OBSERVATIONS Upon the EARL OF NEWCASTLES DECLARATION.  
LONDON Printed in the year, 1643.   

OBSERVATIONS. upon The Earl of Newcastles LATE DECLARATION.  
IT is no new thing (though it was never so frequented as now) for Incendiaries to accuse the innocents' as disturbers of the public tranquillity of the Country.  
Observation. It is well your pen goes on so fare without particulars, perhaps you expect an application from us, and you shall have it; you say (for Incendiaries to accuse innocents' was never so frequent as now:) you say true; for you have laid on the bias in this so even, as the accusation will draw as well towards you as us, so as it is no new thing for the Earl of Newcastle to accuse the Lord Fairfax, Sr. john Hotham, and the rest of our worthies, as in his former Proclamations and warrants appear, accusing them for disturbing the Country's tranquillity, when indeed it is his own he means; wrapping the peace of his Army cunningly in the name of the Country.  
Declaration. The Roman was angry that his neighbour should defend himself, and my Lord that I should protect his Majesty's good subjects.  
Observation. He is not angry that you defend yourself; so you defend not yourself against the justice of Parliament, nor that you should protect His Majesty's good subjects, so that the subjects were good you protected; not Papests, not delinquents, not the malignants of the Country.  
Declaration. Neither is the Lord Fairfax able to bring any one particular instance to make good his general calumniations.  
Observation. Here is a whole leaf spent in vindication, and after much ado, he hath at length taken great pains to excuse himself into as much offence as he stands charged with; for had he said less, the reader perhaps had believed more; Apologies having ever laid on more than they took off; and it is always a mistake in the guilty, that they think they have never said enough, unless they say two much: for particular instances, we shall render a whole catalogue of Barbarism and inhumanity, as your vast and arbitrary impositions, your cruel imprisonments, your stripping many good people naked, and so turning them forth.  
Declaration. The Laws are indeed an excellent standard, and measure of justice; but when they become spiders webs, to entangle some and let others thorough, and when some men must observe Law, and others be free from all Law.  
Observation. The Laws indeed are an excellent, etc. I would your Lordship's Judgement and practice could be reconciled; and that you would not any more offend against so great a light, and conviction, for the more you admire the Laws, the more you condemn yourself in the breach of them; for your instance of the spider's web, it suits well with your book, which is not only a network of wi● to catch the light opinions, but a poison to venom them.  
When some men, you say, most observe Law, and others be free, you would seem to argue the Parliament into a strange delinquency, as if they broke all Laws themselves and yet enjoined an obedience to others, but you mistake the Laws, and distinguish not betwixt the primae and the primis ortae, the Laws of Parliament, and the Laws in Parliament, or made there; for these latter, they are dispensable by ordinance and a fundamental power; and a Parliament cannot in that capacity transgress so as private men, nay as themselves when out of that capacity and become private, for in Parliament a man sits as a Lawmaker, out of it, as a Law-observer; and had your Lordship kept your seat there and not deserted the Kingdom, or derived your power from thence, and not from personal commands, you had then been also a Lawmaker, whereas now you are a, Lawbreaker.  
Declaration. If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? etc. So say I, if I be a delinquent for raising defensive arms by virtue of His Majesty's Commission, with whom alone the power of the Militia is entrusted, etc. What is the Lord Fairfax?  
Observation. For the text you tell us of, if I by Beelzebub, etc. I cannot call it a quotation, but a plundering of Scripture for your own advantage; and you that would make God speak in so common a business, may find him silent in a more serious occasion: for the case of the Militia I refer you to the Parliaments Declarations who have more ably righted themselves than you can wrong them: for His Majesty's authority, we should easily submit, were it rightly stated and dispensed, for he is a Kingdoms, not yours, he is a Parliaments, not a privadoes; if one should show the King's Seal and had stolen the Signature, you would soon deny his power; so you show us the King's authority, and we answer that you came not rightly to it; and the justice you pretend, is as if you should take the Sceptre and knock your fellow Subjects in the head with i●, for justice from a private hand is but revenge, and though the Sceptre be sacred in the King's hand, yet not when you guide the stroke.  
Declaration. Let him show but any one particle of known Law, Statute or Common, which I have violated,  
Observation. An unheard off impudent challenge against clear experience, his gathering force, his arming of Papists, his Plundering, his boundless taxes, are these against no known Law? his forcing elections of Mayors, as the Mayor of York contrary both to Laws and Customs; but what means he by this known Law? a law known only to himself and the rest? or to the law-dispensers, the judges, or to the Parliament which is able to make the Law best known, whose interpretation must needs carry a more irrepealable and public cognizance, being the very Court where the Law took being.  
