AN ANTIDOTE AGAINST An Infectious Air.  
OR A Short Reply of Wellwishers unto the Good and Peace of this Kingdom; Unto the Declaration of the 11th of February, 1647.  
Is it fit to say unto a King thou art wicked, or to Princes ye are ungodly?  Job 34.18. 
Printed in the Year, MDCXLVII.   

A brief Reply to the Declaration of the House of Commons.  
WE have read your Declaration, and have thought good to give you this short account of those impressions that it hath left with us. We find it of that nature, that it would feign prompt others to think more than itself dares speak or utter, and yet speaks much more than it proves. But though we should take all insinuations for assertions, and all assertions for probations, we cannot see how all together would be sufficient to bring home the conclusions: neither that which is expressly set down as the professed drift of the whole Book: nor yet those that it is farther to usher in: The great sinew of that Body: The main wheel or spring of your Engine, which if any thing must do your feat of dis-uniting the hearts of the Kingdom from his Majesty, and justifying your professed rejection of him, is that which concerneth the death of the late King. A matter in deed of a very high nature; and though you are loath to express yourselves therein, yet it is not hard to discern what thoughts you would thereby commend unto us. But if you can clearly make good what you intent, why did you not speak it plainly? If you cannot, why do you go about by malicious art to insinuate that which you are not able to make good? Men that are under the power of others, use indeed sometimes to speak timorous verities: But where men armed with greatness and strength, speak fearfully, there the Truth is in danger.  
But do you believe, or can you think to persuade us, that the honour of so great a King, or his just power and Rights, are to be laid under foot upon surmises? upon quodlibetical and uncertain conjectures, whose grounds and foundations are rather in the conceits and apprehensions of men variable according to the variety of their affections, than in the reality of things or actions? When events are liable to divers causes, and those that have their residence within the breasts of men, to fix them upon one without any sound reason for the choice, but because it appearres most serviceable to our purposes, is a fallacy of too open a collusion; That we should trust our judgements with it in so great a matter; and therefore since you have proved nothing against his Majesty, in that particular, we cannot but infer, that all that you want of evidence against him lieth against yourselves, and doth convince you to have committed as high an offence against the duty of Subjects, at against the candour of Christians.  
As for us, The pious life of his Majesty; His exemplary carriage in the whole demeanour of his life The quiet and undisturbed temper of his mind, notwithstanding the surly storms wherewith he hath been attempted: His mercy toward others, even toward his enemies, unlikely to consist with such horrid cruelty towards his own— His constancy and undauntedness of spirit in his sufferings, together with his great and commemorable patience; assisted with the great improbability of the act, as having in it too little an hire of advantage to procure the undertaking of so high an impiety, as that which brought a fare greater addition of burden than honour upon his back: The consideration of the dear affection between him and his Royal Father, never interrupted by any distaste likely to hatch such a viper in so noble a breast. These and many more together, with the highest engagement of Christian charity to our King, as they do bind us, and even enforce us to abominate and abhor the thought of that thought, which you seem to desire to infuse into us, and to keep our breasts armed and grounded, however you have or may disarm us otherwise against any insinuations that may lead us thereunto:  
So when we consider the rules and practices of some Politicians, and the nature of man, which is observed to be such, as it is apt to hate those whom they have wronged, and to wrong them more; when we consider what hath been done already, what is daily done, and what it is some men's interest, as the world judgeth of Interests to do: we cannot but incline to adhere rather unto this choice, to believe it much more likely that such a thing may be forged by some against him, than that he could commit such a thing against his Father without any such inducements either of revenge or interest: and where the guilt of this is now let the world judge, and which is the greater offence of the two.  
