (if any list) to recall the old Paganism, or to profess Mahome●s Religion, or what worse is, if there be any thing worse. Here's rare effects of that godly Babe, that must be brought forth into the world with a bloody Covenant, enough I warrant you to make a man in love with it over the left shoulder. Ay but this is not all neither, for he tells us, That the Magistrates there did suspect this Form of Ecclesiastical Government, why? because (saith he, pray mark their reason for it) they fear lest it may degenerate into a worse Tyranny than the Spanish Inquisition. The Genevians themselves were so hampered with the imperious courses of Calvin and his Companions, that they were forced to banish them, and after their expulsion, they gave this reason for it: Tyranni esse voluerunt in Liberam Civitatem; voluerunt novum Pontificatum revocare. They would have been Tyrants over a free City; they would have recalled a new Papacy, (Calvin ad Farel. Epist. 6. p. 11.) And Carter one of the Disciplinarian Gang, writing to his friend Field from Embden, in the time of Qu. Elizabeth, tells him, That if he did see the confused state of the Churches of those countries', he would say that England (how bad soever) was a paradise in comparison. What a damnable Discipline is this, that its very Idolisers, as well as others, should so terribly exclaim of the mischievous effects of it? And that we may see with what wonderful wisdom, and with what grave Divines it was at first brought forth into the world, Calvin himself (the Father of it) will give us a clear Testimony, (f) In illa promiscua colluvie suffragiis fuimus superiores. In that confused offscouring of the whole multitude, we had the most voices. 
Calvin to Bullinger. Epist. 107.  Here was the first rise and product of it in a confused multitude, only Calvin and his party got the upper hand for it by most voices, which makes me throw in this one query amongst the party, Where is the divinity, or divine institution of that Ecclesistical Government, which is clearly beholden to most voices in a confused multitude for its Establishment?  
What the genuine result of Establishment of this confused Discipline (so much contended for by the Covenanting party with us in England) hath been in foreign parts, their several Testimonies have made apparent. What it hath been in Scotland, the Primates Fair Warning hath shown as manifest; and what it hath been here in England, since they removed the Prelatical Yoke from off their shoulders by their Covenanting endeavours, their own serious Confession hereafter inserted, is a most convincing testimony against themselves.  
If any shall now demand or inquire why this subsequent Discourse no sooner saw the light, Let them be pleased to satisfy themselves with that which follows; That the Author having dispatched the first part thereof, was by extraordinary occasions in the country, diverted from further prosecuting of it the last summer season, and coming up this Winter time to the City again, his worldly Concernments for a pretty space took him off from any immediate further proceeding, till being somewhat at leisure again, the business entered into his thoughts, and then made a final end of it; but yet notwithstanding kept it so finished by him, till the thoughts thereof prevailed with him to show it to a Reverend Person (his much honoured Friend) for his perusal, who suddenly after desired its publication; and though his desire I presume, proceeded from the subject matter of the Discourse, and not from any worth that is in it, which cannot well issue from such poor abilities wherewith the Author is endued, yet he cannot but crave pardon for appearing in public, hoping that the Judicious will be pleased to pardon his frailties in the management of it, and accept of his wellmeaning mind for the grand defects of his understanding; who humbly conceives, that Discourses of this nature are at all times seasonable, to antidote the contagion of those persons seditious principles and practices, whose Motto will be always this, Of being seditious in the State, and schismatical in the Church, and conclude with that remarkable Observation of Archbishop Bancroft, in his admirable Survey of the pretended Holy Discipline: That 
* Page 6.  It hath been an ancient practice of the Adversaries of the Church of God, then especially to be complotting of some mischief both against Zion and Jerusalem, when in outward show they have pretended most of all to be desirous to repair them, and to seek their glory.   

Die Lunae. 20. May, 1661.  
THe Lords in Parliament having considered of a paper sent unto them from the House of Commons, for burning of the Instrument or Writing called, The Solemn League and Covenant, by the hands of the common Hangman, Do Order, That the said Instrument or Writing, called, The Solemn League and Covenant, be burned by the hand of the common Hangman, in the New Palace at Westminster, in Cheapside, and before the Old Exchange, on Wednesday the Twenty second of this instant May. And that the said Covenant be forthwith taken off the Record in the House of Peers, and in all other Courts and places where the same is recorded: And that all Copies thereof be taken out of all Churches, Chapels, and other public places in England and Wales, and in the Town of Berwick upon Tweed, where the same are set up.   

Anti-Baal-Berith justified, etc.  
NOthing can be the matter of a Vow or Covenant which is evidently unlawful, but it is evidently unlawful for a Subject or Subjects, to attempt to alter the Laws established by force, without the concurrence, and against the Commands of the Supreme Legislator, for the Introduction of a foreign Discipline, said the 
* See his Fair warning to take heed of the Scottish discipline, pag. 30.  now most Learned and Reverend Primate of Armagh. Upon consideration whereof, and finding that Juggling Oath, Entitled, A Solemn League and Covenant, to be the subject matter of Debate between the Reverend Episcopalians and the Presbyterians at this day, I resolved with myself (how unlearned soever) to make a serious Enquiry into the nature of that Covenant, and set down my Animadversions on it. And upon such Enquiry, I found it not at all to portend any good to this Nation; and by an impartial Search into the genuine fruits, and bloody villainous effects thereof (which as Springs from that venomous Fountain, have run forth over the Nation,) I find that it deserved rather to have been buried like Corah and his Complices, in everlasting oblivion and forgetfulness (except it were for a detestation and perfect abhorrency of it) then to be revived again as an Achan amongst us, to involve and keep us still in blood and confusion: I speak not this out of passion or partiality, but out of a serious consideration of the evil matter contained in it, part of the very Preface whereof sounds very strangely in mine ears, where they tell us, That according to the commendable practice of these Kingdoms in former times, and God's people in other Nations, they have resolved to enter into a Solemn League and Covenant, etc.  
I have read a Saying somewhere, That its ominous to stumble at the threshold, and that these Absolonians should stumble so grossly against the Truth at the very entrance of their League, argues their being filled more with Puritanism, than Purity; more with frantic zeal, then that according to knowledge; for had they had any regard to truth, the world had never then been made acquainted with such a groundless Fiction; for let them make appear by true Evidences and Histories (if they are able, and if not, let them renounce their bold Assertion) that ever such a League (as this of theirs) was ever framed, devised, and put in execution within this Nation, for the extirpation of all Arch-Bishops, Bishops, and the rest of that glorious Hierarchy, whose Liberties and Privileges are established by the great Charter, and other good Laws of this Land) and that ever there were such a Combination against their Prince for no other end, but to defend him. If this were the Practice of former times, What meant the Olivarian Covenanting-Metropolitan Nye, when he point blank affirmed, That it was 
a Covenant with Narrative, p. 12.  such an Oath, as for Matter, Persons, and other Circumstances, the like hath not been in any Age or Oath we read of in Sacred or Humane Stories? Now can any one that hath read any thing of the English Chronicles, be so mad and frantic as to think that to be the Practice of former Ages, which was never visible, never done by any within this Kingdom: nay, and which one of the profound Swearers themselves affirms cannot be paralleled, That the like hath not been in any Age? Either the one or the other, must lie with a witness. If what the Preface saith, be true, than Nye is notoriously deceived; then farewell truth itself, and all the noble Assertors of it: if what Nye affirms be true, (as undoubtedly it is, and cannot be denied) then that part of the Preface (which sets such a fraud and deceit to catch the eyes and hearts of some credulous poor mortals) must absolutely appear to be a damnable falsehood, and the proper effects of a Serpentine infatuation, and their Covenant-building itself, to be like that of the fools, spoken of by our Saviour in the 7. of Saint Matth. and the latter end. Nay, that's not all neither; for they call it a commendable practice: what, and never done, nor performed by any in this kingdom? Surely, if I should go and do a thing (which was never before visible, or acted by any) and say, It is according to the commendable practice of others, I might well be esteemed void of any sense or reason; in a mere distracted condition: fit for an inhabitant of Bedlam, than any sober place amongst those who were able to distinguish betwixt Sobriety, and Frenzy: betwixt an Orthodox Christian, and a Guisian Leaguer. But suppose there had been such practices heretofore, in the times of Popish Egyptian darkness, shall any pretending to true Protestantism (which severely declaims all such perfidious Antichristian courses) be found to be so far approvers of such infamous actions, as to commend them for examples to others to tread in the same steps? Can Subjects combining and swearing together to extirpate the legal established Church-Government of a Nation (as Bishops were, and are still here, though the leg) exercise of their Coercive power in the Star-Chamber, and High Commission Courts was taken away by the Act in 1641. to prevent the subsequent Rebellion, and Jesuitical-Combinations of Leaguing Presbyters) and vowing to assist one another in their Covenanted Rebellion, with their lives and fortunes, against the express command of the supreme Governor, for the attaining of their Leaguing ends, be called and styled Commendable by any one, pretending some affinity to Loyalty or Christianity (which are inseparable, and the constant attendants upon a true fearer of the Lord)? It's a brave time with Rebels, when their Treason and disloyalty are enroled amongst the Records of Fame and Honour, and their obedient opposites to the commands of their lawful Prince, are in the very act of Loyalty termed, and Recorded for terrible Delinquents against the thing which nicknamed itself so often, A Parliament: Halcyon days for Sacrilegious Schismatics, when that which is condemned by the word of God (nothing more) shall be garnished forth with an Epithet of Commendable, though, what the Prophet, by God's express command, said so long ago, that do I say now unto these strangers to Truth and Loyalty, 
b Isaiah 5. 20.  Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil.  
§. 2. They tell us too, It was according to the practice of God's people in other Nations. Aha! What, God's people, and Covenanting Rebels too? What, Reformers, and swearing Extirpaters' of the Episcopal promoters of the Reformation? Saints, and yet Schismatics! Christians, and yet Traitors! Surely our Covenanters were put to extreme hard straits, to make lies their refuge for their carrying on of their extirpating Reformation? No other way to catch people into the black Road with them, but by blinding their eyes with Errors and Contradictions? A sad geneneration of Merozians: It's true indeed, the Guisian Leaguers in France, went directly in the same impious courses before them, & unless they be their God's people, I know none: for they alone were the Monsters that our Leaguers could properly say they were imitators of, because they went to their hellish work with an Oath (like ours) and yet Guise himself (like ours too) had the face to tell his Prince, That he was his faithful subject, for all that, Who (as the Translator of a Parisians Work tells us) living under 
c See the right of Kings, and duty of subjects. Pref.  a mild and peaceable Prince, slandered their King that he was an enemy to the Roman Catholic Religion (as our Covenanters did the late Carolian Martyr, to be an enemy to the Protestant) and under the fair pretence of Religion, screwed themselves into the favour of the Common people (who are usually deceived by such pretences) raising a strong party against the King, by the name of the holy League, which caused much confusion in that kingdom, (as by too sad and lamentable experience we have found to be the effects of our English Leaguers in this.) And now I appeal to the conscience of any man living, whether they that can first Rebel against their 
d For so they swore the King was.  only Supreme Governor, and then have the confidence to tell us of a thing which never was (like that of the man in the Moon) and set it down with such a positive Asseveration (as making it a pattern for their illegal traitorous undertake) and style that Commendable, which (if any such thing had ever been) ought to be abhorred, as much as hell, by him that desires the Rules of Christianity: I say, I appeal to the Conscience of any man living, who desires not to be ensnared (and kept so) with the 
e See Mr. Reynell's Panegyrik entitled, The unfortunate Change.  Caledonian Boar, which was the cause of our distempers, whether they that speak these lies and juggle, these palpable falsehoods and deceits, could possibly have (according to their assertion) Before their eyes the glory of God, and the advancement of the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (whose 
f See Mr. Quarrel's Loyal Convert, P. 5.  glory will not be vindicated by such unlawful means, and unwarrantable proceed, and whose kingdom is endeavoured to be pulled down by such a peerless Covenant)? But what's it they swear, that must have a juggling Preface to set it forth? Why, they tell us in their first Article, That they will sincerely, really, and constantly through the grace of God (as though that would ever square with such proceed) endeavour in their several places and callings, the Preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland, in Doctrine, Worship, Discipline and Government, according to the word of God, and the example of the best Reformed Churches.  
§. 3. What have I to do with the reglement of Foreign Churches? 
* See his Fair warning, P. 1,  said the Reverend Primate, and so say I too, What had English men to do, to swear to preserve the Doctrine, and Discipline of another Country? Let them stand or fall to their own Master. Ay, but here was the Mystery, We have an earnest longing desire to have Bishops extirpated, and we, having followed the pattern of our dear Scottish Brethren, in rising up in arms against our King for that purpose, and being not well able and sufficient of ourselves, to carry on our design against them, we must call in the other to our aid, and they will not come to us, unless we will swear to set up their Churchway amongst us; and therefore, rather than Bishops shall stand, we will do it: For (as the late Martyr said upon the Covenant) nothing will induce them to engage, till those that called them in, have pawned their souls to them by a solemn League and Covenant: I am verily persuaded, that there was not one amongst a hundred that swore that League to preserve the Scottish Discipline, that knew no more what their Discipline was then a horse, and so they swore with a blind implicit faith to preserve they knew not what themselves: Pure good swearing, (is it not)? Was this sworn in Truth, Judgement, and Righteousness, as the Prophet saith, an Oath should? Jer. 4. 2. If not, (as it was not) Is not therefore such men's swearing unlawful, and so to be renounced, and repent of? Is it not an abominable wickedness in any one to swear to preserve the Scottish Discipline (or when sworn, to keep such a wicked Oath) when the Reverend Primate hath made it appear by such cogent and undeniable Arguments of truth, and sound Divinity (beyond the reach and power of a Crofton, or any Presbyterian adversary to answer without palpable cavilling, & declaring of their own folly) That 
g See his fair warning, p. 2.  this discipline (which the Croftonians so much adore) is the very quintessence of refined Popery, or a greater tyranny than ever Rome brought forth, inconsistent with all forms of civil Government, destructive to all sorts of Policy, a rack to the conscience, the heaviest pressure that can fall upon a people, and so much more dangerous, because by the specious pretence of Divine institution, it takes away the sight, but not the burden of slavery. Reader, peruse that small book, and i'll undertake it shall give thee full satisfaction what this Cockatrice egg, the Scottish discipline is, and what a precious jewel it is to be preserved. But how will they preserve this Pandora's box? why, according to the word of God, & the example of the best reformed Churches: that's brave indeed! to swear to preserve that according to the word of God, which knows nothing of it (as it is singular by itself)? Suppose I should swear to preserve a thief in his pilfering courses, according to the word of God, would that make the thiefs actions good, because it is expressed according to the word of God? or would it not rather aggravate and heighten the bloody nature of my sins, to swear with such a strange self-contradiction? Just as if I should say, I would do a thing according to the will and desire of another, who hath openly made his protestation against it: I am sure the thiefs actions cannot be more opposite to the Sacred Canon of Scripture, than some part of the Scottish Discipline is, (which the Reverend Primate hath well informed us of, to which I refer the doubtful for satisfaction) and therefore notwithstanding that expression, the Oath for preservation of such an Anti-Monarchical Discipline, cannot but be very wicked, and therefore unlawful to be sworn or kept. And as for the best Reformed Churches, the Church of England, by all impartial, , sober Protestants, was wont to be accounted the best Reformed Church in the world; and, 
h See the fair warning, p. 2.  before these unhappy troubles in England all Protestants, both Lutherans and Calvinists, did give unto the English Church the right hand of fellowship: which made the most Reverend Doctor Hammond (of renowned memory) to affirm, That 
i See his View of the new Directory, and vindication of the ancient Liturgy, P. 7.  the Church of England, as it stands established by law, is avowable against all the Calumniators in the world, to be the best, and most exemplary Reformed: so far (saith he) King-Edward, or Queen-Elizabeth- English Reformation, the most regular, perfect pattern that Europe yieldeth. Thus that indefatigable Defender, and Propagator of Catholic truths, against the novel inchroachments of the then Julianizing times, whose memory will be precious, and his name smell as sweet odour in the nostrils of all true hearted Christian Protestants, when the name of an Assembler will hardly be thought on, without immediate branding him for Treason and disloyalty. And so now, having briefly dispatched the first, I shall proceed on to the second, and there they speak out what their Covenant for Reformation is; for they tell us there too, in their Rebellious language,  
§. 4. That they shall in like manner, without respect of persons, endeavour the extirpation of Popery, Prelacy, (that is, Church-Government by Arch-Bishops, Bishops, their Chancellors, Commissaries, Deans, Deans and Chapters, Arch-Deacons, and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on that Hyerarchy) Superstition, Heresy, Schism, Profaneness, and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound Doctrine, and the power of godliness, lest we partake in other men's sins, and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues. In good time! Excellent Deformers! They that were the grand Promoters, and carriers on at first of the Regular English-Reformation (though indeed, not by Sedition and Rebellion against their Sovereign, nor by making use of cursing- Merozian Texts, to stir up the people to assist them in such filthy courses, but by obedience and subjection to the unjust punishment of Majesty, and freely offering their bodies to the fire) must now be extirpated by our Deformers of Truth and Christianity, under a sly pretence of a detestable Reformation. A good requital to them for their incomparable defences of the true Protestant Religion against the Jesuits, and others of the Babylonian Romish rout, to be now cast out, as unprofitable branches, by a pack of holy Leaguers, not worthy to be named with them: but what said our own late most noble Sovereign? 
k See Eikon Basilike upon the Covenant.  Many Engines of religious and fair pretensions are brought, chief to batter or raze Episcopacy: This (saith he) they make the grand evil Spirit, which (with some other imps, purposely added to make it more odious and terrible to the vulgar) must by so solemn a charm and exorcism, be cast out of this Church, after more than a thousand years' possession from the first plantation of Christianity in this Island, and an universal prescription of time and practice in all other Churches, since the Apostles times, till this last Century. But no antiquity must plead for it: Presbytery, like a young heir, thinks the father hath lived long enough, and impatient, not to be in the Bishop's chair and authority, all art is used to sink Episcopacy, and launch Presbytery in England, which was lately boyed up in Scotland by the like artifice of a Covenant. And therefore for that Apostolical-Primitive Universal Church-Government of Episcopacy (so Universal, That 
l See Eikon Basilike, in 24. P. 103.  (as the Martyr saith) since the first Age, for one thousand five hundred years, not one example can be produced of any settled Church, wherein were many Ministers and Congregations, which had not some Bishop above them, under whose Jurisdiction and Government they were: and so, by consequence unavoidable, the damnable infamous nature of the Covenant for extirpation thereof. There hath been so much said by our Reverend Episcoplains, and by our late Josiah, of most blessed and glorious memory, that I shall forbear to say any thing more of it, but refer them that desire satisfaction, to their respective writings; (and I wonder when the Presbyterian will answer them: I do not mean by cavillings, and rail (for there have been too much of that already) but by true, good, solid, sound arguments and reasons; such as may carry truth in their forehead, which people shall easily perceive, when they can once have the happiness to see the Swans turn black.  
§. 5. But is this all that these Leaguers swear to extirpate in this Article? No, they join with the former (just as if a man should join a Scottish Presbytery with a Monarchy, which (in the wise experienced judgement of King James 
m See the Conference at Hampt. Court. p. 81.  as well agreeth as God and the devil) Superstition, Heresy, Schism, Profaneness, and whatsoever shall be found contrary to sound Doctrine, and the power of godliness. A good hearing! I like this part of the Article extremely well; and the better, for that hereby they must endeavour to extirpate, as much as possibly they can, (under the danger of perjury) their very Extirpation. Down Covenant, down: What dost thou hold up thy head for? Thy Fathers that begot thee, have knocked thy brains out, and have sworn to do it by their Sacred Covenant (as they call it) in swearing to extirpate Heresy, Schism, and Profaneness: this I will make appear by their own confession (and let them deny it if they are able) which they unanimously set forth to the view of all the world, no less than 52 of the party, 
n See the Testimony to the truth of J. C. subscribed by the Ministers within the Province of London, p. 30. p. 29. p. 30 p. 26.  That in stead of true Piety and power of Godliness, they had opened the very floodgates to all Impiety and Profaneness, and after they had removed the Prelatical yoke [mark] from their shoulders, by their covenanted endeavours (i i by virtue of their League) Well! what then? What followed their extirpating Oath against the Prelacy? They tell us, There was a rueful, deplorable, and deformed face of the Affairs of Religion— swarming with noisome Errors, Heresies, and Blasphemies in stead of Faith and Truth; torn in pieces with destructive Schisms, Separations, Divisions and Subdivisions, in stead of Unity and Uniformity. 
* page 31.  That in stead of a Reformation, they might say with sighs, what their enemies said in scorn, they had a Deformation in Religion; and in stead of extirpation of Heresy, Schism, Prosaneness, etc. they had an impudent and general inundation of all those Evils. A fair Confession, and an ingenuous self-condemnation! Observe Reader, what these Changers of our times, and deforming Leagueing-Reformers have publicly confessed, to the shame and disgrace both of themselves and their graceless Covenant. Here they tell us, that they have opened the very floodgates to all Impiety and Profaneness, (by virtue of that very Covenant whereby they were sworn to extirpate it) and that after they had removed the Bishops, Religion swarmed with noisome Errors, Heresies and Blasphemies, torn in pieces with Schisms and Divisions: Very good; Was not this very Covenant (by force whereof these mad exploits have been done, and the terrible effects thereof are so sadly complained of) taken and sworn without, yea against the consent and express Command of the only Supreme Governor, (and so by consequence absolute rebellion) to whom these Swearers before by a legal established Oath, had solemnly swore to bear true faith and allegiance? Is not then that League which was the Instrument and Means for the producing of these horrible Impieties and sad Effects, both in the form and matter of it, extremely unlawful, naught and wicked, and therefore not to be kept, but damned eternally? Our blessed Saviour saith, 
o Matth. 7. 18.  A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit: And can this Covenant (whereby the Swearers thereof have acknowledged (for that was it they were speaking of when they confessed) they have opened the very floodgates to all impiety and profaneness) be a good tree that hath brought forth such venomous deadly fruit? or not rather a very corrupt tree that cannot bring forth that which is good? Certainly that League must be a League and Covenant with hell and death, that shall produce such hellish fruits and effects, as by the printed Confession of the Swearers themselves was too evident and palpable (it seems) to be with any truth denied. What remains then, but that it should have the deserved fate of a corrupt tree, even to be 
* ver. 19  hewn down and cast into the fire by the hands of the common Hangman? The blessed Apostle St Paul told his Romans, that he would have them to 
p Rom. 16. 17, 18.  mark them which caused divisions contrary to the doctrine they had learned, and avoid them; for they that are such (saith he) serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly, and by good words and fair speeches (like our unsacred Leaguers with their According to the word of God, and the example of the best Reformed Churches) deceive the hearts of the simple, who are not able to see into the depth of their delusive Cheats. And in another place asked his Corinthians, that 
q 1 Cor. 3. 3, 4.  whereas there was among them divisions, (and what they were, he tells us other where 
* 1 Cor. 1. 12, 13.  were they not carnal, and walked as men? And therefore again I Quaere, Can this League (from whence such destructive Separations, Schisms, Divisions, and Subdivisions have naturally flown) be any other then extremely abominable and wicked, when the very causers of such divisions, by what ways or means soever, are branded by the Apostle with this black mark of not being spiritual, but carnal; of serving not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly? Qui vult decipi, decipiatur; He that will be deceived, let him. But it's impossible to catch any other with their destructive schismatical courses, than those who are either ignorant, or wilfully shut their eyes that they might not be enabled to see the mischiefs and villainies of their solemn League and Covenant; which being so extremely sinful both in the form and matter of it, and by filling Religion with noisome errors, heresies, and blasphemies, in stead of faith and truth, and causing an impudent and general inundation of all those evils, to be vehemently, contrary to sound doctrine on the one hand, and by opening the floodgates to all impiety and profaneness, to be notoriously opposite to the power of godliness on the other hand, (for there were none of these things heard, or to be complained of in the Bishop's time, till 
r Isaiah. 14. 29.  out of the serpent's root this Cockatrice (the Covenant) came forth, whose fruits have proved no better to us then a fiery flying serpent.) I do here warn and conjure them in the presence of God, Angels, and men, and as they will answer it before the Judgement-seat of Christ, not only to renounce, but (as much as in them lie) to endeavour to extirpate such an impious, profane, and faithless Covenant for extirpation of the Prelacy (the noble Hedge against all those Schisms, Separations, Divisions and Subdivisions, so much complained of by them) according to the reality of the last Clause of this their second Article which they swore. Return, return (O sacred Covenanter) return, return into those ways of truth, plainness and loyalty toward God and your King, which by your peerless Covenant you have so deeply apostatised from, into the ungodly ways of falsehood and ledition, ugling and deceit, disloyalty, treason, and true malignancy, lest (according to your own Covenanting words) you partake matter men's sins, and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues.  
