AN APOLOGY AND VINDICATION Of the Major part of the Members of PARLIAMENT Excluded from sitting and speaking for themselves and the COMMONWEALTH.  Isa. 59.6. 
Their webs shall not become Garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works. Their works are the works of Iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.  Quint. Curt. lib. 4. 
Nulla quaesita scelere potentia diuturna est.  
January 24. 1659.  
LONDON, Printed, by Tho. Ratcliff, 1659.   

AN APOLOGY And VINDICATION of the Members of PARLIAMENT excluded, etc.  
THe Members of this present Parliament, who have been eleven years kept out by a variety of force from sitting and discharging the public Trust, to which they were elected: having observed that by God's good providence the Officers and Soldiers of the Army, who have hitherto, as it were giver▪ Laws to all civil Authority, had declared a submission thereunto, being reduced to their duty by the affection and conjunction of the good people, with several declarations and endeavours of General Monk; whilst they supposed that the freedom of Parliament was thereby to be asserted, and restored; and that a general expectation and desire in all places hath been express, that all the Members should return to Vote in Parliament, according to the due Liberty and prividedges thereof: did many of them go to the Parliament House, where their entrance was denied by Officers of the Army, and others appointed thereunto. And since they and the people having expected a Vindication from those Members now sitting, and a Declaration against all future force. There hath appeared only a printed Vote discharging all absent Members from sitting in Parliament, etc. And, because this looks like a judgement in Parliament, which hath been accounted a decree of the highest nature, and may seem to be a sentence against them as evil Doers; whilst they are, and have been violently and illegally excluded from answering for themselves in their own places, according to the right of Parliaments; there are no means left for the vindication and satisfaction of them, and those concerned with them, but to state the whole matter of fact (as far as it can be traced in the dark) and to reflect soberly and impartially upon the grounds, and the proceed, by which so unheard of, and so dangerous a Precedent against all future Parliaments and Authorities is carried on and would be settled, That it may appear that no offence hath or can be reasonably or formally charged upon the Members excluded, but that they did freely and resolvedly, according to their Trust, and Duty, and the course and practice of Parliaments give their Votes in Parliament; the Major part of the House upon full and mature debate at the same time consenting in the same Vote and Judgement.  
The Parliament in 1648. well weighing the state of Affairs, after they had about six years contended by a War for public Liberty; and duly considering that the end of War is Peace; did betake itself to ways tending thereunto, after mature deliberation▪ and the most solemn Debates the House of Commons did pass a Vote, without division upon the Question, in order to a settlement of future Peace, which disagreeing with the depraved Interests of some, who conducted the Army, they drew up a Declaration (filled with invectives against the Parliament and new and dangerous subtleties against Government) and having seduced the Army to their Counsels, they did on the 6. and 7. of December 1648. contrary to the Orders and Commands of Parliament bring it up from the more distant Quarters and by a Guard set upon the House, did shut out at that time more than a hundred Members, and imprisoned one and forty. Those sitting in the House understanding some disorder without doors, and that divers of their Members were detained there by Soldiers, did send their Sergeant to require their attendance on the House; but the Officers would not permit it. The same day Colonel whaley and other Officers at the Bar of the House delivered some Papers, propounding and demanding several things, among others, That the Members secluded should not be readmitted until they should acquit themselves particularly of the said Vote, and give clear satisfaction to the judgements, of those who then sat in the House and had dissented, and the grounds of such satisfaction be published to the Kingdom.  
The House yet tender of the Interests of Parliament appoint Mr. Pierpoint and others to confer with the General Officers of the Army, for discharging their Members; upon conference had with them, the Result was, that they referred to their former Papers. And though the House did nothing thereupon: Yet some persons earnestly insipid divers days, that according to the practice and privilege of Parliaments, no debate might be entertained until the Privilege of the Parliament and Members were vindicated. And finding no redress they have ever since with-drawn themselves from sitting in the House.  
Decemb. 14. There was a printed Paper▪ scattered abroad in the behalf it seems of the secluded Members, protesting against whatsoever should be done in Parliament in their absence: which both Houses (there being about three or four Lords, a proportionable number to the Commons, then remaining in that House) did fix upon the Members excluded; and then condemning the Papers as false, and scandalous; and declaring no Member to be capable to sit in either House until they should disclaim it. Which Paper, was neither subscribed nor owned by any of these Members, nor they heard, nor any thing like a legal or rational proceeding had therein: But this was in itself so slight a judgement, upon grounds so unjust, and unparliamentary, that even themselves took no notice of it afterward; nor doth it appear in any Entry upon the Books, that any of those Members were put to disclaim it, who were afterwards readmitted.  