But secondly, in case it could be proved, and so fully, so demonstratively proved, as is requisite to overcome that large portion of Charity which is due unto a King above all other sorts of men, and to him for aught we know above all other Kings, much the more for the sad condition wherein you keep him, so clearly as to be victorions over so many and so dissuasive improbabilities that present themselves in array against it: we should indeed even then admit it with great reluctancy, as a truth that it might be thought a kind of impiety to understand; we should then (when we must needs) look upon it as a sad and great affliction unto our Nation, and as a great cause of humiliation (not of triumph or insulting) unto us; That God should suffer our King to fall into such a depth of impiety, for the sins of the Magistrate as of the Minister, are usually the judgements of the people for their sins: But yet nevertheless, we should hold it our duty even in that case to cry out with the holy Prophet, Micha 7.9. We will bear the indignation of the Lord, because we have sinned against him, etc. And to let ourselves to the duties of Fasting, and Prayers, and Tears, for the lamentation and expiation of so horrid an iniquity from his Majesty and the Kingdom. But we could not be persuaded that it were a Christian course for us to make His iniquity the countenance or excuse of ours: or admit it as a supersedeas or discharge of the bond of our allegiance, though it should render it indeed much uncomfortable unto us; for as a Child owes his filial honour and obedience not to a good Father, but to a Father, be he good or bad: so Subjects their allegrance not to a good King but to the King: and though we deny not but Potentates may forfeit their Crowns by their impieties, yet the holy Word of God leads us to believe that none is thereby enabled to take that forfeiture but God; Saul forfeited his Crown by his Sacrilegious intrusion into the Office and Function of the Priesthood, 1 Sam. 13 8. etc. and doubled that forfeiture by his disobedience unto the Command of God concerning Agag and the spoil, 1 Sam. 1●. 9. etc. And God both times proceeds to sentence against him: but yet none must take the forfeiture, nor put the Sentence in execution, till God himself was pleased to do it: And therefore notwithstanding all that, David durst not lift up his hand against him, 1 Sam. 24. & 26. David himself afterwards, though an holy man, yet was so far left unto himself for a time by God, that he fell into two horrid and unworthy sins: base in the eyes of men as well as heinous in the sight of God: First, committing adultery with Bathshcha, at such a time when her husband whom he so vilely wronged therein, was employed in the hazarding of his life to do his service; and then to cover that, treacherously contriving and procuring his murder: and yet this was no good plea to justify Absalon or the son of Bichri in their rebellions: no nor yet Shimei in his foul-mouthed railing against him for it: But all of them were in their times overtaken with their rewards: and David yet ended his days in peace, being reconciled to God by his repentance. Nero was as it were a Devil incarnate, so had, that his wickedness added glory to the persecutions of those that suffered by him: And Tertullian useth it as an argument to prove Christianity to be good, because Nero opposed it: He made it his sport to see his own Imperial City set on fire before his face: and then when he had done, caused it most falsely and most wickedly to be laid upon the Christians. And embrued his hands in the blood of his own Mother: and yet it is observed this very Nero was then Emperor and Governor of the Remanes at that very time when Saint Paul wrote unto them to be subject unto the higher powers: and tells them withal, that whoever resists shall receive to himself damnation. Let not any think that in this we plead for the wickedness of Kings: we are so fare from it, that as we do believe the same sins to be more heinous in them then in other men, and that their very iniquities contract greatness from their greatness: so we know and wish they may always remember that their punishments, if they take not heed, will keep the proportion too, and prove that sentence Canonical, though it be written in the Apocrypha, that great men shall be greatly tormented; so that they shall get nothing by their impunity from men. Neither is it for their sakes, but for others that they are so privileged: For the preservation of Government, which is the good of the people.  
Nor would we wish any to imagine that we think these patterns of wickedness have any such parallels in his sacred Majesty's story, if it may be truly set down as some would persuade, but only to show the unforciblenesse of such kind of deductions as our days have produced: and if it may be, to prevent the like hereafter. And to show you here, that the Kings Right unto his Crown and Government is entire against all that you have said, though it could be made appear (which God forbidden we should imagine) and if so, than there is no ground for us either to withdraw our Allegiance from him: nor is there any justification to be found for your strange, undutiful, and we think unpatterned resolutions: Wherein you that are subjects, and in the highest consideration of your unlapsed Being; but the great Council of the King have resolved, not only to make no more addresses to him, but to receive no Messages from him; so that if he should happily learn so much humility more by his sufferings, as to petition you for food or raiment, or to obtain a Physician for his body, in case of sickness, or a Divine for his soul in another case, or in any other way wherein the good of the Kingdom may be concerned never so much; yet like the Adder you have stopped your ears against him, and forbidden all others under the danger of the penalties of Traitors (a strange punishment for such a sin) not to receive any Messages from him, nor to make any unto him.  
As if to imprison your King, to banish Him into an Island, to Sequester Him from the comforts of His Wife, His Children, His Friends, His Servants; to deprive Him of the very means of His Salvation, by denying Him the assistance of His Chaplains: as if all this and much more were nothing, unless you did withal interdict Him all Society of Mankind: the monstious injustice and cruelty whereof we may well wish had rather been found amongst Purkes and Heathens thou us: and grieve that it should pollute any Christian and English Story; But that we may save you the labour of studying, or troubling yourselves overmuch about the disposing of the Government of this Kingdom; we desire you to remember, that whensoever, and by what means soever the Lord shall please to put a period unto the Reign of His Majesty, we are sufficiently instructed who it is that is immediately to succeed Him in the Government; since we have not yet forgotten by his long and forced absence, that we have a Noble Prince in the world, descended from the blood not only of the Ancient Kings of these Nations, in so continued and unquestionable a descent, as is enough to stop the mouth of malice itself; but also from the Loins of many glorious Foreign Kings, whose Interest