Animadversions on a Book, CALLED, A PLEA FOR NON-SCRIBERS.  Numb. 14.4. 
They said to one another, Let us make us a Captain, and let us return into Egypt.  Justin. Histor. Lib. 38. 
Cappadoces munus Libertatis abnuentes, negant vivere gentem sine REGE posse.  Valerius Maxim. Lib. 2. cap. 9 
Quam impudenter Duronius Rostra conscendit illa dicturus, Fraeni sunt injecti vobis, Quirites, nullo modo perpetiendi: alligati & constricti estis amaro vinculo servitutis: Lex enim lata est, quae vos frugi esse jubet: abrogemus igitur istud horrendae vetustatis rubigine obsitum imperium: etenim quid opus Libertate, si volentibus luxu perire non licet?  Seneca, Epist. 102. 
Non debuit hoc nobis esse propositum, argutias serere, & Philosophiam in has augustias de sua Majestate detrahere. Quanto satius est ire apertâ viâ & rectâ, quam sibi ipsi flexus disponere, quos cum magnâ molestiâ debeas relegere. Neque enim quicquam aliud istae disputationes sunt, quam inter se peritè captantium lusus.  
By EPHRAIM ELCOCK.  
LONDON, Printed by John Clowes, for Richard Wodnothe, and are to be sold next door to the Golden-Hart in Leaden-Hall-street, 1651.   

To the Right Honourable, the Council of State, appointed by the Authority of PARLIAMENT.  
Right Honourable,  
WHen Lewis of Bavaria (the fifth German Emperor of that name) was sore baited by Pope John the 22. 
Defend me (O Caesar) ab injuriis Papae ense tuo, & ego te verbo, scripto, rationibus insolubilibus adversus eum tuebor. Phil. Mornay. du Plessis. Histor. Papatus. p. 451. Psal. 84.11. Psal. 47.9. Anatomy of Melancholy. Preface to the Reader. p. 7.  William Ockam (our Countryman) who merited the name of Dr. Acutissimus, said to him, defend me (O Caesar) from the injuries of the Pope, by your Sword, and I will defend you by word, writing, and unanswerable Arguments against him. I dare not challenge such acuteness or efficacy of arguing to my poor Labours here presented to your Honours; and therefore rather humbly crave your Protection of them and their Author, then dare to think myself your Protector.  
Your Honours are under a higher Guard, even his, who is a Sun and Shield to the upright, and to whom the Shields of the Earth (the Rulers and Magistrates) do belong.  
Of the Book I may say, as our Democritus, out of Macrobius, of his own works, Omne meum nihil meum: the Collection was mine, the matter other men's; and indeed, it is more than an Echo, an imperfect repetition of more perfect voices.  
Yet it is what I have, and since it concerns the late transactions of ●he Commonwealth, your Motion in a high Orb therein, moved me to desire your gracious aspect, and your sweet influences upon our Nation encourage me to hope acceptation.  
Diversions from the common road are usually looked upon as Trespasses; though reason and our Law allow a Commander in pursuit of public enemies to march his men through any man's enclosure. So Heroical actions of virtue against Tyrants, and their complices, are sciled with unworthy aspersions, by them who adore a form, though corrupted, and prefer private tranquillity before public safety, though God and nature dictate. That meane● which might at first have been chosen or refused, are no longer to be used then while they are subservient to their proper ends; and when they oppose them, are absolutely to be rejected; lest what was meant for Medicine turn to poison.  
A great part of the filth cast upon the late actions, is directed against your Honours in special, an● our victorious Army: But, as God hath born ●itness to their integrity, by giving victory over the adversaries after solemn appeals to his decision: so your Honours have hitherto so managed your trust, and been so signally saved by the Lord, the shield of your help, 
Deut. 33.29  and the sword of your Excellency, that all your enemies have been found Liars.  
Go on (Right Honourable) to do worthily in and for our Land, and the good Lord suggest to you more and more efficacious means for the advancement of his glory, and the welfare of our Nation, support you with courage and vigour, that your Counsels may be brought to the wished effect; That England which hath been looked upon as a Nation forsaken of her God, may (by the good hand of God u●on your care and wisdom) be made a praise in the earth, and set up in perfect beauty; and that your memorial in after ages may be, These are the repairers of the breach, the restorers of paths to dwell in; which is the humble prayer of  
(Right Honourable) Your most humble Servant. EPHRAIM ELCOCK.   

To the Reader.  
Reader, whoever thou be,  
I Will not foretell thy judgement, I could like that Writers might be bound to the same conditions, 
Ubbo Emmius de Rep. Ath. p. 35.  that they were who pleaded before the Areopagites, viz. that they should plead, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, neither use exordiums to flatter into a good opinion, nor perorations to move pity; yet I am necessitated to advertise thee of a few things.  
It may be thought that this Treatise is born out of due time, because it took not hold of the heel of what it opposeth. But I beseech thee know, 
Ad haec facile procuranda magis idoneum habere neminem possis, quàm Alexandrum Sartium civem tuum, literatum hominem, nostrique studiosum, tum (quod ego in hac re primum puto) neutiquam in amici negotio dormitantem. Ang. Polit. Epist. Dedic. ante Herod. latinitate donatum. Tit. 1.13. P. Servita. History of the Inquisition. pag. 61. 62.  1. That the report of the Non-scribers Plea came to my ears, long before the Book itself came to my hands. 2. That I long waited for some of better abilities to undertake it. 3. That it was neither my only, nor greatest business, when undertaken, and therefore went on slowly, as being composed at hours spared from other and higher employments. 4. That when it was perfected, I was timorous of its publication, being conscious of my own weakness, and this being the first paroxysm of writing for the public view that ever I was taken with. 5. That when it was brought to the birth, it lay long in danger of dying there, for want of a Man Midwife, I mean such a friend as Alexander Sartius was to Angelus Politianus in the publication of his translation of Herodian, till providence found me out such a o●e; to whom as I am irrecompensably engaged, so thou also art obliged for any good that thou receivest hence.  