Declaration. Either for a Company of far fetched, drear bought principles, drawn without Art or judgement, by factions or unskilful persons out of the law of nature or nations, as a Lesbianrule to▪ serve their ambitious ends,  
Observation. It seems by this, you are angry at our Laws of Nature and Nations, calling them in the leaf before, Laws in the Clouds: what? are you angry that we have yet a Law reviving which you cannot force or wound, and that our fundamentals should be hid so deep that you should not be able to root them out; it had been a sad misfortune had we had no other principles left us, but what such hands as yours might have pulled from us.  
Declaration. Or for Arbitrary government, which knows no bounds or limits, but the will of head strong discontented persons.  
Observation. For the calumny of Arbitrary government cast on the Parliament, this is an old trick, to bring a Parliamentary power into equal contempt with the privadoes, but you can hardly persuade the people that this Arbitrary power in the Parliament, can be such as can hurt the people, as if the Kingdom would destroy itself, and that public counsels should be totally biased with private interests, this is as difficult to believe as to believe that an Army of Papists should fight for the Protestant Religion, and that to fight against a Parliament should be the next way to defend the Laws.  
Declaration. With what face can these men name the Laws of the Land? when one of them hath lately told the world in print, that they are but inventions of men, etc.  
Observation. For what one of them hath told the world in print, I shall not need to answer, that were to take the pen out of the author's hand to whom it more justly belongs: for your reproach here in your first line, with what face can these men name the Laws? I must say rather, with what face can you thus revile the supreme court of a Kingdom?  
Declaration. In a word, I raise arms by the Law and for the Law, to protect the Laws and Religion established,  
Observation. This is the Argument these men fight with, to defend established Laws, and an established Religion; What? are there no corruptions in ei●her, no need of any Reformation? sure by the same power our Ancestors made old Laws, we may make new: but persuade us if you can▪ that you fight to protect the Laws; can a Parliaments enemy be a friend to the Laws? can he that would stop the fountain w●sh well to the streams? will he that wounds the body, defend the sinews? and for subverting Religion established, is a Reformation or melioration a subversion or destruction? This is your Lordship's ignorance or rather your Chaplains malignity, for I read Clergy Ink in all your paper.  
Declaration. That I have in mine Army some of the Romish Communion, I do not deny, yet but an handful,  
Observation. Of the Romish Communion, a very cleanly and near express for so foul a business, but let me translate you into plain English, what is this Romish Communion, but right down Papists, the ever known enemies of our Religion and Laws, and if Papists, than their Priests and M●sses and superstitions sure, and thus you break more known Laws; and for the handful of ●hem, that is no excuse, had you read ever any more Scripture than that you quoted, you might remember a little leven levens the whole lump, and have no communion with the unfruitful works of darkness; what concord hath Christ and Baal?  
Declaration. Yea, it was a note higher in them in a war, pretended against Papists to make use of Papists, etc. Nay do they not still admit all sorts of Sectaries, Brownists, Anabaptists▪ Familists?  
Observation. For this first Calumny you are beholden to a former Declaration from Court, and I shall at this time be beholden to another of the Parliaments for wiping it off; for those you call Sectaries, we can easily suffer that, so we purchase a truth, let us have it under what notion you will, nor can this parti-coloured-coat you put on it make us love it the less; I would you were all so minded, not to be so easily worded and witted out of your Religion and conscience.  
Declaration. But let us inquire who are Malignants, are they who will not willingly part with their Religion upon arbitrary Votes?  
Observation. Thus you continue your former reproaches, and to render the results and suffrages of the Parliament under the contemptible notion of Arbitrary Votes; and if you would a●ke who are Malignants, let me help you; What are those that brought the Innovations into the Church, the Tyranny and Oppressions into the State, and drew his Majesty from the Parliament, and keeps him still? What are those that bring in an Army of Papists, and those that daily fill our Kingdom with Arms and Forces from foreign parts? if these be not Malignants, they are a term very like it.  
Declaration. If the common Adversary did not keep them in a kind of Herodian unity for a time, your Brownists would soon condemn the Disciplinarians for Malignants, and your Anabaptists again your Brownists,  
Observation. These errors and differences you have named to us, if they be errors, they are but errors on the right hand, and never so destructive as Papists and Prelatists, nor is the truth lost in these gradual differences of opinions, the Apostle will instruct you not to condemn one another for that, so they be not destructives to the foundation: Paul and Barna●as went several ways in a passion, and yet about the same business, even to preach Christ.  