God defend we should have any thought of violating, or consenting with any that shall attempt i●: and whilst it is so, there is no imaginable he mane Act or accident that can put the Government of this Nation into your hands, or leave it to your disposing So that your conclusions that you draw so hard for, that you have even broken your Gears, stick still in the mire, and you are run away without them, gingling your Bells as if all were at your heels: we are still to seek for a sound reason why the King should be secluded from His Government, or from the addresses of a Parliament unto Him, whose very Essence depends upon a correspondence and communion with him, since it is their very Parliamentary being to be His Councillors; which cannot stand with a professed interception of addresses unto Him, and from Him; nor yet it that were as you would have it, were we to expect a new way of Government or Governors from you. And if the Giant and the A●hilles of your Declaration, with all the allowances that can be admitted is so weak, much less will your purposes lined a For resse in any thing else that you have said, which for ourselves we have no power to examine; nor have we found truth and sidelity so constant a Companion with all things that have been averred with much confidence in these times, as to depend in this upon bare avercoments; Si satis est accusasse, quis taudem innocens? God himself should not be innocent, if to be accused were to be convicted; we hold it therefore most unjust and unreasonable for us to admit any of those aspersions which you have laid upon His Majesty into our belief, or to make any results at all upon them in the least degree prejudicial to His Majesty in our opinions, until we shall see as well what His Majesty can answer, as what you have objected against Him; for since it is a justice not to be denied to the meanest of Subjects, nay, to the greatest slaves, that they have liberty to speak for themselves, before judgement be given upon their accusation: we must tell you that we hold it a thing against all equity and right, for you to take the freed●●●e to say what you please against His Majesty, and in the mean time to keep Him in that restraint, that He can neither know what you have objected, nor hath liberty to make His Answer thereunto; We do therefore desire it of you in point of justice to His Majesty, and in regard of satisfaction to ourselves, that this Declaration of yours may be speedily communicated to His Majesty, and that He may have free liberty (with the help of such Secretaries, and others that shall be needful, to help His Memory, and to do Him other requisite service therein,) to make what Answer He shall think fit thereunto: and that the said Answer may be as freely published and perused as this your Declaration. If you shall deny us this, we shall have so much the more reason to continue and augment our suspicions: That there was too much gall in that ink that wrote those lines which you have sent abroad, and that they are not of such solid matter as to endure the examination and trial of a just Reply, and shall therefore endeavour to banish all other impressions thereof from us, but of hatred unto such unrighteous practices, and that which we shall now briefly set down:  
First, that we believe it not impossible, nor a thing to be much wondered 〈◊〉 by us, or to stick by us in any great prejudice to his Majesty: That the sad condition and manifold difficulties wherewith his Majesty hath encountered through the miscarriages of others, have found him a man: and therefore (possibly) have driven him some times into some refuges that were not so proper for him at other times, and in another temper of things: as we have observed many miscarriages perhaps in others, on less temptations.  
2. That in the manage of such affairs which his Majesty hath been put upon: and in such a crowd of extraordinary and various exigents, it was not always possible for His Majesty to do all things with His own hand, or to examine all things by His own are or judgement, that have passed as His Acts: many things were necessary to be committed to the trust of others: and if perhaps any of them have failed therein, we dare not lay this to the charge of His Majesty.  
3. Therefore we conceive in all equity, that his Majesty ought not to be judged of by us or his people, by the passages that have fallen out in this distemper of his Reign. As we judge not of the complexion of bodies in their distempers, but in their natural and healthful constitutions, and therefore we conceive all or the greatest part that hath fallen out in this business, though it did appear (as it doth not,) ought to have been left out of your Declaration.  
4. And then fourthly, we can remember or find so little before these times, that hath not been repaired abundantly, or satisfied by his Majesty, that we can find nothing to rest an evil thought against him justly thereupon.  
5. That we find in the recollection unto our memories, of divers passages that have of late fallen from his Majesty: That you have no such cause as you pretend to complain of his obstruction of Peace, since we have found him willing as appeareth by his late Messages unto you: To sacrifice all his own power and greatness upon the matter, (more for ought we find than ever any King yet offered) to the peace and preservation of us his people: And that the main things that he stands upon, are the interest of his people in Religion and Liberty, and the interest of his son, and not his own, and we should be most unthankful should we desert him for seeking to guard as in those things which are so precious unto us.  
6. That we are upon good grounds so well persuaded of his Majesty, that we doubt not but very much of what is charged against him will fall short of evidence: and are the issues of her of misinformation or misinterpretation.  
And lastly, we desire to let you know that our Allegiance is yet unmoved by this battery: so fare that we do yet desire of you the restitution of our King, and that his may be admitted to a personal Treaty; that we may enjoy again the benefit of that happy Government which hath 〈◊〉 so prosperous and comfortable unto us. And that you will not to make good your own ends and purposes, expose us unto the hazard or another bloody war, lest yourselves be partakers of the evils thereof. Assuring you, that although we know not what God may permit you to force us unto otherwise by that power which you have, with other colours and profession, gotten into your hands; Yet in this we shall not fall by God's help; In endeavouring to preserve our Allegiance to His Majesty and our fidelity to His Posterity after Him: Desiring only t● be tesolved of this one question by you as the latter ends Why the House of Lords was waved in a matter of so great concernment to the Kingdom.  
We beseech God of his infinite mercy to restore His Majesty in His good time from that sad 〈◊〉 of affliction He is in, not only to the great hurt, but dishonour also of this Nation; and that he will put some softness into your hearts, that you may yet think upon those courses that may be for the preservation of this poor abused and bleeding Kingdom, from an utter and final destruction.  
FINIS.