AN-APPEALE From the Court to the Country.  
Made by a Member of Parliament lawfully chosen, but secluded illegally by my L. Protector.  
Printed, MDCLVI.   

AN APPEAL From the Court to the Country; Made by a Member of Parliament lawfully chosen, but secluded illegally by my L. Protector.  
AFter so manifest a breach of our Laws, so uncoulorable a violation of our Privileges, so heinous an invasion of our common Right, and freedom, and so public a defiance given to the whole Nation, it is more than time for us to prepare for our defence, and to raise new banks against that violent inundation of Arbitrary power, which h●● broken in upon us, and is ready to bear down all before it, and against which our ancient, and great Charters, our fundamental Institutes have been too insufficient to make resistance. I confess it were much to be wished that the necessity of our case had not compelled us to refer this present Controversy to the arbitrement of the Sword, we having so lately passed through all the calamities of a civil War, but the axe being laid to the root of our Liberties, and all other means proving ineffectual for our redress, like Physic too weak for the body of the Patient, there remains only this choice either to submit ourselves, and posterity perpetual Slaves to the uncontrollable dictates of one man's will, or by our strengths united to break his bands a sunder, and cast away his cords from us. Neither ought we to distrust that the appearance, and owning of the Divine providence will be less signal for us in this so necessary and just assertion of our Liberties, than it showed itself when we engaged upon fare slighter provocation against the late King.  
To omit his forcible encroachment upon our inherent right when he assumed the style of Protector (for I will appeal to the breast of every individual Person, how fare his assent attended him to the Throne) let us take a short view of his Government, that from thence we may gather, whether in any one instance he hath laboured the People's satisfaction for his injurious usurpation of it.  
And our Prospect hereof will be the fairer, if we begin it from his division of the Land into several Cantons; and placing over them those lawless M: Gs: which have usurped likewise the Civil power, over-awing the Judges in their Circuits, countenancing the causes of their own faction, reversing the decrees and verdicts of our public Judicatories; and like the Sultan's Timariols farming the Land out at 60000. pounds a Month, or what higher rate he shall hereafter please to set it at. Nor shall any man under these rigid tax Masters retain any longer a property in his estate then this our Grand Signior shall please to continue him in it. From whose illegal exaction of the Tenths of all compounders estates and of whose else he pleaseth we may readily conclude, and in the following parts of this discourse shall make clear how great danger from this kind of oeconomy hangs over all men though of different Principles and interests for them.  
This severity therefore exercised upon them from a groundless surmise (for aught that yet hath been made appear to us) of their general guilt, should timely awaken us to our defence, lest like those in Poliphemus his den, whilst we weakly and faintly hoping that it will be our fate to survive the fury of the Monster, or to linger out a wretched life beyond our fellows, shall at the last find our numbers so decreased, and our strengths insensibly abated, that it will be to no effect to oppose.  
That the condition of those who have faithfully in their several stations discharged their Consciences in vindicating the Liberties of the People, is at this day the same with those who in that quarrel formerly withstood them, you shall need for a proof no further to look bacl, then to the late Secluding the major part of the Members lawfully returned, who upon their address to the remaining Number for their admittance, were by them referred to the Council, from whom they received answer, they had refused none that to them appeared to be men of Integrity, and according to the qualification in the Instrument; and therefore his Highness and the Council had given order to the Soldiers at the door to keep them out.  
Let us stay a little to compare this infringement of our Privileges with that of the late Kings in demanding the Five members, which as it was in itself a violation most unjustifiable, so was it by him afterwards confessed to be, and recanted; yet even at that time there was a pretence of a particular Charge preparing against them, notwithstanding which allegation in excuse of that insolent fact, it was by all men judged to be the highest Indignity that ever was offered to that supreme Court. But how infinitely this transcends it in all its measures, considering the Number of the persons secluded, the insufficiency of this general Charge, and how fare this doth reflect upon the Honour of the respective Counties, whose Delegates they are, to have their Messenger reproachfully dismissed like david's by Hanun, Sam. 2.10. How nearly this want of Integrity doth entitle us to the crime of Cavaliers, and consequently to all that ruin that hath attended them, a man of a very short sight may easily discern.  