Declaration. Can the King's forces be said to make an invasion in his own Dominions etc.  
Observation. You tell us of the King under a wrong notion still, as I told you before, show his name or authority in its right lustre, and then you do something; and though a King cannot make an invasion in his own Dominions, yet as a mispersuaded and seduced King he may, as a man may destroy his own goods, kill his own wife, son, or servants; propriety gives a man a just liberty or prerogative, but no such boundless or arbitrary power.  
Declaration. Did they not rob and plunder at Darneton? did they give an assault upon Piercebrig to their loss.  
Observation. For their plundering at Darnton; as you say of the Romish Communion, so say I, perhaps the soldier might reach forth his hand further than his Commander gave him leave, as is usual in times of war, and scarce preventable. And for the loss at Piercebrig, we know little, but a loss of powder and shot on our parts, and a loss of a Howard, Colonel and others on yours.  
Declaration. Neither did I then set foot into this Country, but at the earnest solicitation and ●●treaty of the prime Nobility and Gentry of Yorkshire.  
Observation. In the first part, I am glad you decline the first occasion of your coming, it is a sign you are seeing an error in what you did; and for the prime Nobility of York-shiere that did solicit you, I perceive your Lordship understands not our country aright, we shall inform you better, the Earl of Cumberland was one, who was malignant enough to be General in the city, but not resolved enough for the field, one whom your Excellency hath cashiered from a General into a Lieutenant General, and from thence into his house at Skipton, where I leave him: the Lord Falconbridge, the Lord Dunbar were the rest, two, as your Lordship says of the Romish communion, the Lord Savill, who is now of your cabinet, though not of your counsel, Sr. William Savill, to whom you were beholding for his timely notice of the loss of Leedes, and his own provident escape, Sr. Marmaduke Langdaile whom the former Lord Strafford had affrighted out of all Conscience and Religion at once, and of a Patriot made him a Court. stalking-horse.  
Declaration. And he that sheddeth man's blood without a commission from the King of Heaven who only hath original power over the lives of his creatures, and no multitude of men in the world collective or representative whatsoever, by man shall his blood be shed.  
Observation. His Lordship his right on the words of the text, but he misses the sense, he brings in a private law in a public quarrel, and for a Commission from the King of Heaven, they can sooner show that than his Lordship his from Heaven, for bringing his Papists, the enemies of truth, to fight for it, I have said you are Gods, is sure Commission enough; and for your saying, no collective or representative body whatsoever, is it not civil blasphemy thus to revile Courts of Justice, and like a cashiered judge to rail against that Bench where he can have no place himself.  
Declaration. It is an easy thing for an Orator to cast a mist before the eyes of the People, and to make them a plausible discourse of the cause of God, etc. they had hard hearts if they could not afford themselves a good word.  
Observation. It seems your Lordship hath made such use of it yourself, you accuse it in others, and what ever good words they afford themselves, I am sure he that reads your book will see, you are not far behind, to yourself, if you have not got the start, but whatever good words they give themselves, I think they have few enough from you, but you would feign jest your readers into a belief of your accusation, for your naming Religion and Scripture too as you do, you do so mingle them in your State discourses, as if you had got on your Chaplains gown, and yet would talk like a Lord.  
Declaration. These very men have taught the contrary, have protested the contrary, ante mota certamina, than themselves condemned this very doctrine which now they practice.  
Observation. What do you tell us of what they then condemn and now practice, are you angry at any change for the better? and for your Latin aunt mota certamina, I shall draw up a squadron of Latin to give fire on his Lordships, non est pudor transire admeliora.  
Declaration. Are they successors in doctrine of those first Reformers in Germany? no; what these old Protestants allowed, etc. these new condemn, this is beyond the power of an omnipotency to make both parts of a contradiction true, no Protestants to be Protestants.  
Observation. They are successors in Doctrine so far as their Doctrine is successor to Christ's and his Apostles, but no further, and, 'tis true, we condemn what those Protestants allowed, but it is because we have had a longer light of the Gospel with us, shall we not see clearer at our noon, than they in the first dawning; and to make a contradiction good, and yet no omnipotency neither; we are Protestants in protesting with them against Rome and the corruptions of it, no Protestants in what they protest with it; for God's omnipotency I could wish your Lordship more tender of his name and word than you are, but I know not where to have you for certain, you are now in Divinity, then in war, you are now in a surplice, anon in buff.  