Some things may seem to thee too harsh; but consider, 1. The diversity of men's tempers, requireth diversity of remedies. Some must be sharply reproved, that they may be sound. 2. The nature of the Controversy; he spoke reason that said, Humane Majesty is not offended, but with a certain malice and desire of him that offendeth, and Heresy very often is through ignorance; whence this for the most part deserves compassion, that never. 3. Some men must be answered in their own way. It's a hard thing for him that deals with Jesuits, not to contract somewhat of their petulancy, saith the Prefacer to Ignatius his Conclave. Look upon the height of the adverse writing, and thou wilt confess that against such a piece Difficile est Satyram non Scribere.—  
Reader, if thou be candid and ingenuous, I need not beg thy pardon for common frailties: if thou be not, I shall but lose my labour in desiring it.  
Farewell.   

To the worthy Author of these Animadversions.  
SIR,  
THe reiterated thanks wherein you have expressed a great sense of the small pains, which I freely took, to make your Animadversions public; doth oblige me to apologise for the long delay of this publication; for I think it just that the public should know that your part of this work was long ago performed: Seeing it is at lest (if I mistake not) 9 or 10. Months since; I saw the Manuscript whereby you were delivered of this birth: but the want of fit addresses (you being unacquainted with the way) to appear in public, hath almost stifled this Infant, since it had life: at lest it comes now into the world almost out of due time.  
For my own part, I had without your knowledge accidentally the perusal thereof; and although I found (as then I told the party who shown it unto me) something more sharp in it then my Genius did affect; yet finding it also a piece both judicious, accurate and solid as to the matter, and also full of learning, of good reading, and of quickness of spirit, as to your manner of handling that matter, I thought myself bound in love to the truth, and to the public good, to lend it the hand of a Midwife, in bringing it to the Press; which could be done but very slowly, partly because of the lets which the Stationers and Printers, to whom application was made, did cast us; partly because of other occasions which took me off from minding this design; wherein the public cause, is much beholden to you, and such as are ingenuous, will no less acknowledge it, then doth  
Your loving Friend and Servant in Christ, J. D.   

ERRATA.  
PAge 13. line 10. for Josua read Hosea, p. 31. l. 21. for is r. as, p. 34. l. 28. for tooting r. footing, p. 39 l. 2. for Tithes r. Titles, l. 27. for either r. neither, l. 28. for or r. nor:   

A Preface in answer to Non-scribers Apology.  
IT was a good observation of Seneca's upon the stile of Macenas a great stickler for Augustus his tyranny, 
Haec verba tam imprebè structa, tam contra consuetudinem omnium posita, ostendunt mores quoque non minus novos & pravos & singulares fuisse. Sen. Epist. 114.  That the ill structure and uncouth composure of his words, argued his manners to be naughtily singular. The same observation may be made upon the many battologies of these Advocates for Tyranny: but their fastidious vanity is especially visible in the Title of their Book, they call Non-scribers, which last word was never before this attempt of theirs naturalised English: a word it is of as absurd derivation, as that Anticomarita; concerning which, Erasmus was fain to bring in a Synod of Grammarians, to know whence it came, and what it meant; whereof one said it was an Herb, another a Fish, a third a woman, etc. 
Erasm. Colloqu. Synod. Grammaticorum.  The elegancy of the●r etymology, together with the perplexedness of the Syntax will require a Synod of themselves to resolve us. Non-scribers, (take it in the best sense) are those that writ not, and had they meant themselves, it had been fit to have called their Book, the plea of Non-scribers, then for Non-scribers: so that it may be thought, that they intended it for a plea for them that were illiterate, and could not write for themselves. The next thing in the front of your Book is their pretence to modesty; to the vindicating of which virtue to themselves, they make an Essay in these words,— what we shall say may like the words of wise men, 
Plea. etc. Pag. 2.  (though we boast not to be such) be heard in secret. Yet as if they had forgotten what their Title promiseth, load the opinion they are about to impugn, and the persons with whom they contend, with many condemnatory invectives; 
Ibid. p. 2. & 3.  before they produce one Argument, calling engaging sin; Engagers, such as are going on in their sin; and the Engagement, the Helena of the Northern Subscribers. What modesty it is to condemn an action, opinion, or person for sinful, before proving them such, I care not to let the most impudent judge. It hath been ever held to be modesty for a man that entereth into controversy, to think humbly of himself, at leastwise not to be his own Trumpeter; yet these men that before disclaimed boasting of their wisdom, 
Plea. etc. pag. 7.  tell us, that they are the peaceable of the Land, the very words of her whom the Scripture calls a wise woman, and point us to the place, lest the Reader should doubt of their wisdom. 
2 Sam. 20.16.19.  And in another place they intimate, that had we wanted this product of a Parturient Mountain, the English Press had been no less injurious to posterity, than the Egyptian Midwives had been, 
Plea etc. pag. 4.  had they obeyed Pharaoh's Edict, for strangling the Israelitish males; as if what they writ only had masculine strength, and the fruits of all others were but feminine productions of the Scriptures, which Garnish their frontispiece, the first returns in their book, the second makes nothing for them, since no Agrippa gave them leave to speak; and there is much difference between licenced public speaking to the satisfaction of a Judge, and unlicensed pamphleting to the stirring up of the people.  

Plea etc. pag. 2.  Yet this their way (after some few intimations of their deliberation to that purpose) they defend as lawful by four reasons.  
1. Because it is a weighty case of Conscience.  
1. Because concerning many, and among others themselves, and those in relation to them.  
2. Because difficult to resolve. To this we answer, that if weighty cases of Conscience, because concerning many, and difficult of resolution, oblige Ministers to give a public testimony of their opinions, it obliges them in all such things: and by this shift it will not be lawful for the Magistrate to make any new Law, before the Ministers have cast in their verdict: at leastwise, none is to obey before they have declared. If nothing of a religious reduction must be ordained by the Magistrate, but what is approved by these Censors, what is the Magistrate but the mere Lictor of the Ministers?  

Plea etc. pag. 3.  2. Because the Engagement is not left voluntary, but ordained under a penalty, and they ought to speak before they be adjudged. To which we say, 1. That this liberty of speech is their due, when they are particularly accused, or have personal actions before a Judge, not where they are suffered to be at quiet. 2. That it is a liberty of speech particularly to be used to the Magistrates, before whom they are convented, face to face, and not to be scattered by stealth among the people. 3. That it is a liberty to answer concerning the crimes that are laid to their charge, which is to be allowed, but not to question the Authority of the Magistrate, before whom they are convented. 