On the 20. of December It was carried upon division of the House that the message to the General and Council of Officers for discharge of the Members should be renewed. Upon the Question the Negatives were 19 and the Affirmatives 32.  
Nevertheless on the 11. of January following, The House having by several Votes, and Preparatives, and secret consultations altered their humours, (they without receiving any answer to their renewed message, the Army insisting, and they complying) did approve the former answer of the Council of Officers and the Papers of December. 6. brought from Colonel whaley to the House.  
And now having declared a Union with the Counsels of the Army, it was ordered, Feb. 1. That such as shall dissentor disapprove the Vote of December the 5. shall repair to a Committee appointed thereunto by the first of March; or be suspended voting, or sitting, till they descent or disapprove, and give satisfaction of their Delay, and be restored by particular order of the House.  
And the 9 of June following, a final Judgement was given: It being then ordered that none should be capable to sit that should not give satisfaction to the Committee by the 30. of June, but that then, the House should proceed to the Elections of new Members in their Places.  
After five years' reign by themselves, and no Restauration, nor new Election; the House was interrupted and discontinued until May 7. 1659. when the Soldiers again opening the doors the Secluded members attempted to go into the House, but were kept back by Guards, and afterward by a Vote, that such Persons heretofore Members of this Parliament, as have not taken the Engagement now upon the Roll in this House shall not sit till farther Order.  
The Parliament seeming again to be restored from another violence of the Army, made upon them in October: Divers secluded Members endeavoured again to go into the house, but were hindered by Officers of the Army, and others. And on the 5. of January following, the doors were as it were sealed up by the last, and most peremptory Vote, viz. That upon the whole matter of the Report touching the absent Members, the Parliament doth adjudge and declare, that the Members who stand discharged from voting or sitting as Members of this House in the years 1648. and 1649. do stand duly discharged by Judgement of Parliament.  
By these several Briefs of those Orders, and proceed which are most material in this case, it easily appears, That nothing doth arise out of any Vote or Judgement, which shows that there hath been any judicial hearing either according to Law, Precedent, or Parliamentary proceeding: nor that any matter of conviction is to be found in the most artificial suggestions and pretences against these Members. Nor that any Crimes, but the being the Major part of the Parliament, and the adhering to their duty and Judgement in Parliament have been the ground or Argument of the several Votes or attempts against them. So that the sum of All on both sides amounts only to this, That the House Votes, that because They stand discharged, therefore they stand duly discharged; and the Vote of the people is in the Negative, who generally in the streets, and Market places, and public Assemblies (which are the ordinary Courts of the people) do cry out, That their Members stand not discharged, because they are not duly discharged.  
So that upon the whole matter, The Result of the fact shows itself to be plainly thus, that some principal persons in the Army, unhappily entrusted with too much power, in 1648. designing Empire to themselves, and confusion to all the parts of the opposing Government, secretly conspired against that peace, which the Parliament was then providing for, and winding up, being brought on thereunto by all the Reason, and Arguments, that Religion and Prudence could suggest. And because no Counsels, but the most desperate, could effect things so stupendious as were plotted; the Parliament (as the chief Bulwark of the Commonwealth) was by them, and by their influence, assaulted with the utmost Indignity, Treachery and Violence; and about two parts of three of them (the number of Members being a chief part of the constitution of Parliaments) forced from their Seats, and many of them imprisoned; whilst a permission was left to some to remain in that house; on condition that they should disavow their own Foundation, and Privileges, and Votes, and Members, and join themselves to those new and hated Principles (which had been publicly in the presence of men and Angels by the Parliament, and the whole people vowed, declared and protested against) and which were now invented and contrived in the dark: for the ruin and the blowing up of that public liberty, which had conserved this People in most eminent felicity so many Ages; although it sometimes required the extraordinary applications of Parliaments to redress some evils which time and full prosperity, and the corruption of Ministers of state, do ofttimes draw upon the best framed Governments.  
The Members thus selected, and set apart, betake themselves to the promoting of the Armies interests, as if they were now become their Representatives only, and contract all the several Authorities of these Nations into themselves, and having vested themselves with Sovereignty, and cut off whatsoever grew in their way, they by the Votes, Orders and Artifice above mentioned, pretending a formal proceeding against the Major part of the Members, and an intention to elect others in their places, do seal up the House to their own private use, whilst they in scorn, and a resolution not to be satisfied, call for a Satisfaction, and a Retraction of the Vote which themselves ought only to have acquiessed in, as bound up by it; but to have made it good, as the Right of Parliament, against all contradiction or opposition whatsoever.  
