A BRIEF ANSWER TO A BOOK CALLED THE DECLARATION OF THE KINGDOMS of ENGLAND and SCOTLAND.  
Sent in a Letter from a Member of the House of COMMONS.  
OXFORD, Printed by H. Hall. An. Dom. 1644.   

A Brief Answer to a Book called [The Declaration of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland.]  
Sent in a Letter from a Member of the House of COMMONS.  
SIR,  
I Have looked over the Book you sent me, entitled, [The Declaration of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, etc.] And send you what occurred into my mind upon reading the orders of these new States, who give loyalty and allegiance the reward of villainy and treason, and evidence their seeking of truth and peace by condemning the Kingdom to Anarchy, the Church to Schism, giving the lives of the Subjects for victims, their estates for a prey to lawless rage and rapine: an unlikely way to stop or dry up these streams of blood, that have covered this nation with a prodigious inundation, but a means to feed that unnatural fountain, that the children unborn may be bathed in blood, and inherit the misery of their parents; for it's not imaginable, that the oppressing of a lawful King, disherison of a royal Progeny, to whom the right of a crown hath been transmitted through a race of so many victorious Princes, the cheating and dispossessing of a glorious nation of their Religion, Laws and Liberty, can produce other, then perpetual divisions, between the just demands of right by an injured King and people, & the continual fears and plots of guilty usurpers to secure themselves, and confirm their stolen Sovereignty.  
If any man doubted heretofore of the intentions of these men, this book leaves no place to any, but the wilful: have any in a blind confidence persuaded themselves that these men meant not to take away the King's Rights? the Title of this book is a Declaration of the Kingdoms, against the will of the King. And surly whoever undertake to bind the whole Kingdom without him, exclude him from being the Head of the Kingdom, that is, a King; and they that exclude him for an hour, may by the same reason exclude him for ever: and they have by their practice and former Declarations told us a King consenting not to what they think necessary for the Kingdom is to be reputed as a minor, or incapable, and that they may assume the royal power and allow the King no more liberty but submission to their decrees. They claim a power under the name of States, without limitation of time or power, no appeal permitted from them, no possibility of addresses for the greatest injury or injustice done by them, and you may now see they set themselves in the Throne, and admit the King to no other, than a private condition. Englishmen have been accustomed to other language, their stile being the King's Kingdom, People, Laws, Peace, Arms; And I doubt not but they abhor this Title, as an impudent forgery, which would involve them in a disloyalty to their King, and expose them to the scorn of foreign nations, and subject themselves to usurpers, to whom they own not allegiance; and from whom they must not expect protection, but the dissolution of their Laws, and an absolute Tyranny and arbitrary government by them, who have broken their trust and faith with their King and Country.  
Surely the Commons of England gave no power to their Knights and Burgesses to depose their King, or destroy their Laws; they chose them for the King's Counsel, not for Kings over him and them; to advise him, not to treat or advise with foreign nations, much less to invite strangers to the blood and desolation of the whole Kingdom, which is herein avowed and whereby all men may see as themselves phrase it, our Religion, Liberty and Laws, which have stood against the greatest assaults of foreign power envying our happiness, are oppressed and trodden under foot by the craft and cruelty of our own neighbours and Countrymen.  
I wonder our brethren the Scots are so soon weary of that amiable title and their own peace, and not only as Ameleck, whose name God threatened to blot out from under heaven, that sell upon his weary brethren, & cut off the hindmost of them, but rake in the wounds of their languishing brethren, and add smart and death to their hurts: and they would persuade us that their oppressions of us are out of affection to us, and for our liberty, their distressing the King, for his honour and safety; and we may believe them in that, aswell as the lawfulness to unite themselves in this war without their King, in whom they are united with this nation, without consent of their own Parliament, without which its treason and a breach of the Act of Pacification, so solemnly vowed by them to be kept, as if they would tell the world no laws, loyalty, oaths, or duty can hold them longer, than it stands with their advantage.  