John 7.32.49.50.  These things concur in them whom Non-subscribers pretend to be their examples. Christ's person was aimed to be taken, the High-Priests pronounced his hearers accursed, 
Mat. 26.63, 64.  Nicodemus pleads that he might face to face answer the crimes that he was charged with. Christ when called before the High-Priests, questioned not their power, but answered to their questions, concerning that which they thought his crime.  
3. Because they have no other way to plead their cause. Yes, 1. 
Plea etc. page 4.  Before them that tender the Engagement, when they are personally called to it. 2. Before the Judges, in case they have any action before them, wherein the refusal of their Engagement is pleaded: and I doubt not, but if they modestly propose their doubts, the Judges and Justices will to their power endeavour to satisfy them. Besides, suppose there be no other way to plead their cause, yet this should have been avoided, because not a suitable means to accomplish their end, this being like rather to exasperate the Magistrate against them. They either mistake, or else speak spitefully, when they say, that all their pleas are shut up, upon pleading of their denial of the Engagement: there is no denial (for aught I know) of their liberty of pleading, that they are not satisfied in it, and the Judges have (as I hear) particular instructions in their charges to clear its Justice.  
4. Because they that writ for it publish their Reasons. 
Plea, etc. page 4.  By this Argument Campian might have argued it lawful to have written invectives against the right of Queen Elizabeth, because many did defend it. In those things wherein difference in opinion cannot hurt the public welfare, it is but just that m●n of both sides should have liberty to print; 
Paul Servita History of the inquisition, page 76.  but in the things that concern the public peace, the Magistrate hath reason to encourage them that endeavour to promote it, and to discourage them who would endanger it. Upon this ground the King of Spain forbade the publishing of the 11. Tom of Baronius his Annals in his Dominions, because it tended to the weakening of the Sicilians fidelity, and he is for this commended by one zealous enough for the liberty of the ecclesiastics.  
From hence they proceed to apologise for themselves, wherein they endeavour to clear themselves from four sorts of imputations laid upon them. 
1 Pet. 4.15.  The first of which is their being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 busy bodies in other men's matters, in matters of the State. From which charge they hope to escape, 
Plea etc. pag. 5.  by telling us, that they deal not as Statesmen; but are not to be confined, if statesmen's Affairs come under Evangelical Doctrines. This distinction they learned (it may be) from Thomas Becket, 
Speed in Hen. 2. S. 30. p. 492.  who would not subscribe the Charters confirmed by Parliament; but with this clause, salvo honere Dei, upon which King Henry rightly descanted, when he told the King of France, that whatsoever disliked Becket, he would say that it was against God's honour. Some moderate men among the Papists say, that the Pope hath no power in temporals, in ordine ad spiritualia: and yet this power hath been so exorbitant, 
Paul Servita, History of the inquisition. p. 21.  that (as an Author of their own saith) when a Potentate hath not the favour of him that commands in Ecclesiastical Causes, Religion is made a pretext to oppress him. So that there is nothing wanting but ecce duo gladii, with the Canonists interpretation, to set these men in the seat of him that exalts himself above all that is called God, notwithstanding their shifting distinction. 2. They cannot be able to resolve mixed controversies concerning State business, 
Sovereign Power of Parliaments, part. 3. page 134.  of a religious reduction (as themselves love to speak) except they deal as Statesmen. Mr. Prince (who is their fellow-helper in this cause) told their brother Ferne heretofore out of Vasquius, Theologorum utcunque disertissimorum sententiae in hac controversia non sunt multum faciendae, quia quid lex humana sit ipsi ignorant. 3. Our Saviour Christ, who affirms his Kingdom not to be of this world, would nor be a Judge between Brethren in dividing inheritances; 
John 18.36. Luke 12.14.  much less can we suppose that he hath left a power to his Church's Officers, quâ tales, to decide of rights to the supreme power in Commonwealths, or can they produce any Theological Rules, 
Amos 8.13.  and Evangelical Doctrines to that purpose. 4. Their instance of Amos his preaching against Bethel, was sure written when they were half asleep, the Argument was thus. It's no being busybodies, for the Cheshire and Lancashire Ministers to do as Amos did; but he prophesied against Idolatrous Bethel, though it were the King's Court, Ergo, the Cheshire and Lancashire Ministers, are not busybodies, if they determine of Tithes in the State; an Argument à Baculo ad Angulum.  
The next imputation that they endeavour to clear themselves from, is a prosecuting of some self-interest: 
Plea etc. page 6.  to which end (after some good words and Protestations of your innocency) they tell us, That if they stood upon any such designs, they might obtain those ends by compliance, for they are not so stupid as not to know which way the stream was. The 12. Bishops that declared the Parliaments actions null without their presence, saw (no doubt) as well as Non-scribers, which way the stream run, and how probable it was that their tyranny was at a period: They (no doubt) had many interests that would have persuaded them to silence, yet for all this they run themselves into a Praemunire. A man may have many lusts and interests, whereof one may keep down another. He that is covetous enough may sometime be profuse, and seem careless of his riches, being overprized by the greater sway of ambition. So that notwithstanding their professions and this shadow of reason, they must seek better Arguments before they can excuse themselves from being the Prophets of Ahab's Son, (for he that was the Ahab of our Israel, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 page 37.  hath now shed his blood, where he began to shed the blood of Naboth) Micajah is neither their Patron or Pattern, 
1 Kings 22.11.  they are liker the Iron-horned Zedekiah, who cry throughout all their book, to that bloody and Idolatrous house, Go up and prosper.  
The third charge they answer to is apostasy and malignancy. 
Plea etc. page 7.  In answer to which they tell us, That they have committed nothing against the custom of their Fathers. So the Pharisees were earnest for the tradition of their Fathers: they know, 
Cyprian.  constuetudo sine veritate, vetustas erroris est.  
But those good Fathers, whence they say they're born, 
At non ille satum quo te mentiris Achilles talis erat— Virgil.   