By these grounds, and beginnings, the Commonwealth of England hath been thus long interrupted, and the shadow and name of Commonwealth (all the essential parts of it being condemned and vanished) hath been set up instead thereof; which by necessary and unavoidable consequence, easy to be foreseen, hath induced as great a variety of successive Evils as any State ever saw and felt in so few years; for in this Interval the Ambition of him that first form, and forced this change, did declare and show itself, and revenged the People in some measure, upon those who wholly against their will had engrossed their Liberties, and assumed the Supreme Authority on the behalf only of such as should desert all former Obligations, to adhere to the new, uncertain, impossible things which they pretended to. For He, now explaining to what purpose He, and his Army had lent the Members his Power, did with doubted contempt, and contumely upon the Persons of divers of them, as it were sweep the House, by turning them also out of it, and as far as in him lay, dissolved so much of the Parliament as his former violence had reserved until his own aspire, and the dissatisfactions of the Nation might render it more willing to accept his single, arbitrary and tyrannical Government, than what they had endured five years before. So that, at that instant, even themselves, who before had thought fit to Vote force to be a good, and a Legitimate Expedient for the admitting their own Regency, understood now better the hardship and the iniquity of such proceed, and had remained like rubbish buried in the ruins of that Government, whose pillars they had pulled down, if the good Providence and better Counsels of the Almighty had not entangled the new Monarch in his own Policies, and cut him off in the finishings of his Grandeur; and afterwards given up his more innocent Successor and his Family to be leveled and devoured by that Army, and almost by those individual Persons, whose equivocal principles, and various Apostasies, and breaches of Faith himself had taught them, and exercised them first to violate, then to annihilate that Authority, to which they had vowed, and were obliged by all the most solemn Ties Divine and Humane.  
And notwithstanding the full experience those few expulsed and restored Members had of the tumultuary and unsteady Genius of that Army, who in May last had again conspired against a Parliament, and invaded the Government of their own framing; and were apparently constrained, for their own safety, and by their own incapacity and distraction, suddenly to erect, or own some other kind of Authority, which should depend only upon theirs; and groping, like blind men for the wall, they did as it were by chance light upon the recalling their Members; whom they had formerly selected, and made use of. Yet these men again accepted a readmission by themselves, still shutting out their fellow-Members: but the same Masters, having a few months more tried their compliance, and finding them not wholly, or sufficiently fitted to the purposes to which they were again designed.  
This Army once more affronts this remainder of Authority, which more solemnly then before themselves had owned, and bowed to, and having in their own fancy (according to the expression of one of their Grandees) melted down all the several Powers, Authorities, and Persons into a narrower Interest, and closer body, and projected a more refined and more exalted tyranny, that might better assure the Military Dominion, and the Reign of those few to whom they had adjudged the Government of the Earth as a Right and Inheritance; they did awaken by so loud a violence, and pretence, a General, who had happily hitherto been disengaged from their Counsels and their guilt, and had been long an object of their envy, who being at a secure and proper distance for this purpose gave the Alarm to the three Nations, and an invitation to betake themselves to their several strengths and defences; and himself drew out a well-formed Army, capable of balancing the Power, that without pretence of Commissions, had renewed their former outrages of expelling and making War upon the Parliament: The whole people abhorring the continuation and increase of Force, did (as many as had remained capable thereof) every where declare, or join together against the Army, and were so successful through the activity of the English interests (which now united themselves as against a common enemy) that without any other bloodshed, than some few Murders in the City, intending thereby to terrify and suppress their courage) this Army, but even now defying even the name Parliament, and decreeing it to be eradicated, was by a dejection in their own spirits and consciences; accusing and amazing them; and a confusion arising out of the folly and impiety of their Counsels, driven to consult how they might preserve themselves by a Parliament (as the last English refuge for all Parties, and in all extremities) and having vainly endeavoured by their own Power, and their great Seal, to qualify and summon one; they fainted in the attempt, and by a weak and general desertion and falling back from one another, Liberty seemed to be restored to the Parliament: and it was become the general hope and expectation, that no violence should be continued upon it; But that, as the Force in 1648. and 1653. and 1659. is of the same only, and rebellious nature; So all men that can consider things as they are, and what they tend to, should equally abhor it; whither as moral men, it being treachery and breach of Faith; or as Christians, it being perjury, and against many Vows to the high God; or as English men only, it being the establisher of Tyranny & of Arbitrary Government; or as such as are Lovers of themselves, it bringing destruction upon such persons or Confederacies as support themselves by it against a whole people, that know not how to wear the yoke of the basest servitude. And surely whosoever shall take an account from Time (the best Informer) and ask the eleven years (in which Force hath reigned absolutely by itself, and by its own Laws only) what they have