A CHARACTER OF AN ANTIMALIGNANT, OR RIGHT PARLIAMENTIER; Expressing plainly his opinion concerning KING and PARLIAMENT.  
Published by Authority.  
July 28th LONDON, Printed by F.N. for Robert Bostock dwelling in Paul's Churchyard, at the sign of the Kings Head. 1645.   

A CHARACTER OF AN ANTIMALIGNANT, Or right Parliamentier; Expressing plainly his opinion concerning King and Parliament.  
AN Antimalignant, or right Parliamentier, is one who lays aside all partiality, and makes reason his Perspective, through which he looks upon King & Parliament, weighing the ends & actions of both in an equal balance; nor is he so confident in the success as the cause, knowing that when God purposeth to punish a people for their transgressions, he suffers (many times) their scourge to prevail, till they be reform or destroyed. And therefore if at any time the malignant party gets the better, it begets no doubts in him whether he be in the right or no, esteeming it not as a blessing upon them, but a just punishment upon the Nation. Neither is he so great a soother of the Parliament, as to maintain that all their proceed are (in some of their Agents) so exactly justifiable as their curse is undoubtedly good: For being enforced to trust so many in all places of the Kingdom, with carrying the bag) it is almost impossible but there must be some Judasses' amongst them, who (with fair and splendid pretences) obscure their own foul and covetous ends; some achan's, who busy themselves more in hiding The Babylonish Garment, the Shekels of silver, and Wedge of gold, than the Reformation either of Church or Commonwealth, who are yet unfound out, which he conceives (though we humble ourselves before the Lord) to be one main reason that the men of Ai have prevailed so fare (sometimes) against us; for God will accomplish his own work, his own way: but as He is not refractory to reason, and things probable, so He will by no means be drawn to the belief of impossibilities and contradictions, as that Papists, Monopolists, Fugitives from Parliament, Popish Prelates, corrupt Judges, and other Renegadoes, (who are the chief Fomentors of this unnatural War, both in their purses and persons, and are all justly under the lash of the Parliament for their foul abuses, both in Church and Commonwealth) can by any possible means be likely men to assist his Majesty in fight for the true Protestant Religion, the Privilege of Parliament, and Liberty of the Subject; and therefore cannot but acknowledge that his Majesty hath justly rendered his integrity suspected in the opinion of his people: For it is to Him a Riddle, (though it be the Common salve for the King's evil, to put off all from him, and lay it only upon his evil Council) how any man can believe that evil Councillors make an evil King (who dare not appear before him, except they first find him fit for their purposes) that is, with a propensity and forwardness in him to consent to such things as by them shall be propounded: So that upon the matter they are but only Abettors and Cherishers of him in such ways as (by their own former observations they have discovered him to be addicted unto. That the King hath consented to his Parliament in the redress of divers insufferable oppressions, he doth not deny; but yet not without they cry of the people in his ears for justice, which the Malignants call driving him out of the Town: But the evil he hath done us hath been voluntary, acted with much zeal & industry, to the great disturbance and hazard as well of his own Person, as three Kingdoms. Nor will He acknowledge that the very calling of this Parliament was a voluntary act of the Kings: For if you consider the abrupt and sudden dissolution of the former so little before, and in what condition the Kingdom stood when this was called, you shall easily perceive it was a thing to which he was absolutely necessitated, to still the people, who were otherwise resolved to throw off the burden of oppression from their own shoulders with their own Arms, which he conceives might possibly have been done by them (though not so lawful and loyal a way) yet with more facility, less charge, and effusion of blood then now. And from hence ariseth a quaere, which he knows not how to resolve, that is, Why so many, who were implacable without a Parliament, should since have their understandings so infatuated, as to forsake the same Parliament, and draw their swords to purchase their own bondage against them who with the hazard of their lives and livelihoods, have faithfully endeavoured the preservation of their Liberties.  
And this he looks upon with grief, as a great forerunner of ruin, it being an undeniable truth, that the misplaced confidence of the multitude, is the only opener of a convenient gap for men that are great and bad, to bring in upon a Commonwealth unresistable destruction, which sad experience maketh too manifest amongst us; for by that means pretence hath raised all these powers against reality: So many false fighters for the priviviledge of Parliament, antd the liberty of the Subject against the Parliament, because they will not betray the trust of the Kingdom, in yielding up both that and themselves to perpetual slavery: So many quarrellers with them, that nothing is made better, but all things worse, and the grievance of the subject greater than before; which he conceives to be as absurd to one of right understanding, as if a man in the hands of Thiefs and Murderers, ready to be spoiled and rob of all he hath, should quarrel with his Rescuers, because both he and they are wounded in his rescue. And his opinion is, that these preposterous mistakes proceed (in part) from the astonishment of the people, being so amazed with these miserable and unexpected alterations, that they are in their sufferings like a man in drowning, who distractedly catching at any thing to save himself, fastens upon his friend that comes to preserve him, to the loss or danger of both their lives: For he conceives that no well recollected man can possibly believe, that his Majesty now fights to maintain what he hath already granted, a Triennial Parliament, the continuation of this, and the putting off all power from himself to dissolve this or any other at his own absolute pleasure; but rather, as one that hath gone too fare, to raze out the memory of those things by the sword, and make them not Acts but oversights. For the better illustration whereof, he would have you remember what a Noli me tangere the prerogative hath been to former Parliaments, when the sole power was in his Majesty to dissolve them with a Sic volo, which doth plainly demonstrate his liberal yielding to this, in so many things, to be the highest point of policy; that his evil Council did ever advise him to, since his coming to the Crown, being not done by them with the least intention of any performance (as we have since found by experience) but only to incline the people's minds to an opinion of a refractory Parliament, and the graciousness of the King: upon which foundation, his Army was first raised; whereas if otherwise he had relinquished the Parliament, without passing those satisfactory Acts, he had so evidently discovered himself to all his subjects, that this presence would rather have fastened their malignity upon him, than persuaded their assistance, which no man he conceives, can deny, that is not resolved to make his own humour and partiality, the only object of his will, and wilfully suffer his understanding to be led into error, by impossible positions, grounded upon contrarieties, as that his Majesty hath expressed much love to his subjects, and care of the Commonwealth, in being so industrious to destroy both; or that he undoubtedly purposeth to govern a Parliamentary way, as his predecessors have done; because he hath so king struggled with the Laws of the Kingdom, to rule by his Prerogative, without a Parliament, and at last forsaken it, when he knew not how to dissolve it: for thus a malignant must prove his tenants, and no otherwise.  
His conclusion therefore is, that upon due consideration of these things, no man can repine or murmur at the Parliament, for his present sufferings, except he look only upon the present, and esteem future times impertinencies.   
FINIS.