The Commons never, so as they, did scorn.  
If they mean Mr. Knox, Learned Buchanan, Mr. Calvin, it will be showed them that they walk not in their ways: but if they mean Father Maxwel with his sacro-sancta Regum Majestas and Archdeacon Ferne, we will confess what they say to be very true. They tell us, that they seek and practise what they can, that the people of the Land may live a quiet and a peaceable life in all godliness and honesty; 
1 Tim. 2.1.2.  but not a word of praying for them in Authority, which the Apostle points as a medium to those ends. They would persuade us of their innocency in the things that are laid to their charge, by these Arguments.  
1. Because they are hated by Malignants, Incendiaries, Tyrants, etc. And we believe them: It's natural to such to hate the Traitor, though they love the Treason. Besides, such have revengeful hearts, and let them struck them never so much, will (if ever they get power) remember their former oppositions; their present compliance with them will not save them.  

Plea etc. page 8. 1 Kings 2, 28  2. They appeal to their former actions; A weak Argument: Joab turned after Adonijah, though he turned not after Absalon.  
3. To the continued tenor of them and their constant walkings: some that know these Ministers think otherwise of their constancy than they do themselves. Sure I am, a great part of them were so constant to their first principles, that they neither prayed for Divine assistance against Hamilton and his Army, nor gave thanks for deliverance from them. 
Attestation of the Cheshire Ministers. p. 30.  Tales may be told how some pleaded for the expunging of a passage against that Army, which is in the Cheshire Ministers Attestation. And another answered one that asked why he omitted thanks for that deliverance, that he knew not whether it were a mercy or no: yet the Kirks of Scotland declared against them. If this be constancy, what is liberty? Besides, 
Ames. de Casib: Conscien. lib. 3. cap. 13.  Dr. Ames will tell them, that to Christian constancy is required, not only a perpetual continuation of the same purpose and disposition, and a frequent reiteration of the same Acts: but progress and proficiency also in the way of virtue. The Heathens are taxed as relapsers, because they withheld the truth in unrighteousness: 
Rom. 1.18. Numb. 14.22.24.  and Israel as forsakers of God, because they followed him not fully. So there is a sort of men, who in the beginning of civil Wars against Tyrants, are hot and active; but through sloth and unconstancy, 
Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. page 3.  and weakness of spirit, either fainting ere their own pretences, though never so just, be half attained, or through an inbred falseness and wickedness, betray of-times to destruction men of Noblest temper, joined with them for causes, which they in their rash undertake were not capable of: and that these men are such, they themselves may see, if they would view their faces in the Glass held up to them by this worthy Author, 
Nos interea Patrem luminum omnibus, nè excaecari patiatur cor Anglicani Regis, qui certè discere debebit, quanta in iis quae pollicer● potestis, fides adhibenda sic Catholicis subditis, quia nè se perjurio alligent, malunt spiritum emittere quam vocem. Introduction to the Arch Bishop's Trial. page 82.  to answer whose Reasons I must refer them.  
4. They urge their present standing out against the Engagement, as an Argument of their constancy to their first principles. A strange confidence, hardly to be paralleled, unless it be in that passage of the Pope's Bull to the Catholics of England, to dissuade them from the Oath of Allegiance. We in the mean time will pray the Father of lights, that he will not suffer the heart of the English King to be blinded, who certainly ought to learn, how great credit is to be given to his Catholic Subjects, in the things which you can promise, who rather would lose their lives, then let go a word that might oblige them to perjury.  
5. They tell us that they are not changed, but the thing called Malignity: If this were so, others have done but as Non-scribers themselves, what they formerly called Tyranny, they now call fundamental Government. But Malignity is still the same as it was, viz. disaffection to the Commonwealth and enmity against liberty.  
Lastly, they say, the Malignants take the Engagement. So they did the Covenant, yet it never the worse, no though Hamilton; Ormond, Inchiqueen, Langdale said, they fought for it. A returning enemy is much better than a revolting Brother.  
Lastly, they say they are charged with morosity, wilfulness, discontent, and prepossession; from which they would vindicate themselves by urging their many near and dear concernments lying upon them, which they will not be thought so careless of, 
Plea etc. p. 8.  as not to regard, if conscience would permit. They know that Pharaoh had many engagements upon him by divers concernments, 
Exodus at the beginning  which might have caused him to let Israel go: yet his wilfulness was such, as to run him into the destruction of his people, Servants and self also at the last. Impotent wilfulness makes a man forget all self-interest. The late King from whom they borrowed this Argument (as indeed this Book of theirs makes that Image of the Beast (so a 
* Proverbs 28.15. Luke 13.32. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Med. 1. page 2.  King, and the King of Kings all Tyrants) to live and give it power to speak, and threatens with death them that will not receive it) he in his book saith, My own and my children's Interests gave me many obligations to seek and preserve the love and welfare of my Subjects: yet these Interests could not keep him from waging a bloody War against his people to satisfy his exorbitant wilfulness. 
Plea etc. p. 9  They say it is pure conscience that is their motive: we wish it were so, and believe it is so in some that are led by them, and much pity the credulity of such: but what Conscience the leaders among them have (for there are some among Ministers that pin their faith upon other men's sleeves) shall be showed hereafter in examining their grounds to which they appeal. You would little think that these men that thus plead for Conscience, 
Petition of 12500. etc. page 3.  were the promoters of a Petition against all separate Congregations, and desired that no Members of such might be admitted to any place of public trust. Yet instead of seeing in this their affliction, which in their delivered Consciences, (if they be conscientious) will not suffer them to do what is lawful, and acknowledging with Adonibezek that God is righteous, they obliquely persecute others by censuring their Consciences, nay and plainly say, 
Judges 1.7.  that they are angry with them, because they have not so great a swallow as themselves. Of these we may say as the holy Chronicler of Ahaz. These are the Ministers, who when they were afflicted, 
2 Chronicles 28.22. Prov. 21.24. Prov. 19.25. Prov. 21.11. compared.  did yet more wickedly. Had their Apology been modest, I should not have troubled the Reader with thus much; but since they deal in proud wrath, Solomon, as he tells them their name, so he directs us how to deal with them, that the simple may be wise, and beware.  