produced, they shall be answered. That the expulsion of many by a few, gave opportunity, and means, and encouragement to one to Usurp, that such usurpation begat emulation in those that had been his equals: That from thence did spring new Turns of State: that amidst all these revolutions, the people have been commanded to believe that they were under a Commonwealth, and that they enjoyed freedom, and public advantages proportionable to what they have suffered and paid for, whilst only the name and shadow of Liberty hath appeared abroad; and the interests of the Nations were suspended, or pursued by contraries; and infinite Treasure hath been spent to purchase Poverty, and Disgrace, the only Remainders of more than twenty Millions. Whilst above fifteen hundred Sail of Shipping, and the wealth and the intrinsic value of them, have been the prey of our Enemies: the public Fleet having had enough to defend the several intruding Governments against the pretences of others, and the discontents of the unsatisfied People. Whilst Trade itself Foreign and Domestic, Manufactures and Traffic, is insensibly stolen from this Commonwealth; being subtly invited, and engrossed by our neighbours. Whilst every County, City and Burrow (not under awe and force) every degree and society of men, the whole Nobility, the body of the Gentry, and the Commons, and indeed almost all such as were engaged in the War upon the Parliaments account before 1648. do with one voice and consent as far as they dare, being kept under by an iron hand, press and solicit the Restauration of a full Freedom to the Parliament, whereby all Interests may be considered and provided for: and such courses be prosecuted by common consent, as may raise money to satisfy the souldery, even with satisfaction to those who will be then as ready to give, as others are now to levy it by Force; and those moderate, and equal, and healing Counsels may (by the good blessing of God) be so happily applied to, that Faction may be extinguished; or at least rendered more uncapable of disturbing that settlement, which upon free Debates shall appear to be most proper and necessary for these distracted Nations.  
This being the State of the whole matter, as it appears out of the Records and the observations of this last eleven years, and the present resentments of the people as they relate to the secluded Mmbers, and the Force still continued. It is not to be doubted, but some Countries, or some Numbers of Men (not obnoxious) will suddenly testify against them, if they have unfaithfully represented any thing herein: But it ought no way to discourage them from insisting upon their Right to sit in Parliament; whilst these only shall suppress their Claim, and oppose their Admission, whose particular duty it is to endeavour it, and who may be driving on such designs, as neither will endure free and equal debates; nor comply with the Sense of those they would seem to represent. And although some are arrived now to such a height of Confidence that the word Free-Parliament sounds as dangerously to their Ears, as heretofore to the greatest Enemies of it, and is countenanced accordingly; yet surely such sober Considerations as are herein offered in behalf thereof, will make some impressions for good upon the several Interests concerned in it; especially upon every Person of Honour and Trust to whom God hath given an opportunity to vindicate public Liberty, that he may not draw back his hand, and by doing it partially and imperfectly be guilty of leaving the same kind, though not the same measure of violence upon the Parliament and the people. For what person soever entrusted, and enabled to deliver, and defend a people; shall apply himself only so far to their relief and redress, as his own private conceit, or Interest doth lead him; and doth it not according to common Right, and the cry and general desire of his oppressed Countrymen (especially whilst they ask nothing but what their known Laws and Liberties do allow and enjoin) doth but use the people's sword against them; and doth, at best, no more than correct some extravagancies in a faction, whose inconsistency with reason and humane society might in a short time have dissolved it, or made it molder into nothing, whilst the forming and assisting those loser parts, and the giving some method and reputation to those wild proceed, doth tend only to the strengthening thereof, and as much as in him lies, to the fitting and fastening those fetters which even of themselves were falling off.  
And surely it may become even those who have laid hold on the Helm, and wilfully carried us to sea, far off among Rocks and quicksands, upon Coasts strange, and unknown; in time to Consult their better Reason, and remember that themselves also are but Passengers and must be lost and swallowed up at last, by the same shipwreck with the public. For whatsoever Power or Council wants Common consent, and Reverences and Authority, and Principles, and Union, and well ordered Armies, and Treasure, and Alleys; and in brief all those requisites which tend to the support of a politic Body, and great domminions; may for some time vex the people, and keep them under, but can never subsist in a condition of Honour and Security. And that warm desire of Liberty, which is now said to be madness in those that affect it, and a thing noxious and unseasonable and unfit for this generation; will (it may be well feared) ere long flame into fury, and make them rather choose to fall Sacrifices to the Public, in attempting its Deliverance, then to endure tamely farther Essays of enforced Government, and submit their necks to every yoke that the Lust, and wantonness, and spleen of a few of their equals (the best they can pretend to) shall think fit to put upon them and become thereby liable to every mischief and inconveniene that must, and shall necessarily arise, and continue from Counsels so founded and deposed. For whatsoever Evil hath been acted, and appeared since, 1648. must as certainly return upon us, in as many, or more or worse Revolutions, as that the same Causes do naturally produce the same effects.  
FINIS.