§. 6. But because my intentions are to be brief in my Animadversions. I shall pass from this second to the third Article, where they tell us, That they hall with the same sincerity, reality and constancy in their several vocations, endeavour with their estates and lives mutually, (to set the cart before the horse, and the tail of a man above his head) to preserve the Rights and Privileges of Parliament, and the Liberties of the Kingdoms, and to preserve and defend the King's Majesty's person and Authority (with a Juggling Jesuitical King-destroying limitation) in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms, that the world may bear witness with our consciences of our Loyalty, and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish His Majeiesties' just Power and Greatness. This very Article, and the notorious Juggling in it, were enough to make an understanding person abhor the League eternally, and detest the very thoughts of having any thing to do with it; and that will appear if we do but consider well their limited defence of their noble Sovereign, which in the whole amounts to no defence at all, but rather a direct imperious opposition and resistance against His Regal Power and Authority.  
§. 7. I have read many of the Leaguers indeed exclaim against the Royalists, for asserting, That the Covenant tended to the destruction of the King. What (say they) the Covenant tend to the destruction of the King! Is there not a particular Clause in it for preservation and defence of the King's Majesty's Person and Authority? Yes, there is so; and so far the words sound some what like Loyalty: But what of that? Tell me (O ye holy Leaguers) did you defend the King's Person in Leaguing together to send Armed men against Him? and were you not bound by a subsequent Article of this very Covenant, to assist and defend them in such actions? Was that the defence of the King's Person, when those rebellion's Forces (raised and sent by the illegal power of a factious party of the Two Houses then usurping the Supreme Authority) shot at those (who were really risen up in His Majesty's defence, according to their bounden duty and allegiance, and amongst whom in several Battles He had His residence) with a Cannon and a Musket Bullet, which makes no difference between a King and Subject, the Superior and Inferior? Was fight against him, ceiling and close imprisoning of him, preserving of his Authority? Was it not by virtue of this Covenant that Treason before begun, was carried on by dint of sword 
☞  so long against the pretended Malignants, by true Delinquents, till the Martyr's Forces (through God's Divine permission) were wholly defeated and overcome? Did not that force him to surrender himself to a pack of Scottish Presbyterian Judasses'? Did not their selling him into the hands of Leaguers at Wesiminster, cause his Imprisonment? I say, was not this done by virtue of the Covenant? Is not imprisoning of his sacred Person by force of Arms, absolute 
The Law interprets it as a seeking the Prince's life, when any one seeketh to force the Prince, Cook. in E of Essexs' Case.  high Treason by the Laws of this new-risen Kingdom? And was not his Imprisonment the true underiable consequence of this Cainish League and Covenant? and is it not therefore evil and treasonable, and so abominable, and not to be kept? And was not His Majesty's traitorous Imprisonment, the immediate Harbinger to his bloody devilish murder? Did not one succeed the other? What then is it less than what the Assertors of Truth and Loyalty said, That it tended to the destruction of our Martyred Sovereign? and shall that now dare to be pleaded for, and asserted for to be still kept by any that fears God or reuerences man?  
§. 8. But some have said, (and others may say the same still) That though we risen up in arms against the King, yet we kept our Oath still, for it was with this limitation, In the preservation and defence of the true Religion, etc. and he not following of the one, nor maintaining of the other, though we fought against him, yet we are true Swearers still; Oh hellish Clause and Regicidian Limitation! what! Is that your Loyalty to swear to your King with a Juggle? From such Loyalty and all its abettors, O Lord deliver all Kings and Princes, and more especially and peculiarly, 
s Lament. 4. 20.  The Breath of our nostrils, our now incomparable Sovereign; For what Traitors or Rebels will not swear any oath whatsoever with such a cursed limitation as that, to defend their Prince, whilst their Prince defends that which such shall please to term the true Religion, whilst he preserves that which such 
t ● Sav●. 10. 27.  children of Belial may call the Liberties of the Kingdom? The Jesuitical Papists will without any scruple take an Oath to the King with such a limitation as that, whereby (though afterwards they murder their Prince for not upholding Popery, either by powder, poison, or poniard) they may justify the true keeping of their oath notwithstanding, because he not maintaining their Pope's Supremacy, nor the abominable Mass of their Romish trumperies, their defence of him ceased, by such his actual maintenance of another Religion contrary to that which they account the true? Nay, did not the Sectarian party (who took this Covenant which 
u See Feaks Beam of Light, p. 13 in Marg.  was magnified most blasphemously when it came into England first, as the very Ark of God's presence, and) who notwithstanding that, afterwards brought their pious Sovereign (whom they had swore to defend) before their Court of highest Injustice, and condemned and executed Him most barbarously before the windows of his own Royal Palace, yet pleaded they were not perjured or forsworn, because of this remarkable Restriction, or special Limitation (In defence of the true Religion, etc. And he being (as they most impudently with faces of brass affirmed) 
* Page 29.  a desperate enemy to the Lord Jesus his true seed and kingdom, and a great friend to Antichrist, and the carnal and persecuting Church in all his Kingdoms, their murder of Him was no breach of Covenant seemingly made for his defence; I am confident he that is a true Christian Protestant, will detest such limited Loyalty, such juggling destructive defences of his Prince, as favouring too much of Jesuitical venom, and Anti-monarchical designs, wherein a King's preservation stands altogether upon people's fancies; when they fancy a Religion or the Liberties of a Kingdom to be such as he doth not maintain, then farewell Loyalty, down goes true Faith and Allegiance, and up goes Treason and Rebellion, and yet pretend to be his dutiful, loyal Subjects too for all that (which some may say is impossible; but yet such blind pretences have been made by those who had nothing else to say for themselves and their illegal courses, being assisted too by such a Learned Assembly of so many Divines, who after a Three years' Conference, most profoundly voted God to be the Father.)  
§. 9 And yet notwithstanding this Anti-monarchical limitation, they declare they did set it down that the world might bear witness of their Loyalty, (they might have said Juggling and Rebellion, for that is the true english of such a limited Loyalty) and that they have no thoughts to diminish His Majesty's just power and greatness; No question but the world would, did, and have sufficiently taken notice of that which they call their Loyalty, and have found it to be such as their Guisian Leaguing Brethrne practised, who under pretence of 
x 2 Sam. 15. 7, 8.  maintaining 
w See The Right of Kings, in Marg.  the Roman Catholic Religion, (as these did for that which they usually miscalled the Reformed) undermined the King's Authority, and sought to advance themselves; the very same which Absalon (the Beautiful Rebel) showed to his Father, when under a fair colour of Evil Councillors at Court, and under a plausible pretence of paying his vow he made to the Lord in Hebron, he 
* verse 6.  stole the hearts of the men of Israel from their due allegiance to their King, and drew them 
† verse 11  in their simplicity into a damnable Rebellion with him; and therefore he that is loyal in practices and works, will never approve of these Westmonasterian Leaguers loyalty, which only consists in words, whilst their actions declares nothing else but Treason and Rebellion, unless 
y See A Vindication of King Charles, by noble Mr. Symmons. p. 40.  when they are in Cathedris, in their seats as Parliament-men, they are all as infallible as the Pope, and have a power as well as he to do what they please, to make evil good, and good evil, to make Rebellion and Treason to be Duty and Loyalty, and duty and loyalty to be Rebellion and Treason; to vote sacrilege, murder and theft to be no sins; killing, slaying and destroying to be acts of zeal and christian duty, Till than their loyalty will appear in the eyes of all judicious men to be no better than a Wolf in Sheep's clothing; As for their disclaimer of diminishing His Majesty's just power and greatness, upon search and inquiry after it, we shall find it to be a chip of the old block, a parcel of contradictions like the other of preserving the King's person with a destructive limitation, and therefore I again thus Quaere, Is the taking the Ancient right of the Militia from him (which was never for 
z See The Royalists Defence, p. 97.  the space of 1700. years passed questioned or disputed until by these usurpers injuriously wrested from the Crown, but hath been time out of mind inherent in the King, 
a See judge Jenkins Lex Terrae, p. 37.  The practice of all times and the custom of the Realm) not diminishing his Majesty's just power? Was the justifying the war by a party of the two Houses (the King's sworn Subjects) against the Martyr to be warrantable, both in point of law and conscience, and making a deforming Reformation without the consent, and against the express prohibition of their Dread Sovereign, and not only so, but justifying for a commendable practice, the iniquity of Witchcraft (which Rebellion is termed by the Prophet) was this no diminishing His Majesty's just greatness? What do they think English men are made of? What are all made up of a bundle of contradictions that they impose such juggle upon us? Surely the power of the Militia in the King was a very just, necessary power, (and he being 
b See A Letter to a Member. p. 5.  under God the Protector of the Law, I wonder how he could could defend it, and the d Privileges of Parliament without the power of the sword) and the greatness of His Majesties over all in his dominions was very just too, if either the laws of God, or of this Land, or an oath of Supremacy are able to make it so; And yet forsooth people must be forced, by virtue of an illegal Anti-parliamentary League, not only to be 
c See The Animadversions upon General Monk's Letter to the Gentry of Devon, p. 4.  engaged in the wars against the King, (and so thereby become perjured and faithless persons) and to swear to assist all those that shall do so too, in order to the taking away the Kings Negative voice, and the power of the Militia from him, which was one of those jurisdictions, privileges, preeminencies and authorities belonging to the King's Highness, His Heirs and successors, and united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm, which every one of the Parliamenteers (as they were called) had by a solemn legal Sacred oath of Supremacy sworn to assist and defend to his power) but also hypocritically (to say no worse) too swore too, that for all that they have no thoughts of diminishing His Majesty's just power and greatness? Was there ever such juggling seen, that men should endeavour to take away that from their King (which is his just right) and yet swore with their right hands, lifted up to the most high God, that they have no thoughts to diminish it? Ay and swore too that they had before their eyes at this present, the honour and happiness of the King's Majesty and his posterity? in what part of the world can these men's peers be found, as to the art of juggling and contradictions in their oaths? Where may we find a pattern of their venomous courses, but among the damned Guisian leaguers in France, who murdered their King with a promise of fidelity, and of their being his true and faithful Subjects? And yet this, this is that Covenant (God wots) that notwithstanding it set us together by the ears, and put us all in blood and confusion, must be still kept to inrol us amongst mad men for ever; This juggling and contradictions in this ungodly Covenant, cannot but be contrary to the nature of a true oath, which as the Prophet saith must be made in Truth, righteousness, and in Judgement, and therefore unlawful and not to be kept by any, without an evident disobedience to the command of the Lord, expressed by the said Prophet to the men of Israel.  
§. 10. And though they can tell us in their sixth Article, That this Cause and League of theirs, so much concerns the glory of God, the good of the kingdoms, and the honour of the King; yet I demand (and they may answer me if they can) Was is it ever heard spoke before by men that pretend a fear towards God, that that which is a most horrible breach of the Laws of God, could ever tend to his glory? and was not this Rebellions Covenant, and covenant Rebellion against the Martyr, directly a breach of the Divine Precept spoken by the mouth of his blessed St. Peter, 
d 1 Pet. 2. 13.  To submit ourselves to the King as Supreme, and that for the Lords sake? and did they not swear his Supremacy? yea, that he was the only Supreme Governor (thereby implicitly denying upon Oath any Coordinates with him in the exercise of the Supremacy)? and therefore can perjury and disobedience to the Laws of our Creator be affirmed by any one (not possessed with a deep frenzy) to concern the glory of God? It's true indeed, when the Jews crucified our Saviour, it was out of a pretended tenderness to the glory of God, and when our English-Jewish Tigers had murdered their lawful Sovereign, it was merely (as they pretended) for the advancement of Christ's kingdom; but that such actions as either of those, concerned either the glory of God, or the advancement of his Son's kingdom, is only a demonstration of the Assertors strong delusions; for it plainly intimates unto us, 
e See the Right Rebel, p. 121.  That there is a special work of Satan in it, when such a strong delusion is sent unto men, that they should believe such an Antichristian Lie, tendered unto them under the colour of a Christian truth, as the Doctrine of Rebellion is. But this is just like the Second, of the good of the kingdoms: and therefore to that I again thus Quaere, Was there not a War begun by a pack of true Delinquents got into the House of Commons, (and that they were such, I appeal to the judgement of the Law?) Did not that war (as all wars do) tend to impoverish and oppress the Kingdom? Was not this League sworn to carry it on, and not to leave off (whether to make defection to the contrary part, or to give themselves to a detestable indifferency, or neutrality in this cause of rebellion) till they had fulfilled their mischievous traitorous ends? Can then that Covenant which binds people (as this certainly did and doth) to continue the embroiling of a Nation or Kingdom in blood, confusion, perjury and Rebellion, concern so much the good of it? Can that which stirs up people to pursue the impoverishing, taxing, and enslaving of a kingdom, (for whither did the Rebelling and rising up in Arms, and swearing men to continue therein tend, but to that?) be affirmed by any except Frantic bedlamers to concern the good and benefit of it? And lastly for the honour of the King, (for he and his honour are put at the fag end of all in this perfidious League) I further again Quaere, Is it for the honour of the King to have his subjects rebel against him? Is it for the happiness of the King and his Posterity, to have all his Assistants and Adherents destroyed, as much as their fellow-subjects can, under the black false notion of Evil Councillors and Malignants? Did not the Covenant bind the takers to such things as those? Let them deny it with truth if they can. Can that Covenant which binds men to disloyalty and treason, (though hypocritically and lyingly pretending loyalty which doth not better the evil, nor antidote the venom in it; The devil though he appears as an angel of light sometimes, to ensnare men the more easily in his delusions, yet he is but a black devil still for all that; and therefore I may justly and truly make my Question thus, Can that Covenant which binds men to disloyalty and treason) and to break the Laws of this Land, be any thing less than Antichristian? And is it not therefore damnable and abominable, and to be abhorred of every one that desires to observe the dictates of God's good Spirit, in the sacred Canon of Scripture? Undoubtedly every one that understands the true ways of advancing the glory of God, the honour of the King, and the good of the kingdoms, will hold himself obliged and bound to defy this Covenant, as the very sink of Jesuitism, and highway to hell itself; and he that hath ever read, and considered well the Sacred Canon, and the undeniable truth of what our Carolian Martyr bid the Scotch Parliament always 
f See Reliquiae Sacrae Carolinae, the last printed Letter. ☞  remember, That as the best foundation of Loyalty is Christianity, so tr●e Christianity teaches perfect Loyalty; for without this Reciprocation, neither is truly what they pretend to be, will find cause enough to refuse the taking of, and if taken, to renounce and abjure such a seditious Vow and Covenant, which ties men to continue Rebels all the days of their lives; for he that shall swear to extirpate a sort of men (whose Function is established by the great Charter of our Liberties) in absolute breach of the Law, and against the Command of his Prince, and endeavour to bring to pass his extirpation by force of Arms, (which is high Treason) and swear that he will all the days of his life, zealously and constantly continue therein against all opposition, That man by any reasonable person will be concluded a sworn Rebel, and to continue by virtue of his Oath (without a just renunciation) a Traitor to his King, as long as breath remains in his body to enable him to carry on the intentions and purposes of it. And yet this is the League that such a stir and clutter is kept about some men's Christian and loyal breaking of it: and though some of its unlucky Patrons are pleased to allege for its goodness, that part of the Clause of the first Article, wherein it is said, according to the word of God, and the examples of the best Reformed Churches, yet I affirm, That that doth no more prove what they intent, by bringing of that Allegation, than the 
* 2 Cor. 11. 14.  devils being transformed into an angel of light, doth prove that he was in reality that into which he was transformed, than the 
† Matth. 7. 15.  false prophets coming to us in sheep's clothing, doth prove that they are not inwardly ravening wolves; then the Pharisees 
‖ Matth. 23. 21.  appearing outwardly righteous unto men, is a convincing Argument to prove that within they were not full of hypocrisy and iniquity.  
§. 11. But lastly, they tell us, That they profess and declare before God and the world, their unfeigned desire to be humbled for their own sins, and for the sins of these Kingdoms, especially that they have not as they ought valued the inestimable benefits of the Gospel, that they have not laboured for the purity and power thereof, and that they have not endeavoured to receive Christ in their hearts, nor to walk worthy of him in their Lives. No, it's very true, for if they had, we should never have seen an ungospel-like, unchristian Rebellion raised and sworn to be upholden against our gracious King, painted over with a plausible pretence against some pretended evil Councillors, nor an Anti-legal juggling self-contradictory League sworn for the Dathanian extirpation of the great upholders of Monarchy and its just Rights, Privileges, Preeminencies, and Authorities, against the several Encroachments of Papists and Presbyters, of Jesuits and Sectaries. They complain there indeed that they have not endeavoured to receive Christ in their hearts, and are they fit to be Reformers of Religion, and setters up of the ways and worship of our blessed Lord, when they have not so much as endeavoured to receive him in their hearts? Doth the devil begin to make a Reformation of Christian Religion? Do Atheists go about to set up Christianity? What may we then expect the fruits of it to be, but a dismal cloud of darkness and confusion, which indeed doth suit well with these extirpating Leaguers Reformation they have made amongst us, 
g See A Vindication of king Charles. p. 88  such a one as Nebuzaradan steward to Nebuchadnezar made at Jerusalem, when he threw down the walls both of the City and Temple; They make it matter of humiliation it's true, that they have not walked worthy of him in their lives; and is this Baal-berith the way to do it? What shall we think of that man that shall outface the Sun with his Treason, and seemingly repent for his wicked courses, and yet at the same instant swear to carry on his rebellion still? A serious man will give judgement, that such a one hath nothing to do with God or Christianity, but is wholly possessed by an evil spirit, which haunts him to his everlasting destruction; And yet this is directly the case of our English baalim's of the Covenant; they first raise a war (which the Law of the Land calls Rebellion) against the King's evil Councillors, to remove them from him, which is absolute high Treason, & then pretend to humble themselves that they have not endeavoured to receive Christ in their hearts, nor walked worthy of him in their lives, and yet in the very act of this feigned humiliation swear too that they will zealously continue in such their filthy courses all the days of their lives; was there ever such grand hypocrites, and mockers of God since the world began, among those that pretended a fear of his name, as these Leaguers are? The Scribes and Pharisees were but pigmies to them in this matter; First pretend a sorrow for their sins, and yet in the very act of their temporary repentance bind themselves by an oath, to proceed in them as long as ever they can; Go about to persuade some credulous heady mortals, that they are very sorry they have not walked worthy of Christ in their lives, and at the same time with their right hands lift up to the most high God, swear to break his Laws and Precepts, even to Rebel against their King, to whom he hath commanded all men to yield a due subjection and obedience, and if that be the way to walk worthy of him, Libera me Domine, the Lord deliver me from any walking with them; If the way to walk worthy of Christ, be to turn Rebels and Traitors to the Prince we live under, and out of pure love to God, profane his Sanctuaries, break his Laws, and run directly counter to his sacred Precepts, I know none that walked more worthy of God and of his Christ, than the blind Jews on the one hand that ignorantly crucified our blessed Lord for a Blasphemer, and the hellish wilful Regicides on the other hand that knowingly murdered his Anointed for a Tyrant; For my part, I am in such disorder of spirit whilst I am thinking upon their deceits and juggle, that I shall hasten (as much as confutation of rebellion will permit) to ease myself of their puddle of contradictions, and for that end and purpose I shall proceed to the next that follows, where I find them to let fall these goodly expressions; And are true and unfeigned (how shall any man believe the truth of it?) purpose (say they) in public and private, in all duties we own to God and man, is to amend our lives, and each one to go before another in the example of a Real Reformation.  
§. 12. Here's a fair Protestation we see; Plausible language again (as the former) to delude the hearts and minds of those that take up all things upon trust without any examination, but every whit as much juggling in it, as was in that which went before; which will easily appear by a few more Queries which I thus set down; Was it not a duty they owed to God to observe his commands? And did not he command by the mouth of St. Paul, That 
h Rom. 13. 1.  every Soul should be subject to the higher powers, (which the oath of Supremacy and what another Apostle hath 
* 1 Pet. 2. 23.  said, doth plainly evident to be the Kings most excellent Majesty) and that too under pain of eternal Damnation? And was that a Real Reformation in the duty they owed to God to walk in opposition to his Injunctions? Again, for their duty towards man, Let them remember the Case of the Earl of Essex, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, who (in comparison of Edge-hill Battel) gathered together but a handful of men, nor was that Queen fought with, (as our late renowned Sovereign was) nor her person in danger (as the Martyrs was) The Earl upon his Arraignment protested his intentions were only to remove from the Queen some evil Councillors about her, yet notwithstanding he raising force to do this without the Queens warrant, his plea was not available, but his action was judged Treason, and he and his Adherents executed as Traitors for it; Now mind, Was our Leaguers fight against the King (for their declaring to fight for King and Parliament, at the very same time when they sent Armed men against those where he was in person, serves only for a record and to eternize the memory of their damnable juggling and hypocrisy, but I say, Was their fight against the King) a real Reformation of their duty towards man? Was their walking in the direct steps of the Traitorous Essex (who left an ungrateful son behind him, to follow the same curses with himself) which was judged high Treason, the going before one another in the example of a Real Reformation? Was their actual 
i See judge Jenkins' Lex Terra p. 12.  encountering such as came to aid the King in his wars (which is Treason too) a Reformation of their duty towards man? Was swearing to commit Treason a Real Reformation? Observe Reader, They confess themselves faulty in duty towards God and man (for what do they talk else of a Reformation?) and then lest it should be thought to be feigned, their purpose is, they say (but we have but their bare word for it) to make a Real Reformation, and what (trow we) is this Real Reformation of their default, but swearing together to break the Laws both of the Sacred Canon, and this land, in the wilful actual proceeding on to the commission of Treason and Rebellion? Thus their Reformation of their lives is so like that of Religion, that it must needs proceed from one and the same treacherous mouth and juggling lips, that are altogether used in this League for the advancing of falsehood and depressing of the truth: alas our Covenanters made it appear, that their words and actions are two distinct things (and people are very ready always to pass sentence upon men, (not according to their fair words and pretences, but) according to their actions, and when they find a contrariety between them, to fasten upon them their proper deserved name of hypocrites) Nay their very words do not agree one with another, (and such surely must be accounted self-contradictory jugglers with a witness) for they had no sooner told us of making a Real Reformation of their lives in all duties they owed to God and man, but presently after they shut up their Baal-berith with this Antichristian, rebellious, infamous (and never enough to be detested) prayer and conclusion, beginning with a Most humbly beseeching the Lord to strengthen us by his holy spirit for this end, and to bless our desires and proceed with such success, as may be deliverance and safety to his people, (as though Rebellion could ever produce safety long to the undertakers) And which surely proceeded either from the instigation of the Devil, or else was the plot and devise of some Romish Jesuitical Emissaries to make the true loyal Protestant Religion (which teaches men according to Christ's Rule, rather to suffer and flee, then to fight with and kill our enemies) to stink as unsavoury stuff in the nostrils both of God, and all truly pious men, else certainly we should never have heard of an hellish lewd League made for) encouragement to other christian churches (if they be truly Christian they'll abhor our Leaguers courses) groaning under or in danger of the yoke of Antichristian Tyranny (what, for very 
Titus 3. 1.  fear of a yoke must christian's rebel against Principalities and powers to disobey Magistrates, which Titus had a command from St. Paul to put the then Christians in mind to be subject to, though really groaning then under a sad yoke, of Jewish and heathenish tyranny on the one side, and the other? certainly the Covenanters mind not what a nearness their feet are to be the very brink of hell, when they laid down these Antichristian Articles for others) to join in the same or like association and Covenant to the glory of God, the enlargement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ (Suppose a man that hath cut himself, to stop it from bleeding, should afresh with a knife make the wound wider, would you not think him frantic?) and the peace and tranquillity of christian kingdoms and Commonweals (It's a brave art to persuade people that wars and bloodsheds, confusions and disorders, tend to the peace and tranquillity of a kingdom, and that this Covenant bound the takers to pursue their resolutions by the sword is plain beyond contradiction, and we have not been deluded and cheated by our Leaguing Absaloms' long enough (it seems,) but we must continue hampered still in the noose of a Regicidian, Antichristian, lewd, impious, profane Covenant for fear of being perjured forsooth, if we draw ourselves and necks out of it, whereas true Christianity will not suffer a man to transgress so far the bounds of loyalty, as to keep that, nor true loyalty permit a man so far to go beyond the limits of the English Laws, as to turn a Rebel to his King to stand to such a faithless Covenant, which teaches men to 
k See Eikon Basilike, His Majesty's words upon the calling in of the Scots.  build their piety on their ruins of Loyalty, to make bankrupt of their Allegiance under pretence of setting up a quicker trade for Religion; But to their conclusive prayer, a particular answer I shall give in such following terms as these.  