The Ministers in their Appendix answer some Arguments which are made by others for the Engagement. I shall not stand upon their Answer to any Argument, that I make not use of myself: But leave the Northern Subscribers, and the Author of the grand case of Conscience to speak for themselves; for they have both age and abilities; which I may more truly say of them, than these men of their Baal Berith: which term I desire that it may not be understood as if I derogated from the Covenant, but as setting forth the abuse of it by these men, who make it a perfect and complete directory for all things sacred and civil. It cannot be a dishonour to it to be called so, in respect of the abuse, no more than it was to the Brazen Serpent to be called Nehushtan, 
2 Kings 18.4.  when it was Idolised.   

Animadversions on a Book, called a Plea for Non-scribers.  
IT always hath been the practice of men that delight in vitilitigation to obscure things in themselves plain, by their devising of many senses for them. This do the Non-scribers (for I shall hereafter use this name which themselves have imposed on themselves) charging the Engagement with a Protean ambiguity; from which diversity of interpretation, they require some to free them, 
Spumantemque dari (pecora inter inertia) votis Optat Aprum, aut fulvum descendere monte Leonem. Virgil. Aenead. lib. 2.  whose interpretation may bear a warrant in it. A desire fit for Non-scribers modesty, who as youthful Ascanius weary of chase fearful Deer, 
Wished a foaming Boar (his Game to mend)  
Or-Lion from the Mountain to descend.   
So they dare Authority: all other reason is but impar congressus Achilli. Yet to let them see that the Engagement is not of such a Protean ambiguity; but that an engager may agree with them in that sense, which they say is most plain, proper and equitable, I shall (after rectifying a few mistakes of theirs) close with them in the main of their construction.  
1. 
Plea. etc. Pag. 11.  By the Commonwealth of England they understand a particular form of Government: But here is the matter with its form, the people or community of England, in the form of a Commonwealth: as the Kingdom of England was the people of England under that form of Monarchy. This they might have discerned in the Acts they quote themselves, 
Plea etc. pag. 10. in the Margin.  where they find mention of the Nation under this present Government, and the well Government thereof in a way of Commonwealth or free State: so that when it is said the Commonwealth of England, England is not 
* As they say, Appendix. p. 34.  a whole abstracted from all forms, but clothed with its form of a Commonwealth or free State.  

Arist. polit. l. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  2. They understand that this is invested in certain persons: but this betrays their ignorance in the nature of a Commonwealth, or free State: it being proper to a Commonwealth, that in vicissitudes, the same persons both command & obey: And therefore, when we engage to a Commonwealth, we understand the vicissitudes of Magistrates: we engage to this Parliament for the present, and to all other Representatives of the people hereafter to be chosen; and to the people we engage to preserve their liberty of choosing their Representatives. For, a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Commonwealth is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Government in which the people Govern, 
Arist. Polit. lib. 3.  which they could not be made to do, had they not the liberty to elect their supreme Magistrates. Upon these mistakes many of their Arguments are grounded; and hence it follows, that in many things they fight against a man of straw, 
Quae enim populi parts in civitate, si jure suffragii in creandis Magistratibus & negotiis similibus destituatur? Vbbo Emmius Descript. Reipub. Atheniensis pag. 12.  that themselves have set up.  
In the matter and form of the Engagement, I agree with them, and confess it is not in the power of the Engagers, as single private persons, to put a period to its duration; but in the hands of the engaged to, viz. the people of England, in the form of a Commonwealth. It lies I say, in their power to choose to themselves what other form shall hereafter most tend to their own being and well-being, which is the end of all civil society. The whole sense of the Engagement is this, I declare and promis●, that I will be true and faithful, not only negatively, but positively, to the people of England, as now moulded in the form of a Common wealth, with●●t a King or House of Lords.  
Let us hear their Plea against it. In the first place they argue thus. A power unjust in attainment and possession, we cannot be either positively or negatively faithful to: 
Plea etc. pag. 11.  But, the power in the Engagement is such: Ergo Neither of these prppositions are undeniably true; the weakness of the Major and its supporters hath been sufficiently evinced, by a most able and learned Author, in answer to the exercitation concerning usurped Powers. I purposely forbear to answer it (not out of doubt of its infirmity, but) because of the specious pretences that such as Non-scribers take, from defence of the lawfulness of submission and obedience to Powers unjust in attainment, to bespatter the present power, 
See Plea etc. pag. 34. Plea etc. pag. 19.20. Appendix. page 3.  as confessed to be unjust by its defenders. Of which fault, of wresting suppositions into concessions, the Non-scribers are not innocent.  
Come we then to the examination of the Minors strength: for the confirming of which they argue from two mediums. The present power (say they) is unjust in its attainment.  
1. In regard of its removal, disposition, and subversion of the ancient established Government, which was a multiformed or compound Magistracy of King, Lords, and Commons, coordinate the one to the other. I expected in a charge of this nature, that they should have brought another sort of Argument, and have evinced, That it was unlawful for a free people, upon any grounds whatsoever, to have changed their forms of Magistracy. This seems to be their opinion, 
* 
Every particular person standing in the relation of a Subject; but the community is in the power and dignity above the Magistrates. Numb. 11.16.  
Hos Judices in magnis mortibus nec●ssitas creavit. Dici Dictatores poterant. Flavius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vocavit, quod nomen etiam Syllae, Cynnae, Marióque & aliis Dictatoribus Romanis Graeci dedêre. Petrus Cuaeus de Repub. Hebrae. lib. 1. cap. 12.   which they express in these words. For a privative or innovative power to be in them (that is in the people) 
* 
Every particular person standing in the relation of a Subject; but the community is in the power and dignity above the Magistrates. Numb. 11.16.  