And that none for the future shall be deemed worthy to bear Office in the Commonwealth, but such who have interests distinct from the People's, and own their sole and immediate dependence upon the Protector, that none shall be reputed Men of Integrity but the corrupt part of the soldiery, and their abettors, that this qualification of the Instrument admits so great a latitude of interpretation that the most zealous Patriots and incorrupt assertors of the People's rights may stand secluded by it, I presume this our last repulse hath put out of dispute; and that those who have not strained at this Gnat, may swallow a Camel, and from this scandalous objection, this odious defamation of our Persons names proceed to derive a title to our estates we have too great reason to fear: Especially if we recollect at what vast charge he hath maintained those Fleets and Armies for these two last years against the Spaniard; for it is most confessedly true that when a period was put to the long Parliament, and in their dissolution to all our hopes of future Fieedome and felicity, there remained in Bank above Four hundred thousand pounds, all which in these late inglorious Erterprises hath been expended; and the Nation at this day above two Millions in debt. And how fare future exigencyes will drive his Highness to make use of the estates of such persons whom he deems men of no integrity we may find when these arrears come to be audited and paid.  
It was then little thought (for into what heart could it en●er?) when we opposed ourselves against the illegal exorbitancyes of the Court, that a Person of so great austerity of life, so frequent in bewailing the miseries of his Country; so sedulous and vigilant in his Charge; so tender of the Laws, and Libertyes of the Nation, and so narrowly searching into all the hidden corners of arbitrary and encroaching Policy, should at the last arrogate to himself a jurisdiction fare greater than that with which he contested, or then yet any King of England ever assumed. It was then little imagined that the time should come, when this great Champion of the Laws, should stop the Laws in their due course and imprison the most eminent of the long Robe for declaring the express letter of the Laws; That this defender of Liberty of Conscience should discountenance and restrain men in the exercise of their Conscience; and this rigid maintainer of the Rights, and Privileges of Parliament, laying aside his now useless religicall vizard, subvert the very foundation of that venerable Assembly; To this I say some years past, though the tongue of an Oracle had praedicted it, we should slowly have given credit.  
But that these pleasant dreams might no longer delude us, he declares how that our Laws are not the Card by which he is to steer, and that it were Ridiculous, and foolish; nay brutish to imagine that those Charters which our Aneestours with so great hazard and expense contended for, were now any longer fit to be maintained as the square of his Government, that in the intercourse pretended between his and the Divine Spirit, whatsoever should be dictated to him he would observe as his rule, and we ought to follow as our blind guide; That he had rather be led by necessity and providence (his own Creatures) then by the wisest, and best instituted Laws of the world.  
That our supreme Magistrate is irreprehensible, that his actions ought neither to fall under the examination of the People, or be liable to the Censure of any Court whatsoever.  
We do not, we cannot believe that the whole body of the Army are so forgetful of their engagements, that they contribute so much as their assent to this sad oppression of their Countrymen; or that those who so strenuously opposed it in the late King, can now favour tyranny under the disguise of another name. Nay we rest assured that these praevarications have averted the hearts of many whom the impostures of his zeal had allured and seduced.  
For if these Maxims must now be tamely subscribed to; if a select Number of his favourites must bear the title and authority of a Parliament, if persons legally returned must with a hateful brand upon their Reputations be secluded, and rendered incapable for the future (which is a conjecture not at all improbable) of trust in the behalf of their Country; how much better had it been for us patiently to have borne the yoke of Kingly Government, then after the effusion, of so much blood, and the expense of so great Treasure, after all our glorious victories over our Enemies to bear this man's yoke, and that heavier, and more insupportable then either we, or our Forefathers ever endured.  
This our Condition therefore manifesting a necessity for the defence of our Libertyes, let us first implore the assistance of that Almighty arm which hath showed itself so strong for Us, and then with holy confidence in our invincible Aider, jointly and unanimously oppose ourselves against this mighty oppressor, and all his Apostate adherents, and no doubt but God will scatter the bones of all them that encamp against us, and we shall put them to shame; because God hath despised them, Psal. 53. vers. 5.  
FIN.