§. 13. We read in the 58 of Esa. 1. verse, the Lord commanding the Prophet in this manner, Cry aloud and spare not, lift up thy voice like a Trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins; Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways as a Nation that did Righteousness, and forsook not the Ordinance of their God, they ask of me the Ordinances of Justice, they take delight in approaching to God; Wherefore have we fasted (say they) and thou seest not? But what said God to them? Behold (saith he) ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness. Here was fair pretences; who could make better? but that did but aggravate the sinful nature of their Crimes, we have had such mock-fasts too in our times by our Leaguers (God bless us from any more such) and promises to reform themselves, that the Lord might turn away his wrath from us, and yet make it a part of their reformation presently to pursue their rebellious intentions against their lawful only Supreme Governor; They pretended indeed to fast for their sins, but their subsequent actions declared to all the world their fasting to be like that of their Jewish Brethren, even for strife and debate, for prosperity in Treason, and to smite with the fist of Rebellion, to cut and slay all the assistants of their King, because they will not forsake their virtuous Sovereign, renounce their sworn faith and allegiance, and become joint actors with them in their unclean beastly courses; The Jews sought God daily and delighted to know his ways, yet that excused them not, So our Holy Leaguers pretend to seekafter God, and to delight in approaching to him, yet that serves not for an extenuation of their crimes, nor for the lessening of their offences; Observe Reader these Leaguers prayers, how devoutly they can pray for success in their Treasons and Conspiracies, nay, and to have it for this end too that other people in foreign Nations may Covenant in like manner to rebel and rise up in Arms, for the extirpation of the settled Church Government of the Nation, without and against the consent and precept of their respective Princes, and to follow our Leaguers peerless practices in it; But I demand, Is not such a prayer as this extremely sinful in the matter of it? do they not as good as pray for prosperity in their breach of the Law of God? When I read it, methinks I cannot but admire at these Covenanters confidence, and stupidity, that they should first break the Laws of God in a most notorious manner by their perjury and disobedience to their Prince, and then Covenant and bind themselves to proceed in the carrying on of their evil Treacherous designs, and yet pray to God to prosper them in their villainy, when they might more justly according to Gods dealing with Corah, and his holy-conspirators for Church-paritie, have expected to have found the fate of those murmuring Saints against the Supremacy of the Prince and Priest (the true and exact picture to me of our Covenanting Jack Presbyters) to be swallowed up alive for their Extirpating Covenant, and the earth whereon they trod to sink under them: For 
l See his Pious votary, p. 47, 48  a Rebel (saith the learned Hardy) who goeth forth to fight against his lawful Sovereign, to pray that God would be with him, were not a Petition, but a Presumption: for though it be true that Almighty God doth sometimes suffer (for reasons best known to himself) such wretches to prosper in their wicked ways, yet they cannot either justly expect, or religiously desire it, and by how much the more devoutly they seem to undertake such attempts, by so much the more abominable they are in the eyes of God, who never more abhorreth Rebellion, then when it is masked with Religion and Devotion. Do they think it was no sin in them for to make such an horrible conclusive prayer, as that which is here made for a close to their Covenant? If they say no, than a pack of thiefs, who lie in wait for to spoil men of their goods and estates, and sometimes of their lives, may pray to God too for prosperity in their pilfering courses, (that is, in plain English, to bless them in their disobedience to him with success for it) and count their prayer in such case lawful too; and so Absalon, and his deluded confederates, might most humbly beseech God to bless them with such success against King David, that they might not only usurp his Authority, and cast him out of his Throne, but that other of their neighbour Nations might be encouraged by their example to do the like to their own Kings; and so of any other whatsoever in the commission of any villainy: if they can but first have the courage to do the thing without fear of punishment, and in expectation of praise for it, and then can have but the confidence most humbly to beseech God (as our Leaguers Cant it) to bless them with success in it, if they say, yes, than I hope their Covenant ought to be abolished and renounced, as being (what it is undoubtedly) sinful in the matter of it.  
I remember (Mr. Croftons' profound Lawyer) Mr. Prynne in his printed Treatises hath told us, That the unparallelled proceed of those who unjustly usurped the title of Parliament, (though their title was only in nomine, non re, in name, not in reality) in relation to their barbarous murder of their Lord and Sovereign (to whom they had sworn to bear true faith and allegiance) and to their traitorous banishing of his incomparable Heir, through a quaternary of perjuries, have given occasion 
m See his Republicans, and others Spurious good Old Cause, briefly and truly Anatomised, p. 17.  to all our Popish adversaries, not only to traduce, deride, reproach, blaspheme our Protestant Profession, as some of them have done in print, as a mere Seminary of Treason, Rebellion, Sedition, Hypocrisy, Perjury, Disloyalty, and all sorts of villainy, but to combine together in a HOLY LEAGUE to extirpate it, and all Professors of it out of the world; And 
n See his True and perfect Narrative. p. 55.  to massacre, eradicate, them as a company of Traitors, Antimonarchists, Regicides, Hypocrites, Rebels, and seditious persons, And made it great matter of lamentation (as it is undoubtedly to every good Christian) that men pretending to fear God, should ever give such an irreparable scandal to Christianity; And I have no sooner set down that Gentleman's words, but I presently find that there was occasion enough given by their warlike Covenant, to turn the edge of these Covenanters words upon themselves; for they having rebelled against their Sovereign, as it were for God's sake, for the further strengthening of themselves in their wicked courses, combined by League and Covenant, not only to proceed on further in their rising up in Arms against their supreme Legislator for the glory of God, (a practice (as a loyal Scotch Minister 
o See Scotland's late misery bewailed, p. 14.  saith) inconsistent with sound divinity, against all orthodox doctrine, a practice contrary to Scripture, contrary to the doctrine of the ancient Church, and their practice contrary to the Confession of Faith; No King upon the account of his intellectuals, morals, or religion, being to be suspended from the exercise of his Government, or denied submission too by his Subjects) but also to continue therein all the days of their lives, against all lets and impediments whatsoever, for the peace and safety of the three kingdoms; which as they are notorious contradictions in themselves (like the rest of their Juggling League) by being instrumental to the dishonour of God in the horrible breaking of his Laws, and directly opposite to the peace of this kingdom (as well as all others where such Antichristian prayers are put in practice) in being acted so rebelliously to the praise and glory of the man of sin, to the pulling down of the kingdom of our most blessed Saviour, and to the everlasting disgrace of true Christianity (even of the true Protestant Religion, which vehemently exclaims against all such seditious Antimonarchical ways and principles:) So with every rational man that knows there must be a flame kindled, before a house can be burned, that the King had never been murdered by prosperous Rebels, if the flame of Sedition and Treason had not first set the kingdom a burning, (and for a man to make a flame in a house, and by that flame at length that house is burned and destroyed, and then to say he never intended the house should have been destroyed, savours of little less than frenzy, and will hardly ever excuse his innocency in it. These Leaguers had first raised a war, and vowed and swore the prosecution thereof against the Martyr, and the swordmen taking advantage of the Military power which by the Covenanters means they had obtained, executed their villainy in their villainous act of Regicide, and yet the former would persuade the world that they never intended it; which if the rising up in arms had not first been practised, the murder would then have never been heard of; which being so evident to any man's understanding) this conclusion naturally flows from the premises, That their rebellious Actings against the King in the behalf of a Faction of the Two Houses, (that had renounced all allegiance save in order to that which they called Religion) do give as great occasion (as the murder) to foreign Princes to extirpate, as much as in them lies, the professors of the Protestant Religion, to prevent them from rising up in arms against them, lest their prosperity in such ways of darkness, should invite them at length to attempt to serve them 
☞  there, as the renowned Martyr was here, after he had been by virtue of this hellish black Covenant fought against, and all his Forces overcome, and (as the immediate fruits, issues, and effects thereof) first sold, then imprisoned, and afterwards delivered to his perjured Subjects to be crucified. Finally, for a conclusion to this Covenanting Prayer, which the famous University of Oxford affirmed, their hearts trembled to think that they should be required to pray it, I shall here subjoin the judicious and memorable thoughts of that then loyal conscientious University, which I find expressed in the following words; 
p See their Reasons. p. 15, 16.  To pray (say those reverend persons) to the purpose in the conclusion of the Covenant, seemeth to us all one in effect, as to beseech Almighty God, the God of love and peace, 1. To take all love and peace out of the hearts of Christians, and to set the whole Christian world in a combustion. 2. To render the Reformed Religion, and all Protestants odious to all the world. Mark the third, To provoke the Princes of Europe 
☞  to use more severity towards those of the Reformed Religion; if not (for their own security) to root them quite out of their several Dominions. 4. The tyranny and yoke of Antichrist (if laid upon the subject's necks by their lawful Sovereigns) is to be thrown off by Christian boldness, in confessing the truth, and patiented suffering for it, not by taking up arms, or violent resistance of the higher Powers; and yet forsooth this is that sacred Covenant that must be so strictly kept, to set the whole Christian world in a combustion. This is that League which must be so zealously continued in, to render the true Protestant Religion and professors thereof, odious and detestable to all the world, yes and for the enlargement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ too they tell us.  
I remember a very good observation of one upon this very account, 
q See the Right Rebel. p. 145.  That as none of the Disciples denied, cursed, and forswore his Master, but Peter only, who alone without his leave, drew a sword in his defence, so neither is it said of the rest, that they forsook him and stead, till after that Peter had rashly attempted to defend him by force; as if the Holy Ghost would have Christians observe, That fight for Christ without warrant from him, is the next forerunner of forsaking him: That 
* Pag, 139  if there be any one thing above others, which The Antichrist may properly challenge, as peculiar to himself, it is the professed practice of Rebellion, of purpose to promote pretended Religion: for nothing can be more directly opposite, both unto the Doctrine and Practice of Christ himself, and his Apostles, of Orthodox Christians in the times of the Primitive Church, and of all genuine Protestants since the Reformation, and yet that was the absolute tenor of the Covenant, to resist King Charles, to fight with a pretence for the advancement of King Jesus, which how contrary to his Will, Practice, and Command, may very well be gathered out of what hath been already set down, as well as what crofton's profound Lawyer, Mr. Prynne himself, hath said upon that subject, in his True and perfect Narrative, Pag. 68, 74, 75, 76. In which last page he sets down one of the express affirmations of the Jesuits, (plainly declaring the great union between them and our English Leaguers, in that unchristian Practice) That their Gospel and Religion is to be propagated, set up; the Heroticks, and Evangelical Sectaries, who resist them, Refuted, (how?) Extirpated, Abolished with Fire, Sword, and War (like holy Leaguers) and therefore upon all that hath been said in my Animadversions upon the several Articles of the Sacred Covenant (so called) I hope there is no man of any ingenuity, or understanding, but will conclude with me, the damnable sinfulness thereof, both in the Form, and matter of it; and so, according to the Leaguers own Assertions, in the number of those unlawful Oaths, which must at no hand be kept by any takers of them.  
§. 14. Having thus dispatched my Animadversions on this illegal League, I shall now proceed to set down their own words, to prove the unlawfulness, and sin of keeping of their so much idolised Diana, and so the necessity of repentance from all its takers; Their words are these in their exhortation to take the Covenant; That if there should any oath be found, into which any Ministers or others have entered not warranted by the Laws of God, and the land, in this case they must teach themselves and others, that such oaths call for repentance, not pertinacy in them; which words being suitable to what the Reverend Dr. Hardy said I shall here adjoin his words, That 
r See his Pious Votary, p. 16.  those Covenants which engages men instead of keeping the Laws of God, injuriously to violate both the Laws of God, and perfidiously to break their own former oaths, are no better than Leagues with hell, and Covenants with the Devil; Now mark, will the Law of God warrant any persons whatsoever in the swearing a Reformation against their King's consent? will that Law, which commands me to yield obedience to the King as Supreme, warrant me in my disobedience and rebellion against him for to carry on my work of reformation? Can that Law which enjoins me to be subject to Principalities and Powers, warrant my throwing that subjection off because I have the face to affirm, and pretend it is for the fulfilling of it? That this is the tenor of this impious Covenant, we need no other witness then itself, which plainly testifieth to all the world, that the swearers thereof took up arms merely to alter Religion, And that disobedience to God in the rebellion against the King, was the very matter and subject of the Covenant, is exceeding plain to any who consider the famous assertion of the now most learned Primate of Armagh (one of whose words weighs more in the judgement of any understanding person, than ten thousand of of such babble as our wily factious Presbyters keep such a chatting in the Nation with) 
s See his fair warning. p. 30.  Subjects (saith that most accomplished Speaker) vow to God and swear one to another to change the Laws of the Realm, to abolish the discipline of the Church and the Liturgy lawfully established, by the sword (which was never committed to their hands by God or man) without the King, against the King, which no man can deny in earnest to be plain Rebellion. So that unless they can make the Law of God to warrant that which it not where commands, but severely condemns, Their League and Covenant according to the exhorters own affirmation, calls for repentance, and not continuance in the keeping of that, which the several takers had either the confidence at first rebelliously to swear or through the horrible seductions or threats, and menaces of the Delinquent Imposers, took it (not considering the venom in it) without, and against the Carolian Martyrs consent in perfect defiance of his legal sworn only supreme authority; And as for its being warranted by the Laws of the Land, hear in the first place what the reverend Judge Jenkins saith in general; It is an oath (saith 
t See his Lex Terrae p. 158.  that famous Lawyer) against the Laws of the Land, against the Petition of Right, and he gives us a reason for it presently after thus, No man (saith he) by the Law can give an oath in a new case without an act of Parliament, and therefore (saith he again) the imposers thereof are guilty of the highest crime; Now can that oath be said by any man in his right wits, to be warranted by the Laws of the Land, which is directly opposite and contrariant to them, and for which the imposers may be hanged at Tyburn (for the gallows have commonly been the immediate fate and consequence of that highest crime of Treason)? This Covenant was thrust down the Throats of many people, not by an Act of Parliament (which must have been made (as the Petition of Right, and all other Laws and Acts have been) by the King, and all the Lords and Commons, but by an Ordinance (as it was called) of a packed black faction of the than never to be forgotten two Houses (which serves for nothing but to 
* p. 84.  record to posterity a lawless & distempered time) A thing so far from being warranted by the Laws of the Land, that such a thing was never heard of, till these latter times of Treason and Sacrilege, Rebellion and Confusion, when men's brains began to be possessed of the effects and virtues of a Midsommer-moon. Again, can that be warranted by the Laws of the land which is so far a breach of those laws as it's esteemed high Treason? 
u p. 22. 40.  Arising to alter religion established or any Law is Treason, saith the reverend Judge. And did not the thing which Crofton will needs have to be a Parliament, arise to alter the religion? and was not this league devised to keep men under an oath for the doing and assisting of them in it? Let Jack Presbyter deny it if he can. In the second Article of this Covenant, the takers swore to endeavour to extirpate Archbishops, Bishops, etc. which is absolute contrary to Magna Charta (which in the 25th of Edw. 3. chap. 1. 2. is declared to be the common Law of the Land) chap. 1. and the last, Salvae fint Episcopis omnes libertates suae, That the Bishops shall have all their whole Rights and Liberties inviolable, and this great Charter the Judge tells us p. 62. is confirmed by no less than 32 Acts of Parliament, and in the 42th of Edw. 3. The first chapter enacts, That if any Statute be made to the contrary, it shall be holden for none, and therefore their impious, lawless League in this respect is far enough from being warranted by the Laws of this Land, being so notoriously against the very Charter of our Liberties. Again, the Leaguers declared (as Crofton himself told us lately, for I am scarce old enough to remember the doing of it) That they Abolished the Common-prayer Book in pursuance of their Covenant. Very good; This very book (which they pretended to abolish with the power of an illegal ordinance) was not only compiled by true Martyrs, and Reformers, and practised in the times of four Princes, but was (and is still, 
p. 62.  notwithstanding their Rebellious Ordinance) settled by no less than five Acts of Parliament; And therefore their Covenant being in that act also contrary to the Laws, All Ministers and others that have taken this Oath, must teach themselves and others, (according to the exhorters own assertion, for I love to take men at their words) that such oaths call for repentance and not pertinacy in them, it being proved to be so far from being warranted by the Laws of the Land, that it is an absolute breach of above 26 of them.  
§. 15. I remember, The Leaguers in their Disputes and Arguments 
☞  against the wearing of the Surplice, and performance of other commendable Ceremonies of our best Reformed Church of England, do out of their wise Noddles send forth such doughty windy Affirmations, as will excellently well serve to prove the unlawfulness of their Covenant. Let a man go and ask them why they will not wear the Surplice, and live in conformity to the Rites and Customs of the Church, they'll tell him, because they are unlawful: and why are they unlawful? because God hath no where commanded them to be done in the Scripture; though in any wise man's judgement, there can be no unlawfulness in a thing, without it be a breach of some Law which hath forbid it, and where they will find that Law against the Surplice and Ceremonies, its possible they'll tell us when they are able, and their ability for that end will be I believe Ad Grecas Calendas, but not well before. Now according to their own ways of arguing, I shall make this retortion; That God hath no no where in the Scripture commanded subjects (in case of a default made by the Prince, or that he will not consent to any Reformation) to rise up in Arms, and rebel against him, and swear an Oath to do it themselves without any Royal Consent at all; and let any of the Pack make it appear if they can. For, for them to set down the examples of the Oaths and Covenants, Kings and Subjects jointly made for a Reformation, when they are demanded to show a pattern for their Covenant, is no more to the purpose, then to say, Queen Elizabeth and her Nobles made a Reformation in this kingdom, to pull us out of the mist of Popish darkness; no more satisfaction to a Quaerist, than (as the Reverend Dr. Pierce told one of his Antagonists) for a man when he is asked what's a Clock, To answer a windmill, or a pump? for the question is not, whether Kings and Subjects may jointly swear a Reformation of Abuses, either in Church or State, (for there is no body I think will stand to dispute that) but whether in case a King will not make that extirpating Reformation his Subjects would have him, whether they may do this without his consent, by Oaths and rising up in Arms, which is palpable rebellion? 
u See the League illegal p. 17.  Where doth God command the English to swear to preserve the Scotch Discipline and Liturgy, which they themselves have often varied? Or to abjure Episcopacy, which was the only Government of the Church for more than 1500 years, and under whose shade Christian Religion most flourished, and the Church stretched forth her branches to the Rivers, and her boughs to the ends of the earth? Where doth the Scripture warrant (much less command) the association of two kingdoms, and jointly taking up Arms in the Quarrel of the Gospel, and defending and propagating Religion by the sword? And let them answer that, or let their silence conclude their being convinced: I say again, God never commanded Subjects any where in the Scripture, to make a Reformation without their Prince's consent by arms. And therefore to deal with them with their own weapons, according to their own ways of disputations against the Ceremonies, I affirm, that their Covenant is wicked and unlawful, and being an unlawful sinful Oath, by the resolution and judgement of all Casuists, it ought not to be pleaded for, nor taken, or if once taken, to be kept by any that ever took it, because 
x See The Fair Warning, p. 30.  To observe a wicked engagement, doubles the sin, according to the found determinations of the Reverend Primate; And so my Argument herein, I am sure, ad hominem, is unanswerable.  
§. 16. The next thing that will come under examination, will be the unlawfulness of the Covenant, in respect of its contrariety to the two former legally established Sacred Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, and the Protestation; and to that end I commend to the consideration of my Readers, the excellent Determination of the Irish Primate in relation to this point, in his incomparable Fair Warning to take heed of the Scottish Discipline, p. 31. Where (after he had affirmed That a Supervenient Oath or Covenant either with God or man, cannot take away the obligation of a just Oath precedent) he immediately adds, But such is the Covenant, a subsequent Oath, inconsistent with, and destructive to a precedent Oath, that is, the Oath of Supremacy; which all the Churchmen throughout the kingdom, and all Parliament men at their Admission to the House, and all persons of quality thoughout England have taken. The former oath acknowledgeth the King to be the only Supreme Head (that is, Civil Head, to see that every man do his duty in his calling) and Governor of the Church of England. The second Oath or Covenant to set up the Presbyterian Government as it is in Scotland, denieth all this virtually, makes it a Political Papacy, acknowledgeth no Governors, but only the Presbytery. The former Oath gives the King the Supreme Power over all persons, in all causes. The second gives him a power over all, as they are Subjects, but none at all in Ecclesiastical causes. This (saith he) they make to be Sacrilege. And therefore I Quaere, 1. Whether he that hath taken the legally established Oath of Supremacy to His Sacred Majesty, which (as a Paraphrast very well noteth) 
y See The Oaths of Supremacy & Allegiance, which have lain dead many years, etc. p. 10.  Admits of no Rival in the Throne, but doth exclude all others from the Supremacy, from being enabled to act above His Majesty, or contrary unto Him, or without Him, or his allowance, in any acts of Government, can take this illegal Covenant, whereby he swears, according to his utmost power, not only to carry on the Rebellion then already begun, (for that it was so, needs no further demonstration) but also to assist all other persons that shall take it, in what they shall do in pursuance thereof (thereby implicitly owning the power of the then two Houses, and disowning the Only Supremacy of the King, so clearly asserted in that Oath) I say, whether he that hath taken the former, can ever swear the latter, without a notorious guilt of apparent Perjury? If not, (as no man I think upon serious consideration will affirm he may) than it necessarily follows that the one is an opposition to the other.  
Again, The Oath of Supremacy binds the takers to their power, to assist and defend all Jurisdictions, Privileges, Preeminences, and Authoritys, granted, or belonging to the King's Highness, and united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm: And the famous University of Oxford have told us, That 
y See their Reasons, p. 38.  the whole power of ordering all matters Ecclesiastical, was by the Laws of the Land in express words, For ever annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm, (citing the Statute for it in their Margin:) whence I Quaere, Secondly, Whether he that hath once taken the Oath of Supremacy, and afterwards swallowed down this Regicidian League, was not desperately forsworn in taking upon them the ordering of Ecclesiastical matters (which is one of those Jurisdictions and Privileges granted to the King's Highness) so far as to swear the Extirpation of the Legally established Ecclesiastical Government, without, and against his Majesty's Royal assent? one while swearing to defend the Jurisdiction and Preeminence granted, or belonging to the King, and another while vowing the performance of that which is absolutely contrariant unto it? And Perjury attained by taking of two Oaths, in my shallow judgement, doth unavoidably imply, the vast proportion of difference and contrariety that is between them. Since the writing of these last words, I heard of the burning of the Solemn League and Covenant, by the hands of the Common Hangman, according to the Noble Order of the truly Honourable two Houses, 
May 22. 1661.  now at this present assembled in Parliament, by virtue of his Majesty's Gracious Writ; which, as it is no more than its deserts, in having bewitched people into an odious Rebellion against their Prince, which (as one saith well) 
z See the Right Rebel, p. 72.  Must needs be acknowledged a sin of Sodom, especially since the Sodomites are the first that the Holy Ghost in Scripture hath taxed for the practice thereof: So I shall desist from saying here any more of this Loyal Vote, concerning that monstrous League, but shall now go on to the finishing of what I have here intended, to show the sinfulness thereof in its contrariety to former Legal Oaths; and to that end and purpose shall again Quaere: Thirdly, Can that Oath, Which * was devised only to 
** See his Majesty's Proclamation prohibiting the taking of it.  prevent peace, and to engage the King's good subjects in the maintenance of an horrid and odious Rebellion against him (as this wicked League did) any way accord with an Oath of Allegiance, which solemnly bound all its takers to bear true faith and Allegiance to his Majesty, and to defend him to the uttermost of their power, against all attempts and conspiracies whatsoever (therefore against that damnable one of the then two Houses) which shall be made against his Person, Crown, and Dignity? Fourthly, Can this subsequent, seditious, and traitorous Vow and Covenant, which endeavours to withdraw the subjects from their natural Allegiance, which they own unto their Prince (they are his * Majesty's own words) and engages them in acts of High Treason, by the express letter of the Statute of the 25. of King Edward the 3. be any way consonant, or agreeable with two preceding Oaths, which expressly obliges them to bear to the King truth, and faith of life, members and earthly honour, and to 
a See the oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, etc. p. 15.  appear for the defence of him, of his Person and Government, against all attempts against them, by any whatsoever, upon any pretences soever? Can any be so wild and frantic, as to make such an affirmation? Fifthly, How can that Oath which binds men absolutely to bear true faith and Allegiance to the King, without any relation to his good, or bad Government, suit with an Apostate that is sworn with a cursed destructive limitation, to defend him so long as he shall continue in the preservation of that, which the swallower thereof shall fancifully call, the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom, and no longer? See more of this in the excellent Scotch-Covenant condemned; That the one is the intention of the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, and the other, the purpose of the Covenant, needs not to be demonstrated with any illustration, seeing the doubters may be satisfied in the Oaths themselves: And therefore I conclude the contrariety between the one and the other, in the words of the learned Paraphrast, when he set down his mind with a Neither can that limitation in the Covenant, wherein they oblige 
Page 8.  themselves to the preservation of the King, in the maintenance of the true Protestant Religion, the Privileges of Parliament, and the Liberty of the subject, limit or abate the force of those absolute obligations, whereby all subjects are obliged to the King, and his lawful Heirs and Successors, which are upon them by the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance; but as such limitations look very unhandsomely, so they have not at all any force of abatement in them, but aught to be abhorred, disclaimed, and rejected by all honest Subjects and Christians, as an evil gap opened to Rebellion and Sedition to those that have a mind to make such an evil use thereof, under pretence that the King doth (that which indeed he ought not to do) either depart in any thing from the true Religion, or violate the Privileges of Parliament, or the Liberties of the subject.  