Hos Judices in magnis mortibus nec●ssitas creavit. Dici Dictatores poterant. Flavius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vocavit, quod nomen etiam Syllae, Cynnae, Marióque & aliis Dictatoribus Romanis Graeci dedêre. Petrus Cuaeus de Repub. Hebrae. lib. 1. cap. 12.   when they stand in the relation of Subjects, that is, have an actual and legitimate supreme Magistracy over them, we cannot yet see any warrant for. I shall help them therefore to some spectacles, through which they may discern this truth, That the Community may change their form of Magistrary upon which the whole controversy depends. The people of Israel, before they had Kings, were under an actual and legitimate Magistracy, viz. The Council of 70. Elders, instituted by divine Authority, they were governed in a way of Policy or free State, by these their Representatives, chosen from among the people. The Judges were an extraordinary kind of Officers, raised up by God upon emergent occasions, otherwise in the intervals of Judges Israel ●ad no Magistracy. Now for this assertion, learned Cunaeus is evident Necessity created these Judges in great conclusions of State. And he saith further, They may be called Dictator's, (and mean Historians: know that the Dictator's power was extraordinary) but Josephus calls them Monarches, which name the Greeks gave to Sylla, Cinna, Marius, and other Roman Dictator's. The same Author shows that the Council of 70. remained ever in the Hebrew Commonwealth, from its first institution, and handled those things that were summae potestatis, of the supreme Authority. Mr. Calvin is a clear witness too. God ordained (saith he) among the Israelites an Aristocracy near a free State, 
Aristocratiam Politiae vicinam [Deus] apud Israelitas instituit, cum optimâ conditione res habere vellet. Calvin. Just. cap. 20. Sect. 7. Edit. 1553. I have noted the Edition, because it is not divided into Books.  when he would have them be in the best condition. And it was very near indeed to a free State; for the Elders were chosen by lot, equally out of all the Tribes. Thus I have evinced, that Israel was when first form and organised into a political body, under a Magistracy different from that they had under Kings. Now that it was lawful for them to change this form of Magistracy, is evident.  
1. From the Scripture, Deut. 17.14, 15. When thou art come to the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a King over me, like as all Nations that were about me: Thou shalt in any wise set him over thee, etc. In which Text you may see.  
1. That the power of keeping or parting with their present Magistracy is put in the people's will, if thou say, I will set a King over me, etc.  
2. That God directs them in a circumstance for the exception of this power. Thou shalt choose one from among thy Brethren, etc. which regulation of a circumstance had been in vain, had they not had power to dispossess the Magistracy then in possession.  
2. From their actual changing of their Magistracy, Israel chose them a King when they had Samuel for their supreme lawful Magistrate: and Samuel had a special Command from God to yield to them. Harken unto the voice of this people, in what they shall say unto thee: But (say Non-scribers) the Lord both by his word and sign manifested his disapprobation and anger against their seeking a King, 
1 Sam. 8.7.  when they had Samuel to their Judge, even to their conviction. To which I rejoin, that it was not the change of Magistracy which was the cause of that divine anger.  
1. God was angry because they did it in such an unseasonable time, when it was so inexpedient, they having so just a Judge as Samuel; as is evident, by comparing 1 Sam. 12. at the beginning, with the 19 verse.  
2. Because they did it in distrust of divine assistance, which had helped them by Judges extraordinarily raised in time of danger; whereas they then put more trust in a King of their own choosing, then in God that always raised Saviour's for them, as appeareth, 1 Sam. 12.6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. compared with the 19 before quoted.  
3. Because they did it out of desire of the pomp of their Neighbour Nations, who were under Kingly Government. 

Quia Gentilibus conformari maliut [Israel] quam sorti a Deo immediatè oblatae acquiescere. Wendelinus. Christ. Theol. l. 1. c. 29. Thes. 6. Zanch. Com. in Hos. p. 134. Diodat. in loca.  
Regiminis quendam modum constituit, quem persignificanter Flavius adversus Apionem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vocari posse ait, quasi ter ejusmodi civitatem dixeris cujus praeses rectórque solus Deus sit. De Rep. Hebraeorum. lib. 1. cap. 1. Deut. 12.5. 1 Chron. 17.1. to 14.   Because they would rather be conformed to the Heathen, then acquiesce in what was immediately given them by God. The mistiming of an action, and doing it upon base grounds, may make an action otherwise lawful, to become unlawful.  
But (say Non-scribers) God hath sometimes disowned and condemned expressly the people's Act, in setting up a Government over them, which hath been in specie lawful. To their Testimonies out of Samuel, (which are 1 Sam. 8.8. & 12.16, 17.) I have answered already. Those out of Josua 8.4. & 13.10, 11. speak, the latter of the election of Saul, the former of Jeroboam's erection. To them all I answer, That the Commonwealth of Israel was (as is well noted by Cunaeus out of Josephus) a Theocracy, of which God was in a peculiar manner, the Governor and Lawgiver. As God would be consulted in all ceremonials, so would he in all great matters of State. Israel in the Wilderness had intimation that in the Land whither they were going, the Lord would choose some one place to put his name there, when he would have a settled Habitation, as well as they had intimation, that then they should have Kings; but yet if David (notwithstanding his enquiry of the private opinion of Nathan the Prophet and his encouragement of him to the work) had built the Temple, it would have been a building which God would have disavowed; for God would have the ordering of all circumstances in that to come from himself: he would have no house till he had commanded it himself. So when Israel would have had their Magistracy changed, they should have consulted with God first, and when your 10. Tribes turned away from the House of David, they should have asked Council of God. Because they did not: therefore God saith, they set up Kings, but not by him; they asked not his advice, but tumultuously rushed into these changes, wilfully and obstinately crying, give us a King and Princes. But to make this stretch to all Nations is absurd, since other Nations have not God for their Lawgiver so particularly, nor can enjoy his immediate answers, as Israel might have done; but are to be guided by the Law of Nature, and the Rules of right reason. Thus have I proved that it was lawful for the Israelites to change their established Government for a King, and consequently, it may be lawful for a people upon good grounds, to change their Kingly Government for any other, 

Arist. Polit. lib. 1. Amesi de casibus conscien. lib. 5. cap. 25.  
Lex, Rex, q. 19 p. 158. 1 Pet. 2.13.  