And for their taking up arms, for which they bring neither law, Sovereign command, nor former practice of any but Traitors, never were any borne more opposite to our duty to God, Scandalous to our Christian Profession, more unnatural to our native Country, more dishonourable to His Majesty, more offensive to God, more injurious to men. Then these that fight against all whom the King commands to come to His defence, or that assist him, under the name of a Popish, Prelatical, and malignant party: it's treason without contradiction to assault the King in any pretence; and can. He be killed by His Subjects through the sides of others, or assaulted in the head of an Army? surely vastantia peccata, sins that lay waste the conscience, corrupt the judgement, and deface all shame and modesty, and where men have cast off loyalty and falsified their oaths, they grow bold with God, and pretend fears and dangers they never believed, Honour to His Majesty's Person they pursue and reproach, preservation of His Rights they take Arms to destroy.  
The success of their many Petitions, Declarations, and Remonstrances, hath been suitable to the merits of them, and have very well served to inform the people how much they were deceived, if they expected peace and unity from them, that would sever the Body from the head in the state, set up Schismatics to alter the doctrine and discipline of the Church, confederate themselves with Strangers, impose Religion and Law upon King and People, and authorise murder, theft, as warranted by law and conscience, as those barbarous nations that enacted the most odious oppressions for Heroic virtues.  
This pressing and patheticke Declaration, which they say they are put to, wanting truth and right, cannot with adulterate language, legitimate such horrid crimes, win credit to such incredible untruths, nor consent to such unnatural courses, which would rather have the Subjects of England drench themselves in each others blood, that the worst of miseries a civil war, be perpetuated upon the Kingdom to it's final destruction, which must inevitably follow; then that their positions be not received, the Church destroyed, the Laws subverted, and all men enter into a new Covenant, against Religion, Law, and Loyalty; and this they call truth, without which they defy peace till there be no man left to enjoy it.  
The sum of this Declaration is a denunciation of war against all that enter not into this new Covenant, and which they say God would never have put into their hearts, if he had meant to destroy them. It seems they shake hands with their brethren the Anabaptists, in relying on their fanaticke enthusiasms. True Christian humility is fare from these presumptions, and guides its ways by the light of Holy Scripture, trying the spirits whether they be of God, or no, and trusting not these injections, which the Prince of darkness casts into unstable minds; it were strange presumption to pretend particular divine inspirations to any Politic though just Constitutions, but to those that are against duty to God and his Vicegerent, can have no other estimation then of grand imposture, sacrilegious usurpation and profanation of the name of God, who is thereby endeavoured to be made patron of such works of darkness. The ends of Lopez, Faux, and other assassinats might strike men with horror when they go about to entitle God with auspications so opposite to his truth and holiness, and their Covenant being no better than the Vow of the Jews, not to eat or drink, till they have killed Paul, their prayers and fastings for the success of it, are no other in God's account, than Jezebells fast, and Absolon's sacrifice, the one the disguise of an horrid murder, the other of unnatural rebellion.  
They declare the taking of their Covenant is the only way to their favour, and do not tell where it's expressed or employed in the word of God, or enjoined by the Laws of the Land; and yet the not taking of it, draws the loss of Life, Liberty, Propriety, and Privilege of Parliament, which the authors persuade men they fight for, and which they have solemnly protested to defend; and how can they satisfy any man, or themselves, that they observe their oaths, while they destroy that which they swore to preserve?  
And as God put it into their hearts to enter into their Covenant, so they tell us he hath displayed their banner. The cursing Assyrian told God's people he was come up in the name of the Lord against Jerusalem; and this presumption of these authors of our troubles, truly entitles them to be successors of these unhappy troublers of Kingdoms and States, who fight the devil's quarrel under God's colours, and seducing the credulous multitude into the lewdest opinions, and most execrable actions under the false pretences of divine revelations, have subverted the foundations of peace and government in most flourishing nations.  