§ 17. Lastly, For this League and Covenants contrariety to the Protestation, I shall first set down in general, the words of a Right Reverend person upon it, who hath told us, That 
b See the Image unbroken.  the Protestation was confined to established Law, but the Covenant to destroy Law, and what was established by it; the Protestation to defend the Doctrine, the Covenant to destroy the Government, which is comprehended in the Doctrine: How do these two hang together? Reconcile them, and it will be as easy to make light and darkness, order and confusion, virtue and wickedness, lawful & unlawful acts, to appear one & the same thing to every persons eye and ear; And therefore how shallow and weak soever my judgement is in every thing, yet I hope those that are judicious, will excuse me, though I presume for once to commend, what I say now, to their, and every man's serious consideration; because if I am erroneous, it's not through wilfulness, or obstinacy, but merely for want of understanding to discern that which is better, (upon supposition that I am in an error, which I cannot say, till I be convinced of it) and that which I have to say upon this account, shall come dressed to people's eyes in no other terms then these which I have now subjoined: Every one that took this Protestation, did Vow and Protest to maintain and defend (as far as lawfully he might, observe that well, Sir John) with his life, power, and estate, the true Reformed Protestant Religion, expressed in the Doctrine of the Church of England: Now mind, the Thirty nine Articles (as they are usually called) have been always hitherto wont to be accounted, The Doctrine of the Church of England: the Thirty sixth Article whereof is so far from speaking against the Bishops for the advancing and promoting of a dogged, surly, Anti-Monarchical, Scottish Discipline, that the very book of Consecration of Arch-Bishops, and Bishops, and ordering of Priests and Deacons, (which had the Royal Civil sanction at the making thereof) is affirmed there to have nothing in it that is superstitious or ungodly: and this is a part of that, which in this Protestation was termed, The true Protestant Religion: Nay, and this must not be defended neither, but as far as lawfully I may, so that if there had not been the least mention of Episcopacy in any of the Articles, yet confining themselves in their Protestation, to the rules and orders of the Laws, the Supremacy of the King over all persons, Clergy and Lay, in all causes, Ecclesiastical, and Civil, and Episcopacy, its stout prop and defender, (both undermined, subverted, and destroyed by a Scottish Discipline) stand as safe, and firm by the very Protestation, as they were before that was ever made or taken. Now comes a Solemn League and Covenant, and binds its takers, by force of Arms, to beat down Episcopacy, comprehended in that very doctrine (which the Presbyters had sworn to maintain and defend with their lives, powers, and estates) and established by Law, to turn their neighbours (as the Revered Primate 
See his Fair Warning, page 2.  saith) out of a possession of above one thousand four hundred years, to make room for their Trojan horse of Ecclesiastical Discipline (a practice never justified in the world, but either by the Turk, or by the Pope) I, and do this too, not as far as lawfully they may, but any way in the world, by hook or by crook, per fas, aut ne fas, so that they can but attain at the ends aimed at in their extirpating noddles, to beat down the firm brazen walls of Episcopacy, to rear up the muddy, noisome ones, of an unwholesome factious Presbytery in their rooms. And therefore once again, I Quaere, Can that Protestation (whereby I A. B. do promise, vow, and protest to maintain and descend, as far as lawfully I may, with my life, power, and estate, the true Reformed Protestant Religion, expressed in the Doctrine of the Church of England (wherein the lawfulness of Bishops is expressly comprehended) any way agree with an illegal League, which binds me to extirpate Bishops (in direct opposition to that Doctrine) as contrary unto the power of godliness Our Leaguers, I know, would fain be accounted true and good Protestants, and yet swear to extirpate that which is a main prop of the true Protestant Religion; and therefore in this case the definition holds very firm and true, which was long since given of such, at the Conference at Hampton Court, That they are 
* Pag. 38.  Protestants frayed out of their wits.  
Again, part of that doctrine which by the Protestation, the takers vowed to defend is, that † The King's Majesty hath the chief power in his Realm of England and other his dominions, unto whom the chief Government of all states of this Realm whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil in all causes doth appertain. And by the Covenant the takers swore to preserve and maintain all the days of their lives the thing called the Scottish discipline; Now nothing can be more opposite to the Supremacy of the King asserted in the Article, and vowed to be defended with life, power, and estate, in the Protestation, than this very Scottish discipline, which our Baal-Berithists by an after oath swore to preserve: Yea light and darkness, God and the Devil, heaven and hell, the serving of Christ and the worshipping of Baal, will assoon be brought to agree with each other, as the Scottish Presbytery will with Monarchy (King James told us it by a sad doleful experience) as the discipline of Scotland will accord with the Regal Supremacy over all persons, in all causes, as well Ecclesiastical as Civil; he that hath once read, and reading, well considered the Primates Fair Warning, to beware, and take heed of this Scottish Cockatrice, he will find cause enough to perceive a vast contradiction between the Protestation and this: Yea, and as different a sound between them both, as there is betwixt two bells in a steeple, and so by good consequence see too the horrible impiety of their solemn League and Covenant; The Protesters vow too according to the duty of their Allegiance to maintain and defend His Majesty's Royal Person, Honour, and Estate, without any cursed destructive Limmittation of that defence; All which are diminished decreased and taken away by Sir John's Holy League, which therefore can admit of no accord between them; The late Carolian Martyr in his discourse upon the covenant professes he could not 
c See Eikon Basilike.  See how they will reconcile such an innovating (observe that, O Leaguer!) oath and Covenant with that former Protestation, which was so lately taken to maintain the Religion established in the Church of England, since they count discipline so great a part of Religion, But if all that hath been said, cannot (which in my weak judgement hath sufficiently) prove the opposition of the one to the other, That there is a great deal of difference between them, may be easily perceived by his Majesty's deep silence, when the Protestation was taken under his nose, (as we use to say) when they were hard by him at Whitehal, as well as by his Public Printed proclamation as far as Oxford, against the taking of that Seditious and Traitorous Vow and Covenant (as he called it) in the day he heard thereof, and his prohibition of all people upon their Allegiance, not to swear it, as engaging the takers in Acts of high Treason; yea, and by the late order of the Lords and Commons for the Hangman's burning of it, when they did not so much as mention the Protestation, which if it had agreed with the Covenant, sure enough those Loyal Houses would never have suffered it to have lain still, but had sent them both one way together; Upon consideration of all that hath now been said by way of evidence, to prove the great contradiction between the two Legal Sacred Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, the Protestation and this juggling League and Covenant; for my own part I cannot but submit to the Primates truth, 
d See his Fair Warning. p. 31.  That this Covenant is neither valid, nor lawful, nor consistent with our former oaths, but deceitful, invalid, impious, rebellious, and contradictory to our former engagements, and consequently obligeth no man to performance, but all men to repentance; And therefore the difference being so great between them, I appeal to any Casuist living, whether the former must not be kept, as well as the latter rejected; the one stood to, and maintained for fear of its true consequence, Perjury, as well as the other to be renounced, and disclaimed for the very same cause by those that took any of the three former; and so (according to the exhorting Leaguers own words) it calls for repentance and not pertinacy in it; which makes also palpable and manifest, the great necessity and justness, of that memorable Vote of the two now most Honourable Houses, when out of a noble disdain to all Religious Rebellion, and Seditious Leaguing principles, as well as out of a true fear of God and the King, they ordered this Presbyterian Scotland whore to be burnt by the hands of Smectymnus the common hangman.  
§. 18. Having now gone through this peerless Covenant, and proved (as far as my poor understanding enables me to see,) the great sinfulness thereof, both in the form and matter of it; and also its juggling contradictions in itself, as well as its absolute opposition to former Legal Oaths, (and so by consequence, undeniable, the great necessity of every takers sad and serious repentance, renuntiation, and abhorrence thereof.) I shall desist from saying any more now of it, but shall from hence proceed to the consideration and examination of a certain seditious Paper-book (entitled BERITH ANTI-BAAL) set forth by one ZECHARY CROFTON, (a Presbyter of the Right stamp) whose contradictions, and shallow Arguings therein against the reverend Lord Bishop of Exeter, made it so much the fit task for me to set down my Animadversions on it; I know indeed the man is looked upon as the Diana of the party amongst the Brethren, and the ablest to deal with such unlearned Ceremonialists, as the  proselytes Judge the Profound Episcopalians (how learned soever they be.) But certainly they are either deceived in their Judgements of his parts, or else the man was so hampered with what the Bishop replied to him, that (as he affirms of the Bishop) in this rejoinder of his 
e See the fifth side of his preface.  Having loosed from the Haven of Reason, true Religion, and the fear of God, he runs a drift wherever the wind of his own words can hurry him, and leads his Reader into a Wilderness, where he hears no sound but the shrieks of Satyrs, barking and howling of beasts, at best; raging and railing of men, or wild and improper discourses that tend to no certain end; For in my judgement, (which is none of the wisest I am sure, but nevertheless what I writ, I commend to the censure of the impartially Judicious) this book of his (for a great part thereof) contains nothing but sedition and justification of rebellion, to the debasing of the Regal Supremacy, & power of making Laws, or of giving his consent thereunto (for Crof; tun tell us the two Houses may exercise their Legislative power without the Royal consent) and sneaking away from the question in hand, like a mere shifter, and acting in some places the part of a pitiful Caviller. And by that time I have set down what I have to say of it, I leave it to every Readers judgement to make answer whether it be not so in his; And to that end and purpose I shall set down what in my short cursory perusal of the Book, I found worth taking notice of to be answered; He (good man!) in a fit of piety cries out, The Lord deliver me from rendering railing for railng, And yet (to 
Page 8.  give the world a specimen of his breeding, and manners, and good words) in the second side of his Preface, he saith, he fears nothing more than to be bound to his good behaviour, for misbehaving himself so much as to answer a fool according to his folly, (meaning the learned Prelate) and to show his meekness, humility and aversation to railing (for he tells us p. 8. he doth not delight to rake in that puddle,) In the very first side of his Preface, he compares the Bishop to the Devil, in the fifth and sixth, to the Heretics, and Harding the Jesuit, 
e Pag. 62.  to an envious, and cruel Vulture: the book he styles, a 
f Pag. 3.  swollen Toad, the Bishop himself he calls 
g Pag. 42.  a proud Pashur, and shameless Semaiah, a 
h Pag. 49.  Runegado, an Apostate Presbyter, a 
i Pag. 51.  man of Fancy: 
k Pag. 61.  An envious Runegado and Apostate, 
l Pag. 63.  A shifting Runegado, and a 
m Pag. 67.  subtle Sophister: and yet behold, and wonder! this is the man that cries, The Lord deliver him from rendering Railing for Railing. The Bishop having said in his Anti-Baal-Berith, Page 191. That the late Primate of Armaghs' Reduction of Episcopacy, was propounded, not in order to bind the hands of, or limit Bishops in England and Scotland, but as a condescension, and expedient to disarm and bind the hands of Presbyters and People. Crofton, in answer thereunto, thus profoundly Quaeres: 
* Pag. 13.  Sir, Who told you that this was the politic stratagem of that pious Bishop? Did not Bishop Wren? It would make a man mad, and 'twould make a man laugh, to see such pitiful arguings used in a rejoinder to an Antagonist, and yet to be believed as excellent, and invincible by some people, to hug themselves up in their delusions? Just as if a man should make such a like Quaere to him, Who told people that it was little Mr. Croftons' Politic stratagem, not only to whip his maid behind, but before too? Did not the Churchwardens, and several other of the Parishioners of that Parish, where that noble Ministerial act was done, to administer somewhat to the maids necessities? So again, The Bishop having said, That the League which Joshua, and the Rulers of the people made with the Trappanning Gibeonites, was to the damage of no honest men, but themselves: Crofton cries out, 
† Pag. 48.  Was the Oath of the Gibeonites no way to the injury of honest men? Was it no injury to Israel to lose four Cities out of their inheritance given them by the Lord? Whereas the Bishop had said, It was to the injury of no honest men, but themselves, which two last words, Crofton very cunningly leaves out, to make his Readers believe the convincing force of his Arguments: But alas! he knew to set down the whole Proposition, was not for his turn of disputing, but would have broke the neck of his cause and design, and made it evident to every one, that he was a mere shifting caviller; one that was minded more to quarrel with an Antagonist, then to answer him by good Reasons and Arguments; which practice of his brings to my remembrance, the like cavilling tricks and shift, of the most learned Bishop Mountagues Puritanical Informers in the very selfsame case; who thereupon told them, that the setting down of his whole passage and Proposition 
f See his Appeal to Cesar. p. 145.  Stood not with their prime purpose of calumniating; directly it gave check to their detraction in chief, and so they passed it slightly over.  
§. 20. So again, The Bishop having said, That 
g See his Anti-Baal-Berith, p. 146.  a King, though never so Supreme and Free, yet may not Vow and Covenant to the diminution of his own just Sovereignty, and Authority and Power, which is his by Law: Crofton thinks fit to give no other answer but this 
† Pag. 32.  Which all people of the world must, and will contradict; and leaving out (like a wrangling Sophister) the principal Clause, and Hinge of the Bishop's Sentence, on which hangs the force of the preceding words, which is this: And necessary for his high calling, to protect the Church and State, himself, and his good Subjects. And doth he, or any one in his wits, think that any Prince may Vow to diminish that, whereby his Subjects are defended? to extenuate and give away that Power he hath given him by God, to Preserve and Protect those people, over whom, by the same God, he is set as Ruler and Supreme? To cast his Subjects, in a manner, out of his Protection, and give leave to others to Domineer, and Tyrannize over them, and do them what rapine and mischief they will, and he himself sit still, as a Cipher? Certainly those people that are in such a case, may well cry out of an Egyptian slavery, and sadly proclaim, to their great grief and sorrow both of heart and mind, That every man doth that which seems right in his own eyes, as though there were no King at all in Israel; That a Prince may vow the diminution of his own just Sovereginty and power (which is too hard for his Subjects to bear, and when such diminution tends to their ease and benefit) no body indeed in the world I think will deny; but that is nothing at all to what the Bishop saith: But that a Prince may not Covenant the diminution of his own just Sovereignty and Power necessary for his high calling, to protect his Subjects (which, and which alone is what the Bishop says) is a truth as clear as the Sun, and in that case our Presbyters, all people in the world that must and will contradict it, must beyond dispute be such people as belong to the world in the Moon.  
§. 21. Again, the Bishop having set down p. 149. That the two Houses alone, no nor the King alone, or with them, have any Legislative power to decree or execute what is unrighteous against God or man: The Shifter answers with a 
* p. 32.  So that the Legislation is founded in the piety and justice of the decree, and rebellion against authority is acquitted by the iniquity of the command; not at all caring to consider, that what the Bishop saith in those words, must needs have reference to the Law of God; and his meaning thus, that by that Law neither King nor two Houses, jointly or severally have any lawful power to decree or execute what is unrighteous: for its impossible that that Reverend Prelate should ever forget what he hath read in the Scriptures of wickedness established by a Law, and the possibility of Governors Legislative power to execute 
† Isa. 10. 1  unrighteous decrees by the Woe, that by God himself is pronounced unto them that decree such: Nay, the very language of the Bishop in that assertion of his, doth convince me clearly that he was wholly guided by this very Scripture in what he said (which Crofton so much carp at) and so (as I just now said) must needs have reference to the lawfulness of such power for such ends, and purposes by the Law of God which expressly hath prohibited it, and pronounced a woe against the Actors of it. But hark what the man makes a matter of complaint of! why, that Rebellion by the Bishops saying (oh how loyal he is all of a sudden, and fearful of maintaining any Rebellious principles, not above eight lines before he hath point blank affirmed (nay, and as though it were a convincing truth too) what I shall prove before I have done with him, not only to be sedition and rebellion, but an open denial of the Supremacy, Power, and Authority of His Most Sacred Majesty: but let's hear what he can say for himself, why sentence of condemnation should not be passed against him for a wrangler; he saith, that by the Bishop's assertion it follows, that Rebellion) against authority is acquitted by the iniquity of the command; Pray Mr. Caviller tell me, whether an impious decree must be done or performed at the Command of any Prince whatsoever, by any one that hath the fear of the King of Kings before his eyes? Is not rebellion in that case against man, loyalty and true Allegiance towards God, and so by Sacred Rules Justifiable and acquitted? What think you of that Antichristian 
* Acts. 5: 27, 28, 29.  strait command and decree, that the Jewish high Priest and Council once gave unto the Apostles, not to teach in the name of Jesus? And of their stout noble Christian answer, we ought to obey God rather than men? Was not their Rebellion (if it must needs be so called) here against the Jewish Governors justifiable, and acquitted by their loyalty towards God, in performing of that which he had commanded them to do, & miraculously inspired them with his holy spirit for that end? Certainly the man is either out of his wits in this complaint, or else an evident Rebel against his Saviour, as his party (if not his own self) have been formerly against their Prince; for where the Laws of God and man, run counter, and come in competition one with another, I conceive it's no Rebellion at all to observe the former in what he commands, & not at all the latter, and he that shall make it a matter of complaint of a man's Christian refusing in such a case and terming it by the odious name of Rebellion, he must certainly be an Atheist, one that regards not the injunctions of the 
† 1 Tim. 6. 15.  blessed & only Potentate, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords; I remember an observable saying of one of His Majesty's Loyal Subjects to this purpose, though he tells us that 
h See the right Rebel p. 28.  It appears, that that which sometimes is esteemed and termed Rebellion by men may be, and is in truth, and in God's account, not only lawful, but necessary also, and so not rebellion indeed, but duty; As when (saith he) the commands of inferiors in authority, are disobeyed in obedience unto the lawful commands of those that in authority are their Superiors; So the Sovereignty of God, being absolutely Supreme, as himself is the most high over all, if men (though the highest upon earth) command that which is forbidden by God, or forbidden that which is commanded by him, it is not unlawful, but necessary Rebellion (if it may be so called) to obey him, though they thereby be disobeyed.  
§. 22. Again, The Bishop having said, page 146. That the King may not Covenant to diminish or destroy any honest subjects, in any of their just Rights, much less to extirpate or expel out of his Dominions, any Rank, Order, and Degree of men that are useful, and in some sense necessary for the being, and well being of his people: Nay, neither Prince, or any party of the People may Vow to extirpate the meanest Calling, which serves the body Policick, any more than men may Vow to cut off their feet or toes, (for I love to set down the words as I find them in the clear Fountain, and not as they run in the unclean, muddy Streams of the Wranglers giddy brains.) The Shifter contents himself with one of his merry whimsies, to laugh out his Reverend Antagonist, rather than to give out a solid answer to the Bishop's Assertion, and says, (behold, Reader, the profound quality of his Argument!) 
* Pag. 32.  Tinkers, and Pedlars, and men of the like Order, will certainly cleave close to this Conservator of their Liberty; where the man wants ability to answer, there he he affords his Readers one of the marks of his Crazy Brain, as conceiving that his Proselytes, 
† See his Preface.  doting on the bare say-so of an holy Leaguer, will the sooner persuade them to believe the strength of his cavilling Objections; when he wants wherewith to convince an Opponent, he thinks its enough if he can but give him a Jeer, and afford him matter of laughter; which in a wise man's judgement, redounds to the discredit and shame of none, but the pitiful gasping Asserter, who being destitute of sound Reasonings, for the supporting of his Sandy Building, and the holding up of his tottering Cause, thinks it sufficient if he can but get so much breath as may enable him to sling a Jeer at his Antagonist, before he, and his Covenant, do jointly breathe their last. He resolved, it seems, to say something, rather than be thought to want wherewith to gainsay; and therefore laid down the preceding Position, to soothe up his Proselytes with a belief of his Abilities, when (if they are no better than that I have hitherto taken notice of) they may well be compared to those of fools, the upshot of whose wisdom is to be wise in their own conceits: and were he any more than 
* See p. 8. of his book.  The shadow of a Disputant, we should never have seen such shallow answers made to convince his Reverend Antagonist of his supposed Error about the Holy League: but such Pitiful evasions in Argumentations, well becomes, indeed, the men of his stamp, in the defence of their peerless Oath; which as it engaged men in Acts of High Treason, can certainly be maintained by no other means, then either by such sneaking cavilling tricks as these, or by 
† Pag. 40.  Stating of damnable Doctrines of Sedition, yea Rebellion.  