Monarchia si justa est, Regnum, si injusta, Tyrannis est. Deinde ex Tyrannidis destructione nascitur Aristocratia, etc. Tandem in obligarchiam definit et. Vbiverò iniquitas & injustitia eorum qui praesunt per multitudinem irâ percitam è medio tollitur mutatur oligarchia in Democratiam, etc.— sic sunt tria Magistratuum paria, in quorum singulis qui prior legitimus, qui posterior, illegitimus rectè censetur. Musculus. loc. come. page 622.   unless they will say that only Kingly Government hath a privilege to be unchangeable, which is an absurdity that Court Parasites would hardly own.  
I may add reason to prove this, and I argue,  
1. From the definition of a politic body, which is this, Apolitick body is a society of men, according to nature, having in itself an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sufficiency for preservation of itself, constituted for being and well-being. Or shorter thus. A society sufficient in itself to all things conducible to well-being, or commodious life. Now the form of Magistracy, may ofttimes prove the greatest hindrance to the happiness and well-being of the public body, and it cannot be a society, having a sufficiency for all things conducible to its own civil happiness, had it not a power to remove these pressures.  
2. From the limitation that is upon the power of the Magistrate. The Magistrate's power is not absolute, but limited 1. By the will of God. 2. By the will of the People contained in those Laws and conditions in which the power of rule is founded. Now the politic body hath a Nomothetick faculty, and so is not properly under a Law, but may change and abrogate those Laws which are hurtful and pernicious, and consequently may abrogate the forms of Magistracy which are pernicious, as well as the Laws, by which they only stand, and in which their power is placed. 3. Forms of Magistracy are called the Creatures of men by the Apostle, though Magistracy in genere be the Ordinance of God, yet in specie it is the Creature of man, and consequently may be destroyed by them that made it. I shall shut up the proof of this with the words of a man famous in his Generation. Monarchy if just, is a Kingdom, if unjust a Tyranny, out of the destruction of Tyranny ariseth Aristocracy, in which the Reins are committed to the most just and prudent among the Nobles: this ends in an Oligarchy, in which a few unwise and unjust great ones get power. The iniquity and injustice of whom being taken away by the angry multitude, the Oligarchy is turned into a Democracy, in which all things are ordered by the people, according to their Country Customs, and certain Laws, the change of this is into an Ochlocracy, in which the multitude take licence to do what they list. So there are 3 pairs of Magistrates in every one of which, the first is legitimate, the second illegitimate. Kingly, Aristocratical, Democratical Governments are lawful: Tyranny, Oligarchy, Ochlecracy unlawful. You may plainly see, he approves of the change of corrupted Governments. Let this be the first step to prove, that the mere dispossession of a former Government, cannot make the succeeding Government unlawful to be obeyed or engaged to.  
Now let us go a little more closely along with Non-scribers. 
Plea, etc. page, 20.  The Question that is most material is not (say they) whether a form of Government may be dispossessed; but whether it be lawfully done by them; for if they have unlawfully put out, and still keep out the said lawful Government, then is their power unjustly gotten and held. I shall gratify them so fare as to grant, that it is not always expedient for a people to change their forms of Magistracy, & quod non expedit, quatenus non expedit, non licet. Let us see then how they prove it unlawfully done. 
Plea, etc. page 20. Vel de persona vel de authoritate▪ docentis inquirentes, cum debeat cum primis inquiri & judicari de doctrina, Comment: in Johannem cap. 1.  In reference to this enquiry (say they) that which will be considerable, is not their goodness or expediency of the fact, but the warrant and Authority for it in them that did it; and they that travel about the goodness and conveniency of the things, but lead them out of the way: which assertion of theirs is an evidence of most putrid hypocrisy. Musculus notes it to be the practice of Pseudo-Bishops to inquire concerning the person and Authority of the Teacher, before they inquire the truth or falsehood of their Doctrine. So these that keep such a coil about titular righteousness, despise real righteousness: they that teach others to keep their Law, through breaking of the Law, dishonour God. God (who is most eminently and exemplarily just, who ruleth in the Kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will) is pleased to give a reason of the dispossession of Powers, drawn principally from their demerits, who govern unrighteously. 
Dan. 4.17. Isaiah 40.20.21.  The Prophet Isaih publishing his Edict for the transferring of the Kingdom from the Babylonians to the Medes and Persians, expresseth it thus. Thou shalt not be joined with thy Fathers in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy Land, and slain thy people, the seed of evil doers shall never be renowned: prepare slaughter for his Children for the iniquity of their Fathers, 
Jer. 22.17. etc.  that they do not rise nor possess the Land, nor fill the face of the world with Cities. And the Prophet Jeremiah denouncing the dispossession of the Kingly line of Judah saith, Thine eyes and thy heart are not; but for thy covertousness, and for to shed innocent blood, etc. which he makes the reason and foundation of the following sentence. 
Ezekiel 21.24, 25, 26. Plea, etc. pag. 21. Nec expenditur hodie quâ culpâ exsiderint possessione, quam bonam de se spem praebeant, quam integrori● administratione futuros existimens, quos susceperint ●uendos: una causa satis fuerit, propinquus est, Rex natus est, repe●it nativum ●uulum, Denique in postremis habetur, cui popularis status afflicti, & Reipub. funditus collabentis culpa imputetur. Excidium: Holmense. p. 505. Truth's manifest. p. 23.  Ezekiel also threatening the same judgement, saith, Because you have made your iniquity to be remembered, in that your transgression is discovered, so that in all your do, your sins appear, because, I say, that ye are come to remembrance, ye shall be taken with the hand: And thou profane wicked Prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end. Thus saith the Lord God, remove the Diadem, and take off the Crown: this shall not be the same, Nebuchadnezer had no lawful superior power over the King of Judah, nor the Medes and Persians over the King of Babylon; but the demerits of the Kings of Judah and Babylon, made their dispossession just before God. These Apostate Non-scribers have oft presented the late King before God, as a man of blood, as a perjured oppressing Tyrane, and yet now he is blameless. We never heard, yet alleged (say they) nor do acknowledge good reason or ground (on man's part) for the matters to have been done. These men sin, being condemned of themselves. We may justly say as Albertus Kran●zius saith in a like case. Christiern the second King of Denmark and his Son, were expelled out of the Kingdom for Tyranny, both of them breathed out threaten against them that had exiled them: yet many favoured them in their deserved misery, who detested them in their exorbitant Domination. It's not regarded now (saith he) by what fault they fell out of possession, what hope of future amendment may be expected, how just they will be in governing, by them that have undertaken to defend them; but one thing is enough, he is a Kinsman, a King born, he endeavours to recover his native Title. Lastly, none considers to whom the fault of the people's afflicted State, and of the impendent utter ruin of the Common wealth is to be imputed. The blood which hath been shed by the two last Kings, (which a Scotch Writer of no mean credit, saith to be more than was shed by the Roman Emperors in the ten primitive persecutions) the guilt whereof might have lain upon the Nation, might the prerogative Lords and cajoled Commons have had their will: this blood (I say) of so many precious Saints and Martyrs, as Non-scribers have often called them, is now no more regarded by them, than the blood of so many Dogs in a time of pestilence.  