And they hope to affright all men from their conscience by these new edicts, whereby the King hath neither right nor forfeiture, nor power of pardon; and they that fight for law, judge crimes and inflict punishment against law, and allow no man life, liberty, or estate but at pleasure.  
They proclaim some favours so they be taken in time, but it is upon the condition of future good behaviour, that they may possibly obtain mercy for their lives, that have no estates to lose by adventuring their lives and souls in defence of this Covenant. But Estates they are loath to part with, lest their own occasions, whereunto all their proffers and promises are subservient, should need them, or such as have been most eminent in this Rebellion lose the reward of their Country's ruin, and therefore these are reserved to discretion: neutrality is odious to them, and they may perhaps be instruments to punish the coldness of some that prefer their private ease before their loyalty and love to their Country, and a good conscience; though they want not guilt, who having no Commission from God or his Vicegerent inflict it on them.  
Papists are not to have mercy for any loyalty to their King, their Religion is not the object of the hatred of these Legislators, but a crime more unpardonable, their abstinence from Treason. Such as have misguided the King's counsels are joined in the same list with Papists, and these must be taken into consideration by these States or their Committees: surely where Rebels judge their Prince's Counselors, fidelity must be a crime, and no man that hath had courage enough to preserve his conscience, but may come within this pale, and become an example of this arbitrary power; and where only a false finger must guide the Counsels they approve, it's apparent what misguiders they intent.  
Hereby you may rightly state the question, touching the present differences; which is not, whether these men fight for Religion and Laws; but whether their taking Arms against the command of the King to alter Religion, and Laws, be Treason or not: they never yet afford Petitions of right, but Propositions against Right; and their present edicts against Law, Loyalty, and Liberty of the Subject, is a convincing evidence of this truth.  
If the truth they so much desire be divine, they would not malign our Church which rejects none, and hath had the concurrent Testimonies of the best Reformed Churches for the truth of her Doctrines, which were never denied by any but Atheists, Papists, or Sectaries; Some truths may safely be unknown, wherein the best Reformed Churches and Orthodox professors have not been of one judgement, yet have kept the unity of the spirit in the band of peace, and were never the creed of the Church of God in any age, but that the sword might be taken up by Subjects against their King to impose such opinions, as necessary to be believed, had never less censure amongst sober Christians, then of Tyranny upon the conscience, disturbance of the Church's peace, scandal to Religion, and Rebellion against the Lords Anointed: but it seems that which they call their Religion is a heap raked together our of the inconsistent dictates of disagreeing Sectaries, which conspire in the Church's ruins to establish their tumultuary licence, and though their Babel laid in Rebellion against God and his Vicegerent, and built in such divisions of languages, cannot possibly preserve truth and peace, yet these men that have thus taken up the sword, will either finish the desolation of their native Country, or erect this monument of confusion. Surely Sir, if these men regarded the tears of age, or blood of innocents', the penury, exile and distress of men of all estates, the decay of the beauty, honour and strength of this nation, the fainting of all arts, learning and industry, the loss of trade, increase of Widows, Orphans and maimed poor, if they had any feeling of the miseries of sickness, sword and famine, if any tenderness of their brethren or Country, if any respect of honour to their King, reverence to the Church of God, or glory of his name, they would not prefer uncertain opinions of unnecessary truths before the certain ruin of Church and State.  
The worst days we formerly saw were a golden age to the present, and we may rather desire then expect a restitution of our former happiness, which these men are not affected to, that will not admit it without the satisfaction of their own inordinate passions; and as if they were afraid of their own affections, they fetter their consciences to shut out all considerations that may incline them to peace.  
I hope if you were not you are satisfied, that the same men that caused the war are enemies to peace, and that the Authors of this Declaration are the Authors and Maintainers of our troubles; for if they meant to have conditions, which they give as Conquerors, accepted, they would at least spare the conscience, though they devoured the State: I commit it to your judgement.  
FINIS.