§. 23. Again, the Reverend Prelate, having according to the tenor of those words in Numb. 30. shaken the force and validity of the Covenant, as to its binding force upon the takers of it, because of our Only Superiors Prohibition of it, Crofton very cunningly (to show the excellent skill he hath in the Art of cavilling, and running away from the question in debate) that he might be thought to be some body in the eyes of his Classical Admirers, is pleased to set down what he would have, in this manner, 
i Page 34.  Will Doctor Gauden please to frame his Argument a Pari, for little Mr. Croftons' rescue, he conceives it must run thus: Numb. 32. directeth that the Oath or Vow of a Daughter, Wife, or other Inferior, made without the knowledge of Father, Husband, or Superior, should be at the pleasure of the Superior confirmed, or made void; Ergo, No Scandalous, Disgraceful, Dishonourable Oath may be taken, if taken, must not be kept, if kept, it must be well interpreted. No, Mr. shifter, your Ergo is rotten, and invalid, and serves for nothing but to stir up people's laughter and admiration of your cunning Sophistry; for if you had acted the part of a Scholar, and a sound Disputant, we should have found your Ergo according to the Bishops Arguings, to have been thus expressed, Numb. 30. Directeth that the Oath or Vow of a Daughter, Wife, or other inferior, made without the knowledge of Father, Husband, or Superior, should be at the pleasure of the Superior confirmed or made void, Ergo this unsacred Covenant being taken without the consent or knowledge of our Regal Superior, (or as the Bishop alleges, by the 
† See the 144 page of his book.  Subjects of England, who were by Law and Oaths inferior to, and dependants on the King, obliged to duty and allegiance) by his open Proclamation against it, according to that Scripture, is frustrate, void, and of none effect: but ingenuons Arguings would have quite and clean spoiled the design of such a 
* Page 232  Sophistical Caviller, and therefore he craftily forbore the pursuit of true Disputations (not quarrellings and envious cavillings) with his Reverend Adversary, lest thereby his 
k 2 Tim. 3. 9 See p. 10. of Croftons' book.  folly should have been made manifest to all men, yea even to his Presbyterian proselytes, who are pleased with a sound against the Bishop's book, and consider not the certainty of it, and are ready jurare in verba Presbyteri, be they never so groundless, with whom the Say-so of a godly Presbyter is esteemed a sufficient reason of their Faith; And yet the man thinking how bravely he had drawn the Bishop's Arguings to serve the base ends of his own vain talking, he presently gins to crow and vapour, and cries out of a Syllogism, Currens quatuor pedibus, running of four feet, and tells his Readers a Tale of a tub, a story of his godly Brethren, the Jesuits Conference at Ratisbone, who (just like his own Argument here against the Bishop) set down thus their profound Determinations of the Articles of their Faith, Qui negat articulum fidei est hereticus, sed hereticus est qui negat Tobiam habuisse Canem: Ergo, (just like our matchless Disputer) sequitur articulum esse fidei quod Tobias canem habuerit; He that denies an Article of Faith, is an heretic: But he is an heretic that denies Tobit had a dog; Therefore it follows, that it is an Article of Faith, that Tobit had a dog; Not considering that in his Parallel he fights with nothing but his own shadow, that he utters his mind for the disgrace and vanquishing of no body but his own dear self, not at all of the Bishop, who hath no such rotten Arguments in all his Book. And that we may perfectly see the man's design in Writing (even to fill up his Book with cavilling) he tells us in his Preface (side 3.) of the Bishop's writing Mr. Grafton, as if he should answer Dr. Gaudie, when as one that could not read, he takes no notice of what the Bishop had set down at the latter end of his book to read Crofton for Grafton through the whole Discourse; If his eyes were so dim he could not see it, he should have said so, and then I should have done my best to have got a clear pair of Spectacles for him, that he might by that means have read what the Doctor had said for him to correct, as well as others, seeing he was one of his Readers: but alas, he wanted somewhat to say to fill up his Preface, and therefore sets down this for a part of it, to make appear his invincible ways of disputing; His quotations of the Bishop's words are such, that (besides those imperfect un-scholar-like ones I have already set down) there are no less than fifteen or sixteen several other quotations, which are either imperfect like the former, or else absolute false ones, as upon a true examination I have found them, and such as leads his Readers into a wilderness for to see the truth of them: but I consider his cavilling Discourse was made in a great deal of haste, and his mad-brained tricks have made his Book good for nothing, but to be the subject of some men's laughter and indignation; for my part, Mr. Crofton, I 
* See the 8. page of his book.  will excuse you for your wrong, imperfect, false quotations (though not for your Antimonarchical, seditious Principles and Assertions up and down your Book) if your very friends do not with blame to you, say, You are come a great deal too soon, and have verified the old proverb upon yourself, The more haste, the worst speed. And truly I am afraid it had been better for your outward and inward safety both, that your Book had been like the Bishops, which you madly profess and say, contrary to the judgements of many sober understanding men, 
l Page 5.  whosoever in his right mind doth but read, will find it a Rudis indigestaque moles, a mere Chaos of Confusion, (where by the way, whosoever is not of the same judgement therein with you, is censured to be out of his wits, like your self, whose Wits run a woolgathering) rather than that which you are pleased to style methodical exceptions, which denies the only Supremacy of the King; It's but a sad merriment to play with edge-tools, to laugh at your Adversary with Rebellion in your mouth, and (if the mercy of our most Gracious Sovereign prevent not, which I know no reason in the world for) you will find it so to your cost, before you are let lose from the reins of your Just deserved Imprisonment.  
§. 24. Again the Bishop said (pag. 196.) That he peremptorily determines, that the King, Lords, and Commons have no prudent, moral, religious, and lawful power, to change an ancient, universal, and excellent Government by Bishops, To any that is (AS new and Schismatical, SO) far worse, and unsuitable to England every way. Christian Kings and their Parliaments, are obliged to the Laws of God, and Rules of Christian Piety, and Polity too, of which the whole Church in its Primitive example, and constant custom, is the best interpreter; As no Legislative power, is impowered by God's Laws to bring in Heresy, and Error, and Superstition, so nor Schism, Faction, or Confusion, by causelessly nuding or taking from the Essentials of sound Doctrine, or Christian Communion, ever owned and maintained in the Church of Christ; Here's the Doctors whole sentence, word for word, as I took it out of his own Book, and not as its mangled by our Presbyters paltry delusive false quotation, where he makes the words run thus: Doctor Gauden peremptorily determineth, That Parliaments, Kings, Lords, and Commons, have no Prudent, Moral, Religious, and lawful Authority, to change the Ancient, Universal, and excellent Government by Bishops, for Christian Kings and Parliaments are obliged, etc. leaving out those words of the Doctors, which made his learned Assertion unanswerable, and true beyond any sound contradiction, which are these, (To any, that is, AS new and Schismatical, SO far worse and unsuitable to England every way) that so his own arguings might thereby appear the better, and sound more pleasingly to the ears of his factious brethren (a practice somewhat like unto one that pictures a man with the greatest deformity of body he can, for no other end, but to make his own naturally deformed one, appear the neater and beautifuller.) But I consider, otherwise he could not hid his folly from being palpable and open to every person (that is not possessed of a Bedlamers understanding) nor his Book from being thrown into the fire by ingenuous persons, rather than they would vex themselves so much as to read his lies and juggle, his cavillings and sedititon, his false quotations, and confident language, both of the judicious Assertions, and person of that Learned, Reverend Prelate, whom this Holy Leaguer may well put to silence after the usual Presbyterian ways of Disputing: for indeed it will soon make any wise man leave off meddling with such notorious Salamanders, who loves to live in peace and quietness, and endeavour to advance the Unity of the Church, and delights not to live in contention with them, to kindle the fire of Combustion and Sedition, both in Church and State. But we will see, however, what the man conceived fit in his Scotized noddle, to say for himself, and make it the matter of his Answer to the words of the Bishop, as he had filthily mangled them in his false quotation of them; and that I find, upon search, to be this learned one that follows, with a 
m P. 25. of his Book.  But Sir, have you not stretched too far, and stepped into a Praemunire? Little Mr. Crofton should fear to be made less by the head, as guilty of Treason, Sedition at the least, should be thus confront King and Parliaments in what all their Statutes declare to be their own creature and constitution, changeable at their pleasure, even from the Statutes of Carlisle, and 25. of Edward the 3. Declaring against the Pope, That holy Church was founded in Prelacy by their own Donation, Power, and Authority, and so by the same way changeable. Where is, Sir, the King's Prerogative (why not Supremacy? Would not that word have choked you?) over all persons in all causes Ecclesiastical? What is become of your oath, of Supremacy? Can you make this peremptory determination (as yourself calls it) consist with it any more with your Covenant? Hath a gracious King lately advanced you to debase, nay, dethrone him, and his Parliament too? And then tells his Readers a story, How it hath been observed to be the fatal chance of the Bishops of England, to run themselves into a Praemunire.  
The man would fain make people believe that Bishops are Seditious persons, and in particular his Reverend Antagonist, and therefore the best course will first be to consider what the Bishop hath said, and then see whether it amount to the Sedition supposed by the Leaguing Rhodomantado, and in order thereunto I shall begin with the first particle of the Bishop's words, That Kings, Lords and Commons, have no prudent, moral, religious, and lawful authority, to change an ancient universal Church-Government by Bishops, to any that is (As new and schismatical So) far worse and unsuitable to England every way, and see whether they may be found to be either contrary to truth or a derogation to His Majesty's legal Supremacy, and therefore first, that they have no prudential authority to change Episcopal Government, (much less swear to extirpate them root and branch) is evident, not only by the desperate excommunicating antimonarchical brazen tricks and practices of the Godly party (forsooth!) in Scotland against the excellent King James, in walking direct contrary to his Royal Commands, and stirring up the people in Rebellion against him, because he did not submit himself to their traitorous imperious humours, and making him for his own safety to fly out of his own capital City of Edinburgh, but also by that King's famous Motto; No Bishop, no King, and by the sad woeful experience of the truth thereof, by the late never to be forgotten Rebellion in 1642, and the Regicidian genuine issues and effects of it; knowest thou not Sir John Presbyter, the undeniable truth of that Assertion of the noble L'estrange, which he put forth to the view of the world, That 
m See his Interest mistaken: or, The holy Cheat, pag. 88  by those very Troops that cried down Bishops, was the King murdered? Knowest thou not Sir John, what the wise King James said to Dr. Reynolds' desire at the conference at Hampton Court, for the rearing up a (domineering Tyrannical) Presbytery within this Kingdom? if not, than I shall for once declare it unto your Honour, the Royal Answer ran thus: 
n See the Conference at Hampton Court, p. 81.  Stay I pray you for one seven years before you demand that of me, and if then you find me pursy and fat, and my wind-pipes stuffed, I will perhaps hearken to you, for let that government be once up, I am sure I shall be kept in breath, then shall we all of us have work enough both our hands full, but Dr. Reynolds, till you find that I grow lazy, let that alone; If Kings and Parliaments have a mind never to be quiet, and to be always in a combustion, I know no better advice can be given them, then for to set and rear up this Presbytery, but if they desire to keep themselves in rest, peace and unity, they'll find I am confident no prudential authority to extirpate Episcopacy by a Baal-Berith, and bring an headless currish Presbytery in its room, but will abandon the Covenant, that 
o See Mr. L'estrange his Interest mistaken, p. 35.  popular Sacrament of Religious disobedience, as the very poison of hell, and the secret underminer of the Regal Authority and Supremacy, but than  
§. 25. Again secondly, that they have no religious authority (for as for moral authority, that is an authority secundum morem, according to former custom, their authority is so altogether in the negative there, that its in vain to blot any paper with an answer: but I say that they have no religious authority) to change Episcopal government, is evident too in regard of the Apostolicalness, and primitive use thereof by the Apostles while they lived, in commanding obedience, and controlling the subordinate governors, and their disorders as well as the peoples in the several Churches they planted, and enjoining the same to be done by his Episcopal deputies at Ephesus and Crect, (and in them all their successors in the Episcopal office) in those several Churches over whom they had their jurisdiction; Certainly he that tells me, that 
p 1 Tim. 3. 1.  he that desires the office of a Bishop desires a good work, gives me no religious nor lawful authority to vow and swear with an Anti-regal Oath to extirpate it, and make an exchange for one of the plagues of Egypt to overwhelm us instead of that; That the Apostle said the one, and that therefore for that very reason Kings and Parliaments have no religious authority to do the other, None but a Crofton and his crafty companions would ever have had the confidence to deny it, which makes me proceed to the next thing, and that is,  
§. 26. That they have no lawful authority to change it, which must needs have reference to the Laws of God according to the subsequent words of the Bishops, where he explains his meaning by judiciously asserting, That Christian Kings and their Parliaments are obliged to the Laws of God, and rules os Christian piety and polity too, of which the whole Church in its primitive example is the best interpreter, and so his position in short is this, That they have no lawful authority by the Laws of God, and rules of Christian piety, and polity to change Episcopal Government, which is a clear evident truth to me, for I consider with myself, that those Laws and Rules will admit at no hand of any schism, ataxy, confusion, or division in the Church, which are contrary to true Christianity (for the abounding whereof amongst the Corinthians, they were so often taxed of their too much carnality) and that Bishops were set up by the Apostles themselves in remedium Schismatis, for the preventing of schisms and divisions, and that none of those errors and heresies were so prevalent or apparent to humane eyes in the Bishop's times, as since their Julian extirpation for the setting up of Prsbyterian practical-jesuitism, was the ground of a day of fasting, and humiliation amongst the Godly rebels, and a Sermon thereupon preached by our unsacred Covenanter; What shall we say to those things, that men should show so much pretence of goodness in appointing a day to humble themselves for the errors and heresies of the times (the true proper effects, of their arrogant ways of Rebellion, in setting up Presbytery as a distinct Government by itself, without Episcopacy, in direct opposition to the practice of the Catholic Church, as well as to the King and his Laws, which is, and hath been the head and fountain from whence the unclean muddy streams of heresies and blasphemies have had their rise and product) And yet forsooth, must have the means still kept for the production of the same ends of disorder and confusion, Upon the consideration of the whole, I cannot but subscribe to the great truth of the Bishop's words, That as no legislative power is impowered by God's Laws to bring in either Heresy, Error, Superstition, Schism, Faction, or Confusion, so neither have the King, Lords and Commons' any prudent, moral, religious, or lawful Authority by those Laws or those of this English Nation, and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity, to change the Ancient, universal, and excellent Government by Bishops to any that is, As new and schismatical, so far worse and unsuitable to England every way. If one part of the sentence be true (which by Croftons' silence is absolutely concluded.) No man need fear to affirm the other without any derogation to the legal, rightful, Supremacy of the King; That which speaks against Schism and faction, confusion and disorder, will not surely give me any lawful power to extirpate Bishops, the main preventers of it, by being the constant promoters of love and unity.  
§. 27. Thus I have examined the words as I found them imperfectly quoted in Croftons' Discourse, without that additional clause which I have set down in my true Citation of them, which he most unworthily and basely had left out, that so he might have some what to fill up his rambling discourse with; for a true Citation would have foe confounded his understanding, as immediately to have commanded him into a becoming silence and ingenuous conviction of the Bishop's truths: but rather than he would departed from his cavilling art and shift, he'll mangle the words of an Antagonist to make his own way the smother, for credulous poor mortals to set their steps in; which hath brought to my remembrance the answer of a most Reverend person to the Miltonian Justifier of Regicide and Rebellion, depraver of verity and breaker of the King's Image, That he 
p See the Image unbroken, p. 153.  broke sentences and truths, lest he should break for want of matter; And the words of the Bishops with that additional clause in it, is so clear a truth as can no ways be darkened by a Presbyters Argumentations (which was seen evident enough by Crofton himself, and so very craftily left it out) and therefore needs no other defence but the bare words themselves which carry truth in their forehead, to the convincing of any opposer, which I have no sooner done but I took a resolution to follow the man's pattern for once, and turn Quaerist too,  
Where's the Praemunire that the Bishop hath stepped into now? Is speaking of a known Truth, confronting of King and Parliaments? Suppose the Bishop had lived in Queen Mary's days, and had said, That neither Queen nor Parliament had any lawful power by the Laws of God, and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity, either to change the King Edward-Reformation, or to set up and establish Popery in the kingdom, Was it fit for any man's mouth but a cursed Jesuits, to charge him with sedition and treason against the Queen, in confronting her and her Parliaments, by saying black is black, and white is white, by asserting a known truth? Blessed be God, we live under a Prince that desires not to have His Supremacy stretched so, as to make it an Instrument of Justification of the Lawfulness of His Actings, either against God, or his Truth, or the Defenders of true Christianity; that desires to have His Supremacy carried on, and maintained for no other ends and purposes, than those for which it was first established, To make Clergymen as well as Lay, know that he is their only Supreme Governor, and in case of offence, that His Power will reach to the punishment of both; that they shall not be exempted from the Civil Magistrates sword of Justice, either by the wicked pretence of a foreign, Papal, superior Jurisdiction, or Antimonarchical Sentence or Determination of the traitorous seditious Consistorians, if they do that which is not justifiable either by the Laws of God, or this Land? Where's the Bishop's sedition, I wonder? Where's his treason, that he needs to fear to be made less by the head for (as this Leaguer cants it)? Why he saith, in affirming the defect of the Kings and Parliaments prudent, moral, religious, and lawful power to change Episcopacy to one that is worse, and far unsuitable to England every way (for that is it which the Bishop saith, which our unsacred Covenanter hath dared to contradict with his shabbed prattling). Ay but, saith Crofton, The Statutes of the Kings declare against the Pope, That Holy Church was founded in Prelacy by their own donation, power and authority, and so by the same way changeable: Ergo, What? That they have any prudent, moral, religious, and lawful authority to change it to a worse? After what rate doth this wily Covenanter argue? Can they that swear to govern a people well, and according to the Laws of the Land, have any of that quaternary Power, to change one Government for a worse? Will the people in such a case think (or can they?) that they are well governed, or that their Prince mind their peace and safety? If I may be so bold with the world as to tell them my simple judgement of those words of the Kings, I humbly conceive (with submission to those that are wiser) That those Statutes were made merely to cut off the spring of the Pope's universal Supremacy, and as much (as in them lay) to cast out his bold, unwarrantable, antichristian Encroachment upon the English Liberties, and to give acheck to his Lordly domineering over them, that the Kings (as now) might have their due rightful Supremacy over all persons in all causes within their dominuous, Over Clergymen (who were humble servants, to the principles and injunctions of the Papal Usurper) as well as over Common people (who were led by the nose by them,) In all causes Ecclesiastical, to reform Abuses in the Church, and punish Clergymen for their Errors, Heresies, and Seditious principles, aswel as Civil, To execute wrath upon those that do evil, either by Rebellion, or Treason, or Speaking, or bellowing out from Press, or Pulpit their damnable positions against their Persons Crowns Dignities, or Governments upon any account with any person or persons joint or separate whatsoever; This I understand to be the grounds of that Royal saying, That holy Church was founded in prelacy by their own donation power and authority, and not for any intentions of theirs to extirpate Episcopal Government, or the manifestation of the lawfulness of their power by the Laws of God, and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity for the doing of it.  
§. 28. But the man hath not done yet, but hath some more questions (such as they are) to be answered still, and therefore I'll hasten to the consideration of them, and what should they be but these paltry impertinent ones that follow (which are as proper Queries for the Bishop's true position, as if he should have put his pen in's tail, and held them both up to the Sun to look at,) Where is (Sir) the King's Prerogative over all persons in all causes Ecclesiastical? What is become of your Oath of Supremacy? Can you make this peremptory determination (as yourself calls it) consist with it any more than with your Covenant? Weighty questions indeed, but such as are more worthy of laughter at his folly, then of any answer to his proud boasting Queries, but seeing the Scotized Presbyters aim therein (if I hit him right, if not, let him or any of the gang inform me how I shot amiss,) is to make the learned Bishop by his saying, to savour of the guiltiness of perjury by his pretended contradictory assertion to the noble Oath of Supremacy, which he like a true Christian and faithful Subject had sworn, its high time to look about us, and stand up in defence of this vilely slandered Prelate against this Covenanting Goliath of the City of London, and make answer to his sorry (though insolent) Queries, which though they seem to be of a ternary quality, yet in sum, the three amount but to one: and first he asks, Where is, Sir, the King's Prerogative over all persons, in all Causes Ecclesiastical? Good lack! what a great Upholder of the Regal Supremacy you are become, Mr. Caviller? What Sir, do you turn Quaerist after it? Do Presbytery begin to shake hands with the Supremacy of His Sacred Majesty? Doth the devil plead for God? and Baal for the worshipping of Christ? Certainly then there needs no great fear of danger from the Apostatical Calvinian Hierarchy, or of Letters of horning from the Scotized Presbytery; But good now, Sir Presbyter, Why Prerogative? Why not Supremacy? Was that word like a Bishop's Lawn Sleeves to your party, that it would have choked you to have named it? In all my little reading did I never meet with that word Prerogative joined with that sentence before, put in in stead of the rightful word Supremacy, which makes me think of a tacit denial of the thing, at that very time he saucily corrects the Bishop for his seeming contradictory Position to it, as giving a backblow to the King's Supremacy in his seeming paltry defence of it, else surely he would have made use of the usual word Supremacy, and not impotently ask Where is the King's Prerogative over all persons in all causes Ecclesiastical? Come, come, Mr. Zechary, you are a cunning companion, and lie altogether upon the catch, to see how you can take away a Prelate's credit from him, but all wont do, you are horribly deceived if you think to meet with any  persons, to trap them into your cheating Snare with you; for there's none that compares one Book with the other (as I have done) but will see your cunning Sophistry, and infamous ways of arguing, and thereby learn to detest the Leaguing Author of the one, and honour the reverend Writer of the other. If he that saith, That the King hath no prudent, moral, religious and lawful Authority by the Laws of God, and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity, to change Episcopal Government unto any one else that is AS new, and schismatical, SO far worse and unsuitable to England every way, (and so not to bring in Schism or Heresy) denies the Supremacy of the King, certainly the great and invincible maintainers of it against the joint encroachments of Papist and his brother Presbyter, will be quickly found to be against it (and so indeed every one else that understands Christianity, sense, or reason); Take the Supremacy in that notion for which it was first established, and this Assertion of the Prelates may very well consist with the Oath; but if this Calvinian prater for a little cavilling sport, (for it's for no other end be be sure, for he is either no Presbyter, or if he be, he is no more a friend to, or pleader for the King's lawful Supremacy, according to the true intent and meaning of the Framers of the Oath, than the rigidest Jesuit at Rome) will take it to reach to every thing, that he that denies the King's lawful power to do that which is unrighteous by the Laws of God, is presently against His legal Supremacy, Than not only the reverend Prelates and Episcopal Divines (the only constant Assertors of it all along, against the several wild fancies of Jesuits and Scotized Presbyters) but the King's Sacred Majesty himself will be found to be vehement opposers of it. I'm confident His Highness desires no such thing, but that His Supremacy might only reach so far, as he may lawfully exercise it without breach of the Laws of God.  
§. 29. But this is not all, for there is one Question still behind (a shrewd one indeed) which follows immediately upon the back of the former, and that's this: Hath a Gracious King lately advanced you, to debase, nay dethrone Him and His Parliament too? What a huge careful man this Presbyter would fain make himself appear to be of his Prince's honour, so far as to question a learned Prelate for his seeming sedition and irreverence? How now Mr. Zechary? Whereabouts are you? What, will you never leave fight with the Sun? never leave striving, and presenting the people of this Nation with 
* See p. 18 of his book.  the foggy fancies of your own giddy brain, and run away with them by your fluid and gliding tongue or discourse, as if the state of your question were granted by understanding persons for the truth? you crack hugely methinks, but I doubt I shall mar your sport with what follows, and to that end let me entreat this favour of your Kirkified Holiness, as to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, to these few questions I have subjoined here, for an answer either from yourself, or godly partakers; Doth the Bishop go about to debase and dethrone his Sovereign, as to follow your religious pattern so far, as to say any any where in his learned Writings (which you so much snarl at) that 
* See his Preface to the Considerator considered  The Common-Prayer Book was expelled by a lawful Authority, which if it be not Treason (as the Noble L'estrange saith in his Holy Cheat) Scot and Peter were no Traitors? Doth the Bishop talk any where of 
a See p. 51. of his book.  The Two Houses Supreme Legislative power without His Majesty, and so give the lie to the Oath of Supremacy and Laws of the Land, which ascertains it to be the peculiar Prerogative of the King? Or doth he in any of his Writings (like you) 
b Page 31.  aver, That neither the place of His Majesty's retirement, nor reason of his absence, doth add or abstract to the authority of Parliament? Or fourthly, Doth the Bishop any where bid His Majesty keep that damnable traitorous and seditious Oath (called, The Solemn League and Covenant) and tell him, He shall be delivered from, that distress, which 
Page 42.  may too late engage His Majesty to send to (you for sooth!) his faithful Monitor, to pray for him? Oh Mr. Crofton, you are a notable fellow at feminine scourges; feminine do I say! I am a little too short there, for male and female are both alike to you, nay and not every ordinary one neither; for the King himself must not be exempted from the distress you threaten him with, for not performing of a bloody treacherous Oath; but the best on't is, Cursed Cows have short horns, and its very fit you should be so short kept, lest being left to yourself, you should be apt to stray out of the paths of loyalty and obedience, and get into the bypaths of religious Rebellion, and playing the devil for God's sake, pushing and goring at every one, nay at your own Sovereign himself, if he will not fulfil your whimsical humours; It's like you would be good enough, if you were but once throughly cleansed from the Kirkish leaven of Hypocrisy and Treason, Sedition and Rebellion, but till then, they that trust to you and your party for exact loyalty and obedience, will soon find upon any opportunity for Tumults and Sedition, that they have trusted to a broken reed, to their own fancies and chimaeraes. The Bishop might well fear I must needs confess (and that most justly too) to be made less by the head, as guilty both of Treason and Sedition, should he so confront his Prince and his Supremacy, as to set down such treasonable & seditious Affirmations as you have done: but you Presbyters have been so always constant (as Mr. L'estrange saith in his Holy Cheat) to the rule and method of doing your own business in the King's Name, that you can plead your being His Majesty's true Subjects at that very time, when you yourselves are debasing and disallowing of His legal Supremacy, and so setting a fair step for the dethroning of him, when your desired opportunities of doing mischief, shall unhappily fall out for the performance of your Antimonarchical Consultations. And now to conclude this particular, I shall put his own question to him, and all the godly Generation of Scribes and Pharisees, Hath a gracious, and (I wish he be not in the mean while too) merciful a King out of His own Princely Goodness passed an Act of Indemnity, (by which He pardons the long continued Rebellion, begun by a Club of Running Lecturers (as Mr. L'estrange calls them) and their Adherents in 1642. against His Royal Father, for the doing whereof He might by the Statute have cut off the heads, as well as seized on the estates of hundreds of those primary Rebels, who yet by the mercy of a Princely Patron of Episcopacy, enjoy both the one and tother; I say, hath a Gracious King out of His own sweet Christian Nature done this) for you and your party to debase, nay and dethrone him by your denial of His Supremacy, and setting on foot the doctrine of the devil, who was a Rebel and a Murderer from the beginning?  