Declaration. Can these Ambassadors of peace kept themselves for that theme which was bequeathed them by their Prince of peace they might long enjoy their benefices.  
Observation. It is well, and your Lordship might add also, could the ministers have held their peace while your army of Papists had come in at this back door, and while all the Altars and ceremonies, all the malignity and profaneness, all the oppression had gone on its course, they had enjoyed their live, no; the godly Ministers are not easily bribed to hold their peace at these evils, as perhaps your Bishops and Doctors of York, Durham, nor can the good Divines so easily hold their peace as yours, who are less used to the Pulpit.  
Declaration. If any Ministers have assumed a Plurality of Professions and added the sword to the word,  
Observation. For wearing a defensive weapon in such offensive times, was never condemned, no not by Apostolical practice▪ if a sword had been so inconsistent with a Divine, I suppose S. Peter had not made use of one in our Saviour's company, and if they please to think of Zwinglius, Charmier, and other such worthy Divines, who were as famous for their Arms as arguments.  
Declarition. Lord how these men are touched to the quick, when any but themselves do offer to plunder,  
Observation. It is well that now at last your Lordship will sport yourself into that guilt, which of late you would not own, we see you are content now to wrap yourself up in the name of a Plunderer, so long as it is in so good Company.  
Declaration. They have spared no age, etc. and all this done by a company of men crept out now at last out of the bottom of Pandora●s Box.  
Observation. His Lordship spends a whole leaf in idle and groundless aspersions, which I will not confute, but let the whole Country do it, only this I will add, had he not stuffed his paper wi●h these, his Declaration had been shorter wasted; he says our company have crept out of the Box, what if I say, his Lordship then and whole Army hath crept into it, for I think they were boxed of late and that sound too; I am sorry that his wit gives me the hint to be thus ridiculous, but since he will laugh, we shall laugh for company.  
Declaration. There may be treason against the King, none against them, there may be▪ forfeitures of estates to the King, none to them.  
Observation. But if they be armed, as they are by a Sovereign or Parliamentary power, what is done against them in that capacity is as ●uch treason, as he that strikes a judge on the Bench or Magistrate in his place, strikes not so much the man as the Authority, and so are the forfeiture two even to them thus enabled and ministerialized by Ordinance, and now all he says after, is on mistaken principles.  
Declaration. I made a public Declaration against Plundering, in Print,  
Observation. And it was wisely done, however to declare against Plundering, now had you so good Rhetoric as to persuade the people you plundered not though you took all, that were a acquaint device; but well, as your Lordship says, it is hard if you cannot afford yourself a good word; it had not me thinks been amiss, had you carried your Declaration in one hand and your sword in the other, and so have plundered by the book.  
Declaration. But what hath been done in that kind, hath been done by the Gentry, when I have rather acted the part of the Minister to execute what they resolved,  
Observation. I have rather acted the part of a Minister, etc. your Lordship does well to speak truth, it is pity but the blame should lie where it ought; indeed we wonder you cashiered not those Gentry ere this, as you have done Savill and Gower, etc. certainly they have not dealt fairly with you, to bring you in and promise you pay, and now not to be able to perform, either their abilities are very little or their honesties.  
Declaration. It were a more conscionable and discrect part of them to repair all as one unanimous body to their Sovereign's Standard, etc.  
Observation. They are all under the right Standard already, under the Royal Parliamentary power, and they fight against you and the rest for painting a counterfeit, and displaying it to seduce both them and theirs, your Lion, or Crown, or such paintings is no Regal Authority, colours make not a cause no more than a Crucifix makes Christianity.  
Declaration. His Lordship talks of driving me and my Army out of the Country, if it be not a flourish, but a true spark of undissembled Gallantry, he may do well to express for time and place.  
Observation. Your Lordship makes a challenge, you know neither hath the Fairefaxes or hotham's of any of our worthies ever declined you in the Field; nor me thinks should you challenge again having lost it so lately, if you challenge to save blood and misery, you had better single yourself for a Duel with one of them, but perhaps you fight better in company: I like your challenge in paper well, it is safe fight and writing at distance, yet such speedy decision would do well, I would our Southern Army were in that point of your Lordship's mind, we should not languish so long; for the sparks of Gallantry you call for in our Champions, I believe you found rather their flames then their sparks, your Army thought it too hot staying.  

Postscript.  
Our Gentry is taxed by this Declaration for breach of Promise, but the breach was 〈…〉 their parts, and conditional convenants as such were, do ever stand and fall with their conditions.   
FINIS.