§. 30. Ay but saith Crofton, 
* Page 29 30.  Dr. Gauden being well considered, will be found to be no less erroneous in his Politics, then in his ecclesiastics, So then, who ever concludes for the truth of the Doctor's Assertions in his Book, he is by your heady suppositions adjudged to be one that hath not well considered them: But we'll see your reason for't first before we believe you (good Mr. Zechary) and that is I perceive the Bishop's true saying, that The Hierarchy or Episcopacy is established by the Laws of England, which you (you say) have in your Analepsis Analephthe denied. At this rate its in vain to meddle with you, That a man's expressions shall be true or false, according to what they seem to be in your giddy brains, That your Ipse dixit only shall be proof enough to overthrow the arguments of your Reverend Antagonist; But such things as these (Mr. Zechary) must not be allowed of, and therefore the examination of your Denial will in this case be somewhat needful. You say, You deny that Episcopacy is established by the Law; The more shameless man you, to deny that which is so apparent; For what think you of the very first Article of the Great Charter (which is not only declared to be the Common Law of the Land, (as I have already said) but is confirmed by 32 Acts of Parliament) which runs thus: Salvae sint Episcopis omnes Libertates suae; Let the Bishops have all their whole Rights inviolable. What think you now, Mr. Presbyter? Is the Great Charter no Law? or are Bishops and their Liberties expressly named in the very first Article, and yet Episcopacy not established by the Laws of England? What a grand Cheater is this highflown Presbyter, that shall have the face to condemn his Superiors, and give them the Lie for speaking such a notorious truth as this, That Episcopacy is established by the Laws of England.  
§. 31. But he'll Print Errors, and give a Reason for it when he hath done. I do aver (saith he, like an arch Presbyter) That the English laws finding Episcopacy conversant about the Church, doth restrain its exorbitances, and direct its administrations; but neither Canon, nor Common Law doth establish it, and in terminis, declare and authorise it to be the Government of the Church of England; That neither Canon, nor Common Law doth establish Episcopacy, is notoriously false, by your good leave, Mr. Shifter: And that neither do, in terminis, declare it to be the Government of the Church of England, is clearly beside the purpose. 'tis not your (I aver) nor mine neither, will weigh any thing, in the way of Argumentation; but good solid Grounds and Reasons, raised upon a Foundation of Truth, must be the way and Method for the satisfaction, as well as conviction of an opponent; and I am sure there is none at all in this: and mine (I am sure) is as good a proof of the truth of my expression, as your (I aver) is of yours, but are both of the same metal, both a kin to the Scotchmans' confutation of Bellarmine, Bellarmine saith thus, but I say the contrary, where is he now? You say, That neither Canon, nor Common Law do in terminis, declare and authorise Episcopacy to be the Government of the Church of England. Well, What of that? Because neither do in express terms name Episcopacy to be the Government of the Church of England, to say presently, it's not established by the Law (notwithstanding the express mention of Bishops, and their Liberties in the very first Article of Magna Charta) signifies little to me, but only the shallowness of the Author's brains; and yet his proud confidence too, to strive with a Father of the Church, with an ipse dixit, who avers nothing but his own folly, mixed with a Turbulent and Seditious spirit.  
I had not read much further beyond these last words, but I meet with a Traitorous expression of his, in his venomous Answer to the Reverend Bishop, which makes as clear as the Sun, what a Factious, Seditious spirit a Sacred Covenanter is composed of; even such, That if the Law makes once a strict enquiry, will send his head to accompany his Brethren in Iniquity upon London Bridge; and to that end, observe the words of this factious Pulpiteer.  
§. 32. The Bishop having said, That the Parliament (he means the the two Houses) can Act, Vote, Determine, and Execute nothing under the Kings withdrawing from them into any part of his own Country, Who may yet (saith 
a Pag. 31.  Crofton) do all things in his infancy, or while in a Foreign Country, As if the place 
☞  of his Retirement, or reason of his Absence, did add or abstract to the Authority of Parliament. A right Rebellious Covenanter! One ready for the work of Treason! Perfectly opinionated of the Sovereign power of the two Houses over the King, and ready prepared for a Second Rebellion upon the old false threadbare grounds of Loyalty and Religion! He offers first, as an argument against the Legislative power of his Sovereign, for that feigned suppositious one of the two Houses, That they may do all things in his infancy, or whilst in a Foreign Country. Either the man is very short sighted, and simply versed in the Royal English Laws (and yet before we find him pretending to it) or else he is a wilful Sophisticator: If he is not knowing in our Laws, Why is he so arrogant and presumptuous, as to offer his shallow Arguments against the Bishop's undeniable Assertion, and to stand to contradict him in that, wherein he hath no skill? If he doth know the Laws, he is the blindest of all Beetles, by being wilfully blind, and speaking contrary to his knowledge (I do not mean contrary to his desire, or his Traitorous Seditious spirit) for its a thing too well known and evident to be denied by any (whose face is not perfect metal, and free from all the sparks of Modesty) That in the infancy of a King, there is a Protector appointed in the Prince's Supreme Legislative place of Calling, Proroguing, and Dissolving of Parliaments; of setting the Stamp of the Regal Sanction upon the Writings and requests of the Two Houses for the making of them Laws (for without the Royal consent, no Law) and Repealing of old Laws, if it be thought convenient; and this that I say, is confirmed by that learned and Reverend Judge Jenkins, who tells us, That 
b Lex terrae, p. 52.  the Protector, assisted by the Counsel of the King at Law, his twelve Judges, the Counsel of State, his Attorney, Solicitor, and two Sergeants at Law, his twelve Masters of the Chancery, hath in the King's behalf, and ever had a Negative voice. And whilst the Prince is in a Foreign Country, there are certain Noble men Commissioned under the great Seal of England, to supply his place, while he comes himself, as the Histories of our Kings (whilst in Foreign parts) do attest, as well as the practices of our present Prince (whom God long preserve out of the juggling, murdering Clutches of Presbyterian Judasses') in relation to Scotland and Ireland, by appointing a Lord Commissioner in the one, and a Lord Lieutenant in the other, to supply the place of Majesty in both Kingdoms; So that his (may yet do all things in his infancy, or whilst in a Foreign Country) without either Protector at the one time, or Deputed Nobles at the other, is nothing else but a mere fiction, a delusive Cheat, (the effects of his Crazy brain) endeavoured to be put into people's belief, and therefore I'll trouble myself no further with it.  
§. 33. But behold, the spirit of the man! That neither the place of his Majesty's Retirement, nor reason of his Absence, doth add or abstract to the Authority of Parliament, Is the issue and fruits of his wild seditious humour. He (without whom there can be neither Parliament nor Law) is concluded by this hair-braind Presbyter, to be but as a cipher, and that the two Houses are a complete Parliament of themselves alone, without his Sacred Majesty, their Only Supreme head and Founder. By what Warrant were they at first called together? Was it not by virtue of his Majesty's Writ? And was not the tenor of that Writ, the Treating, and Advising with the King? And did they perform the ends, for which they were summoned together, when they raised Tumults against their Prince, and forced him away from them, and at last had the confidence to declare by their Votes of non-Addresses, that they would neither Treat, nor Advise with him? If not, then 'tis clear they sat to no purpose in the world, but ingraved the name of Rebels upon their foreheads, and made themselves to be no Parliament, by destroying the ends for which they were called together. But because Crofton is so arrogant in denying the King's Presence or Absence to be of any force or validity in adding or diminishing the Authority of a Parliament, I shall make bold to present him with this one Example, Queen Elizabeth summoned 
3. Eliz. Dyer. 203.  her first Parliament to be held the 23. of Jan, in the first year of her Majesty's Reign; the Lords and Commons assembled by force of the same Writ, the 21. day the Queen fell sick, and could not appear in her person in Parliament that day, and therefore Prorogued it until the 25. of the same month of January; Resolved by all the Judges of England, That the Parliament began not the day of the Return of the Writ, viz. the 23. of January, when the Lords and Commons appeared, but the 25. of the said month when the Queen came in person. What think you now, Sir Presbyter? You see the Queen's presence, and the reason of her absence was so far looked upon, and esteemed in those days, in relation to the Authority of a Parliament, that her absence but for two days, by the resolution of all the English Judges, was enough to degrade them of their Parliamentary title, till her Personal appearance amongst them gave them the denomination of a Parliament: And unless this man can make it out, That the late blessed Carolian Martyr, had not the same place and Authority over these Nations, as that noble Queen had, the same Conclusion will follow upon his Assertion, That the place of his Royal retirement, and reason of his absence, did so far add and abstract to the Authority of that, which our Presbyterian Jugglers so often miscall, a Parliament, that they were neither Titular, nor Real, neither Name, nor Thing without him, For 
c See Lex terrae. p. 51  the King is the head of the Kingdom and Parliament, How then can a body act without a head? There hath one long since told us (to whom for knowledge in the Laws and Customs of the Realm, our Caviller is not worthy to be compared) That 
d Pag. 156 157.  the two Houses are no more a Parliament, than a body without a head a man. Two Houses, and a Parliament, are several things, Cuncta fidem vera faciunt; all circumstances agree to prove this truth: Before the Norman Conquest, and since to this day, the King is holden Principium caput & finis, the Beginning, Head, and chief end of the Parliament, as appeareth by the Treatise of the manner of holding Parliaments, made before the Norman Conquest; by the Writ of Summons of Parliament, whereby the Treaty and Parier in Parliament is to be had with the King only; by the Common Law, by the Statute Law, by the Oath of Supremacy taken at this, and every Parliament, it doth manifestly appear, that without the King there can be no colour of a Parliament 
e See the Royal Buck ler, p. 62.  The two Houses (saith Mr. Duncomb) frame the body, the King giveth the soul, for without him, it is but a dead Carcase. Nay further, saith the learned Judge in the Table of his Book concerning Parliaments, This became no Parliament, when the King with whom they should parley, was driven away. By what hath been said, and many more instances, that I could produce for this purpose, I leave it to every understanding person to consider, whether His Presence or his Absence (without whom there can be no colour of a Parliament) doth add or detract the Authority of Parliament: And leaving Crofton to the just deserved censure and punishment of Majesty for his Rebellious, Malignant Principles, I shall proceed on to his next Arrogant, and yet Ignorant prattling for his Seditious Vow and Covenant, which hath been the cause of so many direful plagues amongst us.  
§. 34. Whatever the Libeler (i. e. Dr. Burges his sweet-toothed Sacrilegious Brother) did, Mr. Crofton (he 
f Pag. 37.  saith) allowed the Doctor this Text (i. e. Numb. 30. before mentioned) in its Latitude, and referred him to be judged by it, and now granteth, That the inferior in things not sui juris may have the action vowed superseded by the declared pleasure of the superior, and that whether it be son or servant. Doth he so? Doth Mr. Crofton grant then the truth of the Doctor's Arguments? What doth he keep a kackling for then? What doth he make such a buzzing then in the people's ears with his perjurious Covenant? Doth he first confess his Antagonists Arguments to be good by granting what the Doctor wrote for, and yet set out another vain glorious discourse against them, so far as to run into seditious principles to keep his faithful Covenant on foot? Ay but in our case he then affirmed (he said) The Parliament sitting had over us a Legislative power to which we owed subjection; They were (in their National capacity) the Nation Collective and sui juris, and to be obeyed during their session by those whom they represented.  
The Parliament? What is that? It is the King, the Lords, and the Commons, saith the Covenant at the trial of the Regicide Harrison. That the world may not be abused by the insinuations of a man, who acts as if he had a spirit, and in truth is possessed, I will say (saith his Majesty's Learned Council) That the Lords and Commons are not a Parliament, That the King and Lords cannot do any thing without the Commons, Nor the King and Commons without the Lords, Nor the Lords and Commons without the King, especially against the King, if they do, they must answer it with their heads: 
g See judge Jenkins Lex Terrae p. 80.  The Lords and Commons make no more a Parliament by the Law of the Land, than a body without a head makes a man, for a Parliament is a body composed of a King their Head, the Lords and Commons the Members. All three together (saith Judge Jenkins) make one body, and that is the Parliament, and no other; The Two Houses are not the Parliament, but only part thereof, and by the abuse and misunderstanding of this word Parliament, they have miserably deceived the people. So then we see what is become of our zealous Presbyters Parliament consisting of Two Houses without a King, (for its clear by the preceding words he means them, and them only when he prattles of the Parliaments having a Legislative power over us) Here we find the judgement of the Reverend Judges and learned Sages of the Law to be clearly against him and his Titular Parliament, and telling us, how the faction miserably deluded the people with the name (when they were destitute of the true nature) of a Parliament, by applying it to them, to whom it no more belonged, than the title of a man appertains to him, who wants the conveniency of a Head.  
As for their Legislative power; It's huge like their empty title of Parliament, and both Phantasms of their own brains, and that it may appear to be such, I shall bring in Croftons' profound Lawyer Mr. Prynn in the front to bear witness against him, for he tells us, That 
h See his plea'gainst illegal Taxes. p. 5.  the Parliament Rolls, and the Printed Prologues to the statutes of, etc. (and names a great many) run all in this form, At the Parliament holden, etc. By the advice and assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and at the special instance and request of the Commons of the Realm, our Lord the King hath caused to be ordained, or ordained certain Statutes; where the advising & assenting to Laws, is appropriated to the Lords, the ordaining of them to the King, and nothing but the requesting of, and petitioning for them, to the Commons. Thus he.  
Other Statutes (saith 
i See his impartial inquiry into the nature of sin. p. 211. See his Lex Terrae, p. 26.  the Reverend Doctor Peirce) which have the force of Acts of Parliament, are known to be directed as private Writs with a Teste Meipso. And the Common stile of most others is found to run in this form, The King with the advice of the Lords, at the Humble Petition of the Commons, Wills this or that, (where by the way take notice of the saying of Judge Jenkins, That Consilium non preceptum, Confiliarii non preceptores, Counsel is not a command, nor to be Counsellors is not to be Commanders:) So the form of passing Bills is still observed to be this, Le Roy le vieult, The King will have it, And Soit fait il comme est desire, Let it be done as 'tis desired; plainly speaking by way of grant to something sought or petitioned for; (from whence (saith he) by some it hath been gathered, That Rogation of Laws doth rightly belong to the two Houses, but the Legislation to the King, that their Act is preparative, his only jussive.  
The Acts of Parliament (saith the learned Mr Duncomb) are called the King Laws. And why not the King's Laws? Doth not he make 
See his Royal Buckler. p. 306. 307 308.  them? The whole body, and volumes of the Statutes proclaim the King, the sole Legislator. What is Magna Charta but the Kings Will and gift; The very beginning of it will tell you 'tis no more, viz. Henry by the grace of God, etc. Know ye that we of our mere, and free will have given these Liberties; In the self same stile runs Charta de forresta. But wherefore evidences to prove that which no man can deny? The styles of the Statutes and Acts printed to the 1 of Henry VII. are either, the King willeth, the King ordaineth, the King provideth, the King grants, the King ordains at his Parliament, or the King ordaineth by the advice of his Prelates, and Barons, and at the humble petition of the Commons, etc. But in Henry VII. his time, the stile altered, and hath since continued thus; It is ordained by the King's Majesty, and the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled. And why do the Lords and Commons ordain? Is it not only because the King doth? It is so; they do, because the King doth, which only denotateth their assent, for the King's Majesty giveth life to all, as the Soul to the body; For did ever the Lords and Commons make an Act without the King? Never; They cannot; The Lords advise, the Commons consent, but the King makes the Law; Their Bills are but Inanimate scribble, until the King breathes into their Nostrils the breath of life, and so that which was mould before, becometh a Law, which ruleth living souls. And as Sir Edward Cook observeth, In ancient times all Acts of Parliaments were in form of petitions, which the King answered at his pleasure; Now if it be the duty of the Parliament to petition, and in the power of the King to receive or reject their petitions at their will, Judge you who hath the supreme power. Thus far he.  
§. 35. By what hath been said, I leave it to any understanding person to judge, where the Legislative power lies, whether in the Two Houses, who most humbly beseech His Majesty (under the notion of dutiful and loyal Subjects) for making new Laws, Or in the King, who grants their petitions, makes the Law, and ordains it to be observed, who both by the Law and a Sacred Oath, is declared and sworn to be the only Supreme Governor of the Land.  
That there is no difference between a Son and Servant, to his Father and Master, and the Two Houses to the King, is clear by one oath they took, wherein they swear To bear true faith and allegiance to our Sovereign Lord the King, and by the other they acknowledge (cutting off all pretences of Co-ordination) His Majesty to be the only Supreme Governor of the Land; which implies His Lordship and Dominion over them; And they in all their Addresses and Declarations, style themselves His dutiful and loyal subjects, (and so servants) and in relation to the King's stile of Pater Patriae, may be very well called sons too. And seeing the Two Houses imaginary Legislative power by the Laws of this Land, is not able to empower and authorise them, either to make new Laws, or to repeal old ones, without the Royal Consent of Majesty, it clearly follows, That their vowing to extirpate Bishops, established by Magna Charta (confirmed by 32 Acts of Parliament, and irrepealable) was not sui Juris, it lay not in their power, nor had no right to do it without His Majesty's consent, and so having not that, according to crofton's own grant, the Action vowed was superseded, (and might very well be so) by His Majesty's public Proclamation, (his declared pleasure) against the taking or imposing of it, in regard it was a traitorous and seditious Vow and Covenant, and therefore null and void to all intents and purposes. But further, our Leaguer affirms, That  
§. 36. Their power in this Covenant was no less Legislative, then in the Protestation of May, 1641. What doth he Jabber thus for, of non entities, of things that never had a being? of a Legislative power in the Two Houses, which they never had, which neither Divine nor English Laws ever gave them? If I should for once allow of his nonsense, and lawless Assertions, yet I should spoil his sport there too; for their power in the Covenant was not so Legislative (I speak according to the Presbyters canting tone) upon these grounds:  
The Protestation was made and taken in the presence of all the Members of both Houses, and giving their free consent, it was confined to established Laws, had a Parliamentary authority (as it were) by His Majesty's deep silence (though nigh at hand) and thereby implying His tacit consent to the doing of it, many thousands took it, who yet utterly damned the wretched Covenant, detesting it as the venom of hell, and not without just cause; But when by the Midwifery of Tumults and Armies, this devouring Brat of Abiram was brought forth, 
k See judge Jenkins Lex Terrae p. 126.  All men know, That of 120 Peers of the kingdom, who were Temporal Peers before the Troubles, there were not above thirty left in the Lord's House, and in the House of Commons about 200 of the principal Gentlemen of the kingdom, left the Houses and adhered to His Majesty. The Covenant itself destructive to the former, directly contrary to above 30 Acts of Parliameat, The King himself protesting against it as far as Oxford, by his public Proclamation, as engaging the takers in Acts of high Treason; Doth our Leaguer think, that when 290 Voices are taken away out of 600, that the remaining part hath as great a power as when they were all together? Or doth he think that the King's silence, or his Protestation doth not add or diminish the authority of the thing sworn? But I must needs say indeed, 
l See crofton's Berith-Anti-Baal, p. 51  Suppositions are sufficient supports to a man of fancy, who all along this Discourse plays at Bopeep, begging what must never be granted while his Nose is between his eyes; which I leave him to see at large his ignorance and folly, his seditious and treasonable Principles against His Gracious Sovereign.  
§. 37. Crofton citing out of his Analepsis, p. 12. That the two Houses of Parliament are  and Sharers in the Legislation of England, and the Bishop ask (p. 148.) What, and can they legally exercise this power without, yea against the King's consent, being out of his nonage, and not out of his wits? This furious offspring of Smec cries out, (p. ●9.) That they may do it without the King's consent, none do, or can deny it, common practice, with the people's constant obedience, doth plainly manifest it; as also the Protestation of May, 1641. (never doubted as to the validity of Authority) which you say was precarious; but Resolves of the House declare to have been Authoritative; The Votes, Resolves, Orders and Ordinances of one or both Houses do proclaim it; And the Privileges of Parliament, That the King can take no notice of what is debated or voted, ordered or acted by them, until it be by themselves formally presented unto His Majesty. And the very nature of  power (if the Doctor understands it) with their Actings, in case of his absence by minority, or otherwise, doth determine it; As to the exercise of it against the King's consent, I shall conclude nothing, but commend Mr. Prynn's Sovereign Power of Parliaments, to your serious study. And the Legislative power of their Votes, Debates, Resolves, Orders, or Ordinances, were never gainsaid by His Majesty.  
O Lump of wickedness and sedition! What do, or can none deny that the Two Houses may exercise (that Utopian Fiction, their fancied, imaginary) Legislative power without the King's consent? Why is your lawless Assertion so true, think you, that it is passed all contradiction? Alas poor Presbyter! why do you hug up yourself so in your own delusions? It's pity you should go on uncontrolled in your wild positions, and therefore I'll try for once what I can say against it: Are the Two Houses any better than the King's Subjects? If you say otherwise, the Law affixes the deserved name of Traitor upon your forehead; Can they convene and assemble together in the House, without the Regal Summons? Are they any more than the Kings own creature? Can they stay one minute there (when met together) to debate or consult of any thing, without His Majesty's free leave? Can the creature do any thing what he please, without the Creator's consent? Suppose they should (as your Long-Parliamentidol did) reproach their Sovereign, maintain five traitorous Antimonarchists in their treason and villainy, hatch a Conspiracy, and bring forth Rebellion, cannot the Creator have so much power over his forlorn creatures, as with the breath of his mouth immediately to command their speedy departure by a dissolution? Oh Crofton, Crofton, beware of the perjurious consequence, and stop your mouth, left the Axe for your treason, make no difference between your own and those heads of your fellow-rebels on London-bridge. But this is a Scotized Assertion, an opinion of 
m See Bish. Garden's Anti-Baal-Berith, p. 151.  Seminary Presbyters, who have been the Protoplasticks of a rebellious generation both in Church and State, & agreeable to their all along rebellious practices, & by virtue of their legislative power (which our profound Lawyer saith they have) and which they may, he averrs, exercise without the King's consent; and so by consequence they may rebel against their Head, kill and murder His loyal Subjects, imprison and impoverish others, take away His Imperial Dignities and Pre-eminences from Him, seize upon His Forts, Ports, Magazines and Towns, and plague and oppress their fellow-English-men, by seizing on their goods and estates, how and in what proportion and manner they please, send armed men through perjury, to fight against their lawful Sovereign, leave out the defence of his person out of their Commissions, impose what cursed Leagues and Covenants they please (all actions of high treason by the known Laws of this Land) without His Majesty's consent; sell and imprison Him, until He agree to their imperious humours and demands, and christian their Actions too (like a pack of dissembling false hypocrites) with the title of Reformation, Loyalty, Advancing the Glory, and promoting the kingdom of Jesus Christ, yea play the devil for God's sake, and all this they claim a right and lawful authority to do, by force and virtue of their Idolised Diana, their new Goddess lately come down from Jupiter, their fanatic, frenzical whimsy of Legislative power. And because these things have been done, and justified with impudence beyond example, by 
n See Presbytery Popish, not Episcopacy, p. 6.  a Tumultuary Rabble that pretended to be a Parliament, and their graceless adherents, therefore this Leaguer concludes the Lawfulness of the Act done, and the Justifiableness of re-acting the same again; But A facto ad jus, non valet argumentum, is an old and a true Position, To argue from the Action done, the lawfulness thereof, becomes a subtle Sophister, a Trappanner and Cheater, more than a sound Scholar or a Disputant.  
As for the Two Houses Legislative power (so called) or their Coordinacy therein with their (by them sworn) ONLY Supreme Governor, I have said so much already concerning that grand delusive Cheat and Fiction, that a question will now be enough against it; How can the two Houses be affirmed by any (having regard to the Rules and Customs of the Realm) to have the whole, or a Coordinacy, or share in that, which the very Prologues to the Acts and Statutes denies them to have any right or claim to, either in Possession, or Reversion?  
As for the Protestation, I told you before, Silence gives consent, and his Majesty's suffering such a thing to be done by them, under his nose, without a Prohibition, argues plainly his Tacit fiat to it, but yet proves not at all their supposed Legislative power, or Coordinacy in the same with their Head, nor the legality of their exercise of it, without the King's consent. It's true, the Bishop tells you; It was precarious and personal, upon this just Ground and Foundation, 
o P. 278.  That the two Houses had not power to make, or take, or impose any Oath contrary to the Laws of England, which they were trusted to observe, not break, nor yet to abrogate or change, without his Majesty's consent: And that the House of Commons have not power to require an Oath of any (except perhaps of their own Members.) And you in opposition to him affirm, That the Resolves of the House declare it to have been Authoritative; very good. I pray answer me then, Was not the detestable Rebellion against the Carolian Martyr, Resolved to be Authoritative too, and (O strange parcel of nonsense!) to be Loyalty, and Obedience, and in the then blind Conscience of your profound Lawyer, to be lawful and necessary, both in point of Law and Conscience? Was not their Votes of Non-Addresses to be made or had, to or from their Supreme Lord and Governor (with its immediate attendant, unmatchable perjury) Resolved to have been Authoritative too? Did they not Resolve all the Villainies, Murders, Blasphemies, Sequestrations, Imprisonments, and utter Ruin of his Majesty, and his Noble Adherents; and in fine, all their Actions from beginning to end, to be Authoritative too? Was not his execrable and perfidious Murder, Declared to have been Authoritative, when that Perjured, perjured, perjured, Infamous Lower House (next door to Hell) Declared and Adjudged, 10. January, 1648 for a New-years-gift to the Nation, That by the Fundamental Laws (which was the creator of the two Houses fictious Legislative power) it is Treason in the King of England for the time being, to levy War against the Parliament and Kingdom? Was not the lawfulness of their Perjuries, and violent Murders, Oppressions, and lawless Actings Justified, and Declared to be Authoritative too, when by a couple of Traitorous Votes three days after they had the impudence to tell the Nation, 1. That themselves being chosen by, and representing the people, had the Supreme power in the Nation; and 2. That whatsoever was Enacted or Declared for Law by the Commons in Parliament, hath the force of a Law, and the people concluded thereby, though consent of King and Peers be not had thereunto? Alas, Mr. Crofton! It's not the Resolve, or Vote of a Party (much less of that dismal black Faction in the long Parliament) that can make their Treason and Rebellion, their Perjuries and Blasphemies, their unparelleled Murders, Violence, and Oppressions, seem the less wicked and abominable, or pretend to be more lawful and Authoritative, either by the Divine, or English Royal Laws. It is not the Thiefs justification of his action, that will any whit the more extenuate the nature of his horrid crimes, nor the Turbulent spirit's applauding his Faction and Sedition, speaking evil of Dignities, and declaiming against the Legal Supremacy of his Prince, and then cry out with his Brother Jehu, See my zeal for the Lord of hosts, and think that all this while he is beating down the enemies of the Lord Jesus, that will make his Rebellion less odious, or his blind zeal without knowledge, to be ever a whit the more rewardable; but the Laws of God and man must be the Touchstone, the Judge to justify or condemn their respective actions, according to their different ways of obedience, or neglect and refusal to obey: So that to conclude this particular, I say, It's not the Resolves of the two Houses that will make that to be lawful and Authoritative, which neither the Laws of God, nor of this Land declare to be justifiable and blameless; their Votes and Resolves you speak of, do proclaim nothing else but their matchless Treason and Rebellion.  
You tell us further, That the Privileges of Parliament, That the King can take no notice of what is debated or voted, ordered or acted, until it be by themselves Formally presented unto his Majesty; And the very nature of  power (if the Doctor understands it), (What, do you think the Doctor to be such a learned Coxcomb, such a Legislative dreamer as yourself, that you question his understanding of a  power, with an If?) with their actings, in case of his absence by Minority, or otherwise, doth determine it. What It, doth it determine? Oh! you mean, I suppose, your so much adored Diana, the Legislative Fiction, placed in the two Houses. You are an egregious Arguer, but like all the rest of the Scotized party, arguing from the momentary prosperity of an execrable Rebellion, the Legality of the Traitor's actions: and because in the contriving, and devising of a Statute, the two Houses have a Privilege excluding the Kings taking notice of them, till such time as it is finished, and presented for the Royal assent; (for without that, it's no Law) Therefore this wilful Sophisticator concludes, or would have others believe that from thence it follows, by good consequence, That the Rebellious two Houses, after they had taken the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, (which bond them to assist and defend the King against all his enemies) might by virtue of their Legislative whimsy, take and impose a Negative Oath, and stoutly swear (with Perjury in their brazen brows) not to assist the Forces raised by their Gracious Sovereign, for his own defence, against his Rebels, against the Treasons and villainies of themselves, who had the face without his presence or consent, to call themselves A Parliament; That they might by virtue of such Privileges raise a Rebellion, and swear to extirpate the Legal established Government of the Church, justify their Members in their Conspiracies and mischiefs, send armed men against their Prince, to fight with, and shoot at him and his Loyal Subjects, and other Abominations not to be parellelled (like their Matchless Covenant) and all this without, and against the King's consent; because, as I have said, they have a Privilege to be free in their debates and consultations about the devising of a New, or repealing of an Old Law, without the Kings taking notice of it, until such time as they present it to him for his Fiat. Truly, Sir Presbyter, you are fit a great deal to dispute with Females, with a rod of Correction in your hand, then to prate with a Reverend Prelate with such shallow arguments as these, which discovers nothing else, but the Author's folly on the one side, as well as his high imperious spirit on the other. As for their Coordinacy in the Legislative power, (which our godly Rebel jabbers so much of) and their actings, in case of his Majesty's absence, by Minority, or otherwise, which he fond supposeth doth determine the truth of his bold frantic assertion: If the (I say so) of himself will be taken for a sufficient proof thereof, the business than I must confess is clear, beyond any contradiction; but that they cannot Legally act any thing (for I do not come here to contradict the prosperous Rebels actions when they hold the murdering sword of lawless Treasons and murders in their hands, instead of the sword of Justice, but I say, that they cannot Legally act any thing) in the time of the Regal Minority, without a Protector, nor in the interim of his absence, without Deputed Nobles under the great Seal (both which are purposely appointed to supply the place of such Regal absence for the time) is manifested plainly by what I have already said, and, in my weak judgement, so clear a truth, that it is not in the power of any Factious Presbyter to contradict me, that keeps in the way of verity; and therefore I shall not trouble my Reader with any further answer of it.  
Well; We have seen now the Presbyters Allegations concerning the two Houses exercise of the Legislative Fiction, without the King's consent; and weighing them in the balance of right Reason, and Laws, and Customs of the Realm, have found them to be too light and weak to bear that stress and burden, which our filthy Dreamers lay upon them. I'll now try what he saith of those Long-Parliament- Legislative Thiefs exercise, of their whimsy against the King's consent: and here we find him foreseeing a palpable Treason, in asserting an Affirmative Proposition; and yet that we may perceive his willingness to have an Affirmative maintained, he thus breathes forth his doubtful fancy: As to the exercise of it against the King's consent, I shall conclude nothing, but commend Mr. Pryn's Sovereign power of Parliaments to your serious study. What a Seditious mind, and Treacherous heart this Crofton is possessed of? We are beholding to a wise King, and a lawful Parliament, for his avoiding of his Cackling, and concluding of nothing in the case at this time. His faint-hearted seeming Negation of the Legality of those Rebel's exercise of their Usurpation, is just like the Olivarian-Machiavelian-Pro-Traytors denial of the Kingly Title, even full sore against his will: He would not say AY, for fear an Axe, or an Halter might presently attend him; nor won't say NO neither, lest his seared Conscience should look him in the face, and contradict him with a Truth, That a Negative, was by No means agreeable with his Classical rebellious spirit; and therefore very cunningly commends another man's unreasonable Jangling (as full of Treason and Rebellion, as a Toad is of poison) to the Bishop's study. If he had commended it to the Bishops, and every man's study, and detestation, and abhorrency thereof, when they had read it, as well as indignation against the Treasonable venom of the Author's heart, he had spoke more truth, than a Presbyter is wont to do. What that book is, and how worthy to be Commended to a Bishops reading and study, I leave to every one to conclude something (seeing Crofton will conclude nothing) by that just Sentence and Condemnation, which the learned Mr. Duncomb (upon ferious study thereof) passed in these words against both the Author, and the Book it . His book (saith he 
p See his Royal buckler, or a Lecture to Traitors p. 240. ) is such a Rhapsody of nonsense, a bundle of Rebellion and Treason, a Pamphlet so Seditious, Pernicious, Sophistical, Jesuitical, Traitorous, and Scurrilous, that I want Mr. Pryn's Epithets to give his own book its deserved odium. Truly, I must needs say, That the Author of that heady, Traitorous discourse, (who (as the same judicious person saith) setteth 
q P. 243.  the body above the head, maintaineth that the two Houses, or the Major part, have the Sovereign power, may act without the King, levy War against him, and kill him too, by defending themselves) hath very little or no cause to return thanks to his Seditious Brother, for the courtesy he hath done him, to conclude nothing in the argument himself, but commend the others Book to his Reverend Antagonists serious study, the true English whereof, amounts but to this conclusion, I dare not maintain such a Treasonable Position as that myself, for fear of having my reward on a block, or a Triple tree; but I'll commend a book to you, wherein it is asserted and justified, and made known to the world by a deluding Trap-door of the Sovereign power of Parliaments. It's but a sad commendation of Mr. Prynne (especially from a Brother of the Sacred Covenanting Tribe too) to do as good as tell the world, that his Book is the Storehouse of Seditious, and Treasonable Principles; The Shop to furnish others with what, and as much as the Rebel pleases; For if the justification of an Affirmative in the controverted point, be not to be found in that putrid, loathsome hospital of Traitorous diseases, in that which the deluding Author was pleased to term, The Sovereign power of Parliaments, To what end or purpose do we hear of a Citation, or Commendation thereof to the serious Study of his Reverend Opponent? And if it be therein justified, (as who doubts but it is?) the Conclusion that I have made, doth naturally flow from the Premises; and therefore I say, how much the one is bound to thank the other, I leave to both their considerations to decide the controversy between themselves at their next meeting; and in the mean time seeing this man of fancy, our windy Croftonian disputant, doth as it were in the dark, confess the truth of a Negative herein. I shall proceed to his next Dream, where he Magisterially affirms, That  
The Legislative power of their Votes, Debates, Resolves, orders, or Ordinances were never gainsaid by His Majesty. Here's a rare spiritual man for you now, one that peremptarily determines a notorious falsity for a truth; And what an incomparable mistake it is, His Majesties own words shall make appear: In his noble Answer to the 19 Tyrannical Propositions of those Legislative Traitors, p. 1. (who so often have made it their Godly work to establish iniquity by a Law) we find him declaring, and telling of the English Nation of those pious Theives having thought fit to remove a troublesome Rub in their way, The Law; To this end (saith he) (That they might undermine the very foundations of it) A new Power hath been assumed to interpret and declare Laws without us by extemporary Votes (mark) without any case judicially, before either House (which is in effect the same thing as to make Laws without us) Order and Ordinances made only by both Houses, (tending to a pure Arbitary power) were pressed upon the people as Laws, and their obedience Required to them; Their next step was to erect an upstart authority without us (in whom, and only in whom the Laws of this Realm have placed that power) to command the Militia, by a 
r See his Majesty's Speech to them, July 21. 1642. In Reliquiae sacrae Carolinae.  pretended Ordinance, which His Majesty told the Knights, Gentry, and Freeholders of the County of Lincoln, That as the same was against the known Laws, and an invasion of his unquestionable right, and of their liberty and property, so I do now declare (saith the Sacred Speaker) That the same is imposed upon you, against my express consent, and in contempt of my Regal Authority, And I doubt not, but you will sadly consider, That if any Authority without, and against my consent, may lawfully impose such burdens upon you, it may likewise take away all that you have from you, and subject you to their lawless arbitrary power and government; At another time telling the Gentry, etc. of Leicester of his defending their Religion, their Liberties, their Laws with his life, I mean (
s See his Majesty's Speech to them, July 20. 1642.  saith he) the good known Laws of the Land, not Ordinances without my consent, which till within these twelve months was never heard of from the foundation of this kingdom) In his message from Oxford to those insinuating serpents at Westminster of the 12th of April 1643, he justly terms the Declarations, Ordinances or Orders of one or both Houses illegal: And lastly (not to tyre my reader's patience too much) His Majesty was pleased to tell the inhabitants of Flint and Denbigh at Wrexham, That 
t See his Speech to them, Sep. 27. 1642.  By their power (i. e. that of the housed Rebels) the Law of the Land (their birthright) is trampled upon, and instead thereof (saith he) they govern my people by Votes and arbitrary Orders. These I find in those very few pieces of his late Glorious Majesty, which I have had the happiness to take a cursory view of, and yet enough to set forth Crofton in his proper dark colours, to evince the Regal gainsaying of the Legislative power (as our Presbyters nickname the Chimaeraes of their brains) of the Two Houses illegal, extemporary, and arbitrary, lawless Votes and Orders, which as it was the sole intent in my Citation, so they are an apparent proof of the notorious falsehood of Croftons' heady affirmation, and perverse dispute; Who sees not that his Seditious, and 
2 Tim. 6. 5  Rebellious principles declare him to be a man of a corrupt mind? Who perceives not that his emitting to the English Nation his Legislative falsehoods, do make apparent, that he is also destitute of the truth, and too much inclined to dreams and fancies?  
§. 38. The Doctor having justly termed crofton's urging by a Presbyterian pertness the present Kings taking the Oath in Scotland, 
u p. 149.  bold and odious, no less than fallacious: Crofton cries out, 
w p. 24.  How bold and odious soever it may seem, none but a proud Pashur and shameless Shemaiah (Who is the Raker in the puddle of Railing now O Presbyter?) could count it odious in Jeremiah to say to the King, Keep the Oath, and thou shalt be delivered (Observe his Traitorous and shameless addition) from that distress, which may too late engage His Majesty to send to his faithful Monitor to pray for him; Goodly! Goodly! how delicate sweet rebellion smells in the nostrils of a Covenanter? What damnable Seditious spirits possesses them with the impudence of threatening distress to his Sacred Majesty for not keeping of that National plague, the Covenant? He that can make any other of this, than Sedition, let him lend me his spectacles; I wonder what day or hour it is, wherein these Sacred Covenanters may be found deficient in their endeavours of 
x See the slight healers of public hurts p. 29.  drawing on Rebellion, perjury, innocent bloodshed and Sacrilege with the shoeing-horns of Religion and Reformation, of setting up the Gospel of Peace with unguentum armarium, the sword of war? Our Canting Presbyter not only threatens His Majesty with distress, but also by his venomous speeches implies the approach of mischief, when it will be too late for His Majesty to send to him to pray for him; Nothing is to be looked for here but destruction, and damnation hereafter it seems, if that brat and spawn of the serpent (that primary deluding rebel) the Covenant (which being hatched in Sacrilege and Rebellion, was at length brought forth into the world in blood and confusion) be not carefully looked to and provided for; 
y See Archbishop bancroft's, dangerous positions. p. 51.  Those Kingdoms and States, who defend any Church-Government save this of Pastors, Doctors, Elders, and Deacons, are in danger of utter destruction, says Martin Junior in the time of Queen Elizabeth. The Parliament in her time, for tolerating of Bishops in stead of their new Government, were told by others of the then factious party, 
z p. 50.  That they shall be in danger of the terrible mass of God's wrath, both in this life, and in the life to come, and that if they did not then abrogate the Government by Bishops, well they might hope for the favour and entertainment of Moses (that is the Curse of the Law) but the favour and loving countenance of Jesus Christ, they should not see, nor never enjoy. Birds of a feather will flock together, all Cuckoo-like singing the same tune of destruction & distress to their Sovereign Princes, if they will not bow down and worship the Golden Calf of their Presbytery; But why too late, Mr. Crofton? Is not the Murder of one King enough, but you must harp upon the Rebellion against, Imprisonment, and godly consequential murder of another? Satia te sanguine Cry; More Gunpowder Mines still to blow up Regality? Is there another Rebellion a contriving amongst the Saints, that must needs have Sata as canonising stamp upon't? Too late! Are you in serious Combination with the party, to stir up an execrable Rebellion against the Son for his ruin in this world, as formerly your Cursing party did against His Martyred Father? And all for not keeping of an Antimonarchical horrid Confederacy and Conjuration, called, The Solemn League and Covenant, These expres-pressions deserve a sharper Answer than my Pen is able to make, being filled brimful of covenanting-rebellious Malice.  
But why Faitful Monitor? You live far from neighbours sure, that you are fain to crown your seditious pate with laurels of praise for a Faithful Monitor, which is as fit for you, as a Saddle is for a Sow's back, or the Epithet of Godly was for the peerless Cutthroats of the Carolian Martyr; He that was so impudent as to tell the King to his face, He was a Tyrant, Traitor, Murderer, and a public and implacable enemy to the Commonwealth, was just such another Faithful Monitor as yourself: But for what? merely for the chastising and crucifying of both. But what must His Majesty send to him for? why it seems to pray for him. Alas good Covenanter! what are all your prayers but for the destruction of Princes, and stirring up their subjects to rebel against them, if they will not preserve your hellish Trap-door, and as the ends of that, set up and maintain your Trojan Horse of Ecclesiastical Discipline? Their worth are weighed down with a nutshell, if they be like those which are in your Book; which prayer of yours, and your practice (like true religion, and your irreligious destructive Covenant) at at drawn swords with each other, even in the very writing of a few sheets of paper? They had need of a bird (as the saying is) that give a groat for an Owl; They must needs be in great want of prayers sure, who send to such a bold confident Kirker as you for that end, who can one while cry, The Lord deliver me from rendering railing for railing, and yet rail yourself for several times, in several pages, against that very person whom you so strangely exclaim against for the very same thing, which clearly manifests an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a notorious self-condemnation, and brings you within the reach and lash of the Apostles sentence, which in his Epistle to the Romans he pronounces with a Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, who ever thou 
Rom. 2. 1.  art, that judgest, for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest, dost the same things.  
§. 39 But Crofton hath not done yet, but continues belching forth his own wickedness and folly against the Reverend Prelate, with a 
z Page 51.  Thus he supposeth the Two Houses into a nonentity as to their Supreme Legislative power by the temper they were 
a Page 52  then in, and the absence of the King, though they were animated by an express Statute Law, which some upon good grounds and reasons (beyond the reach of Dr. Gauden or little Mr. Crofton to resolve) have openly averred to continue them yet in being. And thus he profoundly supposeth a Parliament, swearing qua Parliament, in the fullest formality and profession of their National capacity, was a personal Covenanting. Bless me! what doth this Presbyter prattle thus for of things (he lets us know by his fanciful jabber) he hath no more skill or knowledge in, than his near acquaintance, the Ass? The man is out of his element sure; he is got into a wrong way, and fancies to himself that he's going the direct right way on to his journey's end, and therefore I'll do what lies in my power to manifest his error and mistake unto him; And therefore first, Doth the Doctor suppose such a thing? Doth he suppose nothing to be nothing, that to be a nonentity which never had a being! A terrible cause indeed of a Presbyters exclamation! for we find, that the Supreme Legislative Bauble of the Two Houses, is the very, very Loadstone that draws up a sanctified Puritans zeal and affection to them, to show us a Presbyters inclinations more to fictions and whimsies, then to those which are visible undoubted Truths; Supreme! What Gimcrack, or New-nothing have we got here? That the Body should be affirmed to be above the Head? The Legs, Arms, and Trunk of the Body indeed (as Judge Jenkins 
b See his Lex Terrae p. 49.  saith) are greater than the Head, and yet not above, nor with life without it. Certainly the man hath a mind to show the profound depth of his skill in Corah's art of murmuring and rebellion against the Supremacy of the Prince and Priest. He tells us of an Observation in his Book, That it hath been the fatal chance of the Bishops of England, 
Page 25.  to run themselves into a praemunire. If he speak of any since the Reformation, I defy him to show me one example of any Protestant Bishop that ever since then proved disloyal, either in words or actions, to either King or Queen, except Bishop Williams, when he began in his old age to dote, and lean too much on that rotten prop of Presbytery, which taught him to fortify his House against his Gracious Sovereign; I do not mean those pretended premunires for which the incomparable Laud was so infamously murdered, nor by which sundry others of the Royal Adherents were the very same way dealt withal, as Traitors against His Majesty, and the Bauble (which they called The Parliament) for assisting him, by that Black Cabal, that Assembly of Treacherous Men before, in, and after the year 1644. But certainly there's none but can observe, the Presbyters Loyalty is good enough, when they are deficient in power, that is to say, when they cannot help it; for it is as clear as noonday, that a Puritan never wants a will to rebel, if he hath at any time any power and opportunity, and that the Magistrate refuse to set up the Consistorian Slavery, which made the Learned Dr. Pierce cry out, 
c See his Self-Revenger exemplified, p. 100  Blessed and happy is that Nation, where such men's Loyalty consisteth in their want of power or opportunity to make resistance. In good earnest Mr. Crofton, I'll for once make answer by a retortion, and ask you your own questions (you so weakly and impertinently (to say no worse) propounded 
Page 25.  to the Bishop) Sir, have you not stretched too far, and stepped into a praemunire? I should fear to be made less by the head, as guilty of Treason, Sedition at the least, should I thus confront the King and Loyal Parliaments, in what all their Statutes and an Oath of Supremacy declare to be the peculiar Prerogative of the King? And that they do so, need no further demonstration then that which follows, even the words of the Lord Chief Baron (now Lord Chief Justice) Bridgeman, in his Speech to the Grand Jury at the Regicides Trial, where we thus find his learned Language; Gentlemen, Let me tell you what our Law-books say, for there's the ground out of which (and the Statutes together) we must draw all our conclusions for matter of Government. How do they style the King? They call him, The Lieutenant of God, and many other expressions in the Book of Primo Henrici Septimi. Says that Book there, The King is immediate from God, and hath no Superior. The Statute says, That the Crown of England is immediately subject to God, and to no other power. The KING (say our Books) He is not only Caput Populi, the Head of the People, but Caput Reipublicae, the Head of the Commonwealth, the Three Estates; And truly thus our Statutes speak very fully; common experience tells you, when we speak of the KING, and so the Statutes of Edward the Third, we call the King, Our Sovereign Lord the King: Sovereign, That is, Supreme. And when the Lords and Commons in Parliament apply themselves to the King, they use this expression, Your Lords and Commons, your faithful subjects humbly beseech; I do not speak any words of mine own, but the words of the Laws: Stat. 24. Hen. 8 cap. 12. Whereas by divers, sundry, old, authentic Histories and Chronicles, it is manifestly declared and expressed, That this Realm of England is an Empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one Supreme Head and King, having the Dignity and Royal Estate of the Imperial Crown of the same, etc. 25 Hen. 8. cap. 21. There it is the people speaking of themselves, That they do Recognize no Superior under God but the King's Grace. Thus that learned Person.  
To the Judge, let me add Mr. Duncomb, who telling us, 
d See his Royal buckler, or a Lecture to Traitors p. 108.  That the Law of Nature shall perish, and the heavens and earth shall pass away before Lex Terrae, the Law of the Land shall deny this Oracle, Omnis sub Rege, & ipse sub nullo nisi tantum sub Deo, All men are under the King, and the King is under none but God. This (saith he) is that divine Sentence, Quod nec Jovis ira nec ignis, nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas, which neither angry Jove, nor fiery Vulcan, neither devouring Age, nor bloody sword, a worse devourer than that, shall ever expunge out of our Law-books, or explode out of the memory of every pious man. Thus he.  
Bracton cited by the Reverend and Learned Judge Jenkins, tells us, Rex non habet parem in Regno suo, That the King hath not an equal in his kingdom; if not an Equal, then certainly no Superior, and so by consequence shows the fiction of the Two Houses Supremacy. There hath been so much already cited for the Supremacy of His Sacred Majesty over all persons in his Dominions, by Judge Jenkins, Mr. Diggs, and several others, that I need not trouble the Reader with any more repetitions thereof, but refer the dissatisfied to their several Writings, and conclude this point with a word or two concerning the Oath of Supremacy, which every Member of the two Houses must take before he sits in the House, or else according to Law, he stands a person to all intents and purposes, as if he had never been elected or returned; which clearly declares the King to be the only Supreme Governor of this Realm, and of all other His Highness Dominions and Countries, as well in all Spiritual and Ecclesiastical things (or causes) as temporal, and so certainly by undeniable consequence, over the Two Houses in Parliament causes; For why was the exclusive Particle Only inserted, but to cut off all pretences of coordinacy or share in the Regal Supremacy? And truly if he be Supreme, there is neither Major, nor Superior, saith the Learned Lord Bridgeman in his Speech aforesaid. Was this Oath (think you Mr. Crofton) composed by the Lords and Commons in Parliament, in the time of Qu. Elizabeth, and at their suit by 
* Eliz. c. 1  Act of Parliament made high Treason 
5 Eliz. c. 1  for a subject to deny to take it, for to be evaded and treasonably denied, & the subject matter thereof ascribed to the Subjects themselves, who were fain to take it, ere they could have the least colour or pretence, perjuriously to claim or usurp it from the rightful owner, and this too by such a Shadow of a Disputant as your fanciful self, who have armed yourself with so much confidence, to bawl out these seditious Assertions, which deserve nothing else but the utmost rigour of the Law for a confutation? Nothing but self-condemnation? No other way left you to save your credit, but by writing sedition, and throwing your poisoned darts of malice against your Superiors, for the pretended denial of that, the truth whereof your own whimsical self is found to be a real disclaimer? Cannot you dig a pit for another, but you must presently fall into it yourself? These shabbed courses of yours, forces me to deal with you by a retortion, and ask you once again some more of your own questions, Where is, Sir, the King's Prerogative over all persons in all causes? What is become of the Oath of Supremacy? Hath a Gracious King lately pardoned you, and your Delinquent party for your former misdemeanours, really to debase, nay dethrone Him by your impudent and traitorous entituling his sworn Subjects with His Only Supremacy? Truly, Sir, I cannot blame you much now for your words in your Preface, where you tell us, That 
side 2.  having animadverted this Anti-Baal-Berith (i. e. the Bishop's Book) you find a necessity to apologise for the very act of your Animadversion, and fear nothing more than to be bound to your good behaviour, in misbehaving yourself so much as to answer (not according to what your confidence helped you to prate, A fool according to his folly, wherein you may seem like unto him, but) a learned reverend Prelate with whole mouth-fuls of sedition and rebellion, wherein you are the perfect image of all the traitorous Conspirators that have been before you; why else do you divide non dividenda? make a division in that wherein none without perjury, aught or can be? make two sharers and partners in the Supremacy, which the legal Oath and Statute-Laws of this Realm (by which we must steer our course, and not by your horrible frightful dreams) declare to centre, and to be the peculiar right and Sovereignty of one alone, and that inseparable from his person too? The goodly aim and end of all your Jabber for the Two Houses coordinacy in the Supremacy, is but to fulfil the Martyr's words, 
e See Eikon Basilike in 24. P. 47.  That the Majesty of the Kings of England might hereafter hang like Mahomet's Tomb by a Magnetic charm, between the power and privileges of the Two Houses in an airy imagination of Regality.  
But the Two Houses usurpation of the Supremacy, it seems will not serve Mr. Croftons' turn, if they cannot swallow up the Legislative power too from the Royal Owner; In his Analepsis 
* p. 12.  he called them then only  and Sharers in the Legislation of England, now he grasps for the Suprem Legislative power alone for those long Parliament Legislative theives, (that made it their precious saintly work to make their strength the Law of Justice,) rob and pillage and murder the Subjects of their Sovereign, by their cursed illegal Orders, quirks and devices: and then show them the Law of their  atheistical wills for it, sic volo, sic jubeo, stat proratione voluntas; I am persuaded the man hath a huge fancy to go higher and higher in his Seditious and treasonable language, till he comes to make his last ascent at the Sacred Gallows, or else he dreams with the Fifth kingdom Rebels, That notwithstanding any thing he saith or doth, yet that not a hair of his head shall perish. I shall not stand long upon answering him in this fiction and dream of his, but shall quickly dispatch him, by adding to what I have upon this point already said, that which now immediately follows; And therefore for that which he terms the Legislative power, (and because he is just like the Cuckoo repeating over and over, one and the same thing to lengthen his Book) Let's hear a little what Justice Hid told the Blackening Regicide Harison, at his Trial in the Old Bayly. I am sorry (saith he) that any man should have the face and boldness to deliver such words as you have. You and all must know That the King is above the Two Houses; They must propose their Laws to him; The Laws are made by him and not by them; by their consenting, but they are His Laws.  
That either or both Houses, or any assembly or people in this, or any other Nation Governed by Monarchy, hath, or ever claimed (saith 
f See the Royalists defence. p. 39  another in 1648.) to have a Legislative power, or so far to represent the Kingdom, as to make new Laws, and change the old, without the personal consent of the King (as they must certainly have, if what crofton's dreaming fancy suggests to him be true, That they have the Supreme Legislative power) is such a ridiculous Bull, as never was heard or thought of until this frantic Parliament: Therefore when either or both Houses, without the King, take upon them to make Laws, they extend beyond the bounds of their Commission, they thereby act of their own head, not as Representatives. And as he saith in another place, 
* p. 109.  These things are done by the Members, not in their Politic, but in their Natural capacities; they are not Acts of Parliament, but unlawful Facts of Parliament men. Thus that Author.  
If he be King of a kingdom (saith ᵍ Mr. Duncomb) than all the people jointly or severally in his kingdom, are under his command, and if under his command, than he only hath power to give them Laws, be they in one Collective body, as in Parliament at the King's House, or Simple bodies, at their private dwellings. Le Roy fait les Leix avec le consent du Seigneurs et Communs, et non pas les Seigneurs et Communs avec le consent du Roy, Is the voice of the Common Law, the King makes Laws in Parliament, with the consent of the Lords and Commons, and not the Lords and Commons, with the consent of the King.  Virg. 7. Aeneid. Hoc priami gestamen erat, cum Jura vocatis More daret Populis.— And 5. Aeneid.— Gaudet Regno Trojanus Arestes Indicitque forum & patribus dat Jura vocatis. 
The Lords and Cowmons have power only to propound and advise, it is only the Kings Le Roy le vieult, which makes the Law; their Propositions and advice signify nothing, if the King saith, Le Roy se Avisera. It would be strange if the Assembly of the Subjects together, should make them Masters over their Sovereign, who gave them power to assemble, and hath power to turn them home again when he pleaseth. Legum ac Edictorum probatio aut publicatio, quae in Curia vel Senatu fieri solet, non arguit imperii Majestatem in Senatu vel Curia inesse, saith Bodin, De Repub. lib. 1. cap. 8. The publishing and approbation of Laws and Edicts, which is made ordinarily in the Court of Parliament, proves not the Majesty of the State to be in the said Court or Parliament; It is the King's Sceptre which giveth force to the Law, and we have no Law, but what is his will. Thus far he.  
That there is enough already cited to prove, that all our Presbyters prating about the two Houses Coordinacy and share, (and yet their Supremacy too) in the Legislative power, 
* Observe this puddle of Treasonable, Lawless contradictions, but Sharers in a thing, and yet Supreme, which admits of no Coordinacy.  are mere nullities (as King James told Cardinal Perron 
h See his Defence of the Right of Kings, p. 14.  upon another account) Chimerical projects, matters of a floating imagination, and built upon false pre-suppositions, is evident enough to my shallow understanding, whatever it may be to those of deeper reach; and unless Mr. Crofton thought he should meet with none but Notorious blockheads 
* P. 195.  more blunt witted then a Whetstone (as King James tells the Presbyters Compeer the Cardinal upon the Common account, for the Popes and Discipliniarians power over Kings) he would never have endeavoured to draw people to believe by his persuasion, that the two Houses are not only  and sharers, but also rightful owners of the Supreme Legislative power. But that I may hasten to a final period of my discourse, I shall in order thereunto consider Mr. Croftons' ready consent to that Seditious Book, which the Dreaming Author entitused, The long Parliament revived, set forth by his Sacred Malignant Brother Drake, under the disguised name of Thomas Phillips; which first implies the Seditious and Treasonable nature of the subject matter of it, and his being ashamed, or at lest fearful to own or avow, by setting his right name to it. And then Secondly, his carrying on his Factious ends and purposes with colourable pretences of Loyalty, according to the constant practice of the Covenanting Party, (
i See Pres. bytery Popish, not Episcopacy P. 7.  The credit of whose false Doctrine (is well enough known from Dan to Beersheba) was the very leaven, wherewith the people were first moulded into a sour lump of armed malice against their Sovereign;) for he knew well enough, nothing could be more destructive to his Majesty's interest, than that Pestiferous Pamphlet he then set forth, which being Examined by the Lords and Commons in Parliament in the month of November, 1660. was found (as the Journal saith) to be Scanda'ous and Seditious, and a charge by them ordered to be drawn up against the Author, and the Book to be burned by the hand of the Common Hangman. So easy and usual is it for Presbyters to gainsay the truth of what upon serious consideration of the whole loyal body of the Lords and Commons in Parliament, was voted Seditious, and to be burnt by the hands of Sacred Doctor Dunne, (the only Physician for a certain infallible cure of a Covenanters brainsick disease of Sedition and Rebellion:) and yet so ready to brand others with the black mark of Malignant, Popish vipers, Illiterate, Ignorant, Injudicious Court Doctors and Lawyers, and Anti-Parliamental Momusses, who should so far dare to be honest, as to resist a Covenanter, in standing up in the defence of the good old English Laws, and rejecting and disallowing of the Legislative power (so called) of the Illegal Arbitrary Votes and Orders of that unparelleled Rebellious Faction in the two Houses of that Long Parliament, which is so Seditiously affirmed to be Revived, to imbrue the Nation again in Treason and Rebellion, in Murder and King-killing, for the enlargement of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ As for his disloyal fancy of the Long-Parliament-Rebels continuance (notwithstanding the Murder of their Only Supreme Head and Governor) let him but read Judge Jenkins at large proving before the Regicide, what I shall give now but the heads of in brief, ᵏ That the two Houses did not then act by the King's Writ, but contrary unto it, and so their Acts were null. That the Act for continuing the Parliament so long as both houses please, is void; because it is, First, Against Common right, for thereby Parliament men will not pay their debts; and they may do wrong to others Impune: besides the utter destruction of all men's actions who have to do with Parliament men, by the Statute of Limitations, 21. Jac. Secondly, Against Common reason; for Parliaments were made to redress public grievances, not to make them. Thirdly, Impossible, the death of his Majesty 
* For the King was then alive.  (whom God long preserve) dissolving it necessarily. Fourthly, Repugnant to the Act for a Triennial Parliament, and to the Act for holding a Parliament once a year: That the end of continuing that Parliament, was to raise Credit for three purposes. That those ends were ended: take away the end, and the means thereto are to no purpose; and therefore the three ends of the Act being determined, it agreeth with Law and Reason, the Act should end, the Law rejecting things unprofitable and useless. That the Writ of Summons, was the Basis and Foundation of the Parliament; that those men would be called a Parliament, having abated, quashed, and made nothing of the Writ whereby they were Summoned and Assembled; that if the Writ be made void, the Process is void also. That that house must needs fall, where the Foundation is overthrown; that Sublato Fundamento, opus cadit, the Foundation being taken away, the work falls, is both a Maxim in Law and Reason. And let him but seriously meditate on the Arguments used by the learned Author of the Royalists defence, to prove, that The persons at Westminster, who call themselves the Parliament of England, are not the two Houses, nor so much as Members of the Parliament, and then tell me whether he is of Drakes mind still, That the Long-Oppressive Tyrants, are yet in continuance, and not legally dissolved by their cursed Regicide. Nay, Mr. Prynne himself (whom he styles by an Emphasis, That Profound Lawyer) is clearly against him, and Drake too, not only holding with Judge Jenkins, their Legal dissolution by the King's Martyrdom, but also tells us, That the Kings Personal absence from his Parliament heretofore, and of late, was reputed very prejudicial to it: and his calling away some Lords, great Officers, and other Members from it, in his life time, a high way to its present Dissolution, which also gives a Bastinado, and word of Correction to Croftons' frantic denial of the King's Presence or his absence, to add or abstract to the Authority of Parliament. Mr. Prynne, Lawyerlike, tells us also in another place, That the Act for the continuance of the Long-Perjured Treasonable Plotters, and Contrivers of Murder, Sacrilege, Treason, and Rebellion, was made by the King, as their Sovereign Lord, Declaring and Enacting (mark that) and the Lords and Commons as jointly assenting thereunto, which absolutely confounds crofton's other Whimsy of the two Houses Supreme Legislative power. See his True and perfect Narrative, Page 27, 37. Buzz! Buzz! Mr. Crofton, Where are you? Do you honour a person so far, as to adorn him with the Epithet of Profound, and yet not believe him, but go on in your simplicity, breathing forth deceit (the folly of fools) when he hath done you the honour of a Profound Confutation? Surely, you mind so much his Sovereign power of Parliaments, which he wrote in the time that his Zeal without knowledge had overpowred him, (because pleasant and delectable reading for your Seditious mind) that you care not for considering his subsequent Treatises, which be sent forth into the world, when the Puritanical zeal began to leave him. And thus Mr. Crofton supposeth the two Houses into a non-entity, as to their damnable Treasons, and Enormous Practices by the temper they were then in; by their being Parliament men, and having some certain Privileges, which were not time after time answered by the Royal Grant, to learn them Absaloms' Trepan of Rebellion against their King, with a Sacred Covenant betwixt their teeth, nor yet to teach them to be unparelleled Seditious Corah's, under a vizard and mask of Sanctity: And thus he supposeth the two Houses into an Entity, as to their yet Legal continuance by virtue of their being animated by an express Statute Law, which one openly averring to continue them yet in being, was immediately sought after and caught, and by an Order of the whole Body of the two Houses, was Voted Seditious, and his openly averring to be burnt by the New-turned Presbyter, Doctor Dunne.  
But Crofton hath another dart to shoot at the Bishops, but it's so pitiful blunt and dull, that let him aim never so well at his mark, yet there's no great fear of hurt to be received by it, and what should it be but this; And thus he (i. e. the Bishop) profoundly supposeth a Parliament swearing qua Parliament in the fullest formality, and profession of their National Capacity was a personal Covenanting:) Say ye so? The Bishop did but (as you say) plainly suppose the former, but you tell us he doth profoundly suppose this latter; And why pray now is it such a profound supposition? Because the Bishop affirms the swearing of the Absolonian Tribe, the factious part of the Two bloody Houses without and against the consent of Majesty to be but a personal Covenanting (for that the true English of the Bishop's undeniable assertion?) 'tis a profound cavil indeed of yours, I must confess; Certainly the Bishop might well suppose your black Cabal into a nonentity by that one Law, The Petition of Right as to their legal swearing without his Majesty's consent as easily and truly, as assert this irrefrageable proposition that the Body cannot act without the Head; But because the prattles of a Parliament swearing qua Parliament (as if he would out face the Sun with his mistakes and juggle) I shall bring this subsequent counterpoison, as an Antidote against the venom infused by an ungodly seditious pack of Puritanical knaves, into the people's minds to keep them fast to themselves against their Prince, with Treasonable delusive principles, and that is, first, The Two Houses when every one met together and assembled in the House (much less your remaining half of them) are not a Parliament (but only a part thereof) without the King's presence or concurrence; And secondly, That this Belials brat (the Covenant) was sworn and taken by but a part of them too, when the rest were (like Loyal Subjects) gone out of their bloody denns to the service of their Master, and so the meaning of his words bears but this diminutive conclusion, That the Covenant was taken, and sworn but by a sad part of a part of a Legal Parliament, which verifies the words of the learned Judge Jenkins, That by the abuse and misunderstanding of this word Parliament you and your cross grain party, have miserably deceived the people. That the Bishop supposeth the swearing of the rotten putrified members, the stinking part of a part of a rightful Parliament (who were tainted above measure with Treason and Rebellion) without the consent, and concurrence therein of the Only Supreme Legislator, to be but a personal Covenanting, (and what can we term a Covenant sworn without, and against authority but personal, and with the due Epithet Rebellious annexed unto it?) I am ready enough to grant you; 
k See p. 51. of Crofton Book.  But that the Bishop doth any any where affirm a Parliament swearing qua Parlialiament (that is the King and all the Lords and Commons) to be but a personal Covenanting, Is the Sophistical groundless inference of him who knoweth the Bishop doth not so much as mention it; but give a Presbyter an inch, and he will be sure to take an ell; If the King gives him but Liberty of Conscience in the wearing, or not wearing of a Surplice in all Churches, and places throughout the Nation, excepting his own Royal Chapel, Cathedrals, and both the Universities, they must have the Customary Rigour suspended, and Liberty of Conscience allowed them there too, or else all the fat's in the fire, their queasy stomaches cannot bear it, and their Consciences (poor harmless lambs!) they think willbe thereby over burdened and oppressed, but let truth come somewhat might them for once (which hath been such a stranger to them) and tell them to their faces, That they have possessed themselves of Cauterised Consciences, that are oppressed with 
☜  the sight of a garment, and eased with the practice of sedition, which stumble at straws and swallow a Camel, that cannot away with a piece of Holland, and yet make no bones of Rebellion, who can by no means endure to bow at the name of Jesus, and yet fall down and worship their own Inventions; And thus Mr. Crofton profoundly supposeth, That a bloody faction of the Two Houses swearing an Oath without, and against the concurrence of their Princely Head, had a Parliamentary Authority to make their Oath legal, and themselves that took it, to be no Rebellious Covenanters.  
§. 40. Errors (saith Squire 
l See his History of K. Charles, p. 268.  Saunderson) grow fastest in hot brains; and the most reverend Archb. Bancroft in his excellent Survey of the pretended holy discipline hath also told us of Beza's 
m Pag. 53.  applying himself altogether to strengthen and encourage his factious old acquaintance, (i. e. The Disciplinarian Cankerworms then here in England) in their froward and perverse obstinacy. The first is made evident by the frightful language of this Hot-brained Sheba, The second is also proved by the open averring of one of the near Allies of those Puritans, and rash Heady Preachers, that King James of blessed memory hath well informed us of) who think it their honour to contend with Kings, and to perturb whole kingdoms; And to what end can any man think was the 
See his preface to his Basilicon Doron.  wicked errors of his ways made public by a press, but to encourage his factious proselytes, and Holy-prophane Leaguing brethren to persist in their froward and perverse obstinacy in their old crooked paths of Schism and Sacrilege, of blood and confusion? And all this under a colour and pretence to advance the power of Godliness too; But what said one once; Men (saith 
n See the Subjects sorrow or lamentations upon the death of Britain's Josiah, K. Charles, p. 40.  he) profess they know God, yet in their works they deny him; using the name of God and Religion (as Conjurers in their incantations) to perpetrate those things which are most contrary unto God, and destructive unto Religion; for as the devil never doth more hurt than when he appears in the likeness of an Angel of Light, so are men never so mischievous, as when they drive on wicked Designs under the show of Godliness.  
And thus have we found this Covenanting Corah, first praying to be delivered from rendering railing for railing, and yet rake in that puddle himself for several times together, after he had told us he did not delight to rake in it; Mangling, and Clipping the words of his Reverend Antagonist, so long, till he made his own way the more easy to catch others in; to make his Puritanical Gang to believe him to be some rare kind of Phoenix, at the very time when a faithful Monitor will sooner compare him to a Prattling Cuckoo, for his idle repititions, and leaving out, like a perverse Disputer, the Principal Verb, the chief words of the Bishop's Sentences, 
o See King James his Preface.  for speeds sake putting in the one half of the purpose, and leaving out the other; not unlike the man that alleged that part of the Psalm, Non est Deus, but left out the preceding words, Dixit insipiens in Cord suo. Stating of damnable Doctrines of Sedition and Rebellion, for the Honour and Happiness of the King's Majesty and his Posterity, That the Common-Prayer-Book was expelled by a lawful Authority; That neither the place of his Majesty's retirement, nor reason of his absence, doth add or abstract to the Authority of Parliament; That the two Houses are not only , and Sharers in the Legislation of England, and may exercise it without the King's consent, but also have the Supreme Legislative power, directly contrary to the Laws and Statutes of this Nation, and to the Oath of Supremacy, which by the Particle Only, cuts off, and excludes all Rivals and Sharers therein; and which by an express Statue Law, is made High Treason for a Subject to deny to take, and this affirmed by him, That the world may bear witness, that he hath no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesty's just Power and Greatness, Threatening distress, and that so sudden too, for not keeping of the Covenant, as may too late engage his Majesty to send to his faithful Monitor to pray for him, and no less than twice affirming, with an If, the yet legal continuance of those long Athenian Tyrants at Westminster, notwithstanding their undoubted Dissolution by their unparelleled Murder of their Prince, That the world may bear witness also, with his Conscience of his Loyalty; This, this is the person that would bewitch the world with the Bishop's premunires, and Sedition against their Sovereign Princes. But Quis tulerit Gracchos de Seditione Quaerentes? Who can with patience endure to hear the devil correcting sin? Traitors, & seditious persons, exclaiming against the fictitious Sedition of others; Sacrilegious Rebels, against the Sacrilege of others: I say, Quis tulerit? Who can without indignation entertain any thoughts of a Covenanters speaking against Sedition, Sacrilege, Treason, King-Deposing, and Rebellion? For 
p See the Bishop of Canterbury's Speech at the censure of Burton, etc. p. 5.  'tis most apparent to any man that will not wink, That the intention of these Fiery, Turbulent Presbyterians, and their Factious abetters, was ever, and is still, to raise a Sedition, being as great Incendiaries in the State (where they get power) as they have ever been in the Church. The thoughts of whose Seditious Principles, and Anti-Monarchical Practices, made one in 1574. cry out, 
q See The defence of the Ecclesiastical Regiment, p. 40.  God of his mercy abridge their power, and continue the shortness of their horns, or else grant them greater measure of his grace, and moved another to commend to his Readers consideration, this one Caution, 
r See the Postscript to the Right Rebel, p. 164.  That as ever they desire, intent, and expect to escape, they withdraw themselves from the Society of Rebellious persons, and take heed they give no entertainment unto any Rebellious Opinions, or Principles, whatsoever extraction they be of, whether Popish, Presbyterian, or Popular, if it be not more proper to refer them all to one Original, the Mystery of Iniquity, as their Common Mother; For I make account (saith he) That Popery, Presbytery, and Popularity, (rightly understood with respect to their rebellious Principles) are but as so many several Dialects in the language of that Beast, which 
* Rev. 13. 11.  had two horns like a Lamb, and spoke as a Dragon. And this likewise was the reason of that Conclusion of the most Reverend Primate of Armagh, to his excellent Fair warning to take heed of the Scottish Discipline, which shall also put a period to this discourse; I would to God (saith he) we might be so happy, as to see a general Council of Christians, at least a General Synod of all Protestants, and that the first Act might be to denounce an Anathema Maranatha, against all broachers and maintainers of Seditious Principles, to take away the scandal that lies upon Christian Religion, and to show that in the search of Piety, we have not lost the principles of Humanity: In the mean time, let all Christian Magistrates (who are principally concerned) beware how they suffer this Cockatrice Egg to be hatched in their Dominions, much more how they plead for Baal, or Baal-Berith, the baalim's of the Covenant; It were worth the enquiring, whether the marks of Antichrist do not agree as eminently to the Assembly General of Scotland, as either to the Pope, or to the Turk; This we see plainly That they spring out of the Ruins of the Civil Magistrate; They sit upon the Temple of God, and they advance themselves above those whom the holy Scripture calleth Gods.  Vivat in eternum Rex Carolus Secundus, quem Deus nunc & in secula seculorum defendat, oro.  

Lectoribus, Doctis & Indoctis.  
INdocti non damnent, quod ipsi nesciunt; Docti non invideant, quod ipsi novum putant; ab utrisque peto, si alicubi Erratum sit, illud Castigent, non Culpent; si quid ab illis merui, ut Deo, non mihi, gratias rependerent. Apud Aditus ad Logicam.  
Page 57 l. 40. for Covenant, r. Court. p. 80. l. 3. for the, r. he. l. 40. for might, r. nigh.  
FINIS.