Yet since they put the question upon this issue, that the warrant of persons is requisite to make an action lawful, I shall join issue with them in t●is particular, hoping not to be nonsuited at the Bar of reason. To evidence the want of Authority in the persons, they lay down this proposition. 
Plea, etc. Pag. 21.  If a Government be made up of three Estates, every of them being fundamental to the constitution, one of them cannot take away another. I distinguish of fundamentalness, there are two sorts of foundations. 1. A natural foundation, as the ground, soil, earth, or native Rock is to an house. 2. Artificial, as the stones, that are first laid upon that soil or natural foundation. So there are two sorts of Estates, fundamental to the constitution of every public body that deserves to be called free. 1. Those that are originally fundamental, viz. a common supreme Council of Deputies, or Representers freely chosen by the people, in whom the power of making Laws, constitutions and offices rests. 2. Those that are ascititiously fundamental, or derivatively, builded up upon the originally fundamental estate, who have a power judicial or executive committed to them. Those fundamental Estates, which are derivatively so, may not take away one another; but the estate which is properly fundamental, may take away the other, and be blameless, in case of breach of trust, or abuse of power entrusted to them.  
But Non-scribers apprehend t●e powers they speak of to be equally Coordinate, 
Plea, etc. page 22.  so that the whole force of the sense of their argument is this, Coordinate Powers have no power to take away each other: King, Lords, and Commons, are coordinate Powers: Ergo. I deny both propositions, and shall show first, the erroneousness of the Minor. In so doing I shall show them, 1. 
Rights of the Kingdom. p. 86. & alibi passim.  That the power of the King was not a coordinate power with that of the Representatives of the people, not an absolute and perfect coordinate, which appears, 1. From the nature of the King's power. Our Lawyers divide the powers of this Nation into Original, Judicial, and Executive, and affirm that the King's power was but executive. To make executive power coordinate with the nomothetical and original, 
Rights of the Kingdom. p. 19  were to make the Executioner equal with the Lawmaker. 2. From the Coronation-Oath, wherein the King swore fealty to the State and Laws, as his higher Lords, that I may speak, as the Author of the Rights of the Kingdom: in which Oath the King swore to hold and guard, 
Sovereign Power of Parliaments, part, 2. p. 75.  confirm and defend the Laws which the Commons should choose. De tuendo & custodiendo justas Leges & consuetudines Ecclesiae, ac de faciendo per ipsum Domirum Regem, eas esse protegendas, & confirmandas, quas vulgus just & rationabiliter elegerit, as Mr. Prinne gives us that clause of the King's Oath, out of a Parliament Roll, and out of the Book of Clarencieux Hanley, in English thus, Will you grant, fulfil & defend all rightful Laws & Customs which the Commons of the Realm sh●ll choose? The King shall answer; I grant and believe, That power cannot be coordinate with the Law giving power, which is obliged to all, and cannot alter an apex or Title of those Laws that another Estate shall choose. The mutual stipulation between King and people, 
Appendix. page 48.  was that which was constituted; a King of England, before this past, he was but Regni candidatus. Non-scribers tell us that the Kings of this Realm are legally and actually Kings, upon the death of their respective Predecessors, and this (say they) Lawyers and Historians will satisfy; among whom they chose Speed to urge; in which quotation (I profess) I admire, that men brought up in the study of good Arts, (to say nothing of the conscience they pretend to) should so over-shoot themselves, as not to be able to distinguish between what Speed relates as an Historian, 
Speed. Rich. 1. S. 3.  and what corrupt glosses he put upon our ancient Chronologers; for immediately before the passage they quote, he acknowledges that before Richard's Coronation; most writers call him not a King, and then he holds that Sycophantical gloss, which Non-scribers make use of. A Lawyer, and that a friend of their own, tells us from Walfingham (a fare more authentic Historian than the Merchant-Taylor) that in the Coronation of Richard the 2d. when the King had taken his Oath, Archiepiscopus praecedente eum, etc. the Arch Bishop (Henry Percy the Marshal of England going before him) turned himself to all the parts of the Church, and acquainted the people with the King's Oath, ask them whether they would obey such a Prince? and it was answered by all the people; with a loud voice, that they would; which custom (saith he) hath been constantly before and since observed. And another of his profession saith, 
Sovereign power of Parliaments, part. 1. p. 75.  That the King ought to take his Oath, before he should require his Subject's homage, & when any Subjects have sworn homage, before the King had done his homage & sworn fealty to the State & Law, it hath been observed by Historians, as some kind of Comet or Prodigy in State-politiques, so that notwithstanding, 
Rights of the Kingdom. p. 32  that for peace sake, the next of the blood hath usually succeeded; yet he could not require homage before he had first sworn to the Lords, the Commons, & consequently hath his Kingly b●ing from that stipulation. He cannot then be coordinate with them, whose swearing obedience to the Laws they shall choose, gives him his Kingly power and dignity. 3. 
Lex, Rex. quest. 21. p. 177. 178.  Those who make a King, and have power to unmake him, in point of misgovernment, must be above the King in point of Government: But the Parliament makes K●ngs, and Kings make not Parliaments: the King's power is fiduciary, and put in his hands upon trust, and must be ministerial, and borrowed from those who put him in trust, his power must then be less. When the King hath received power from them, they have the whole power they had before, that is to make Laws, and resigned no power to the King, but to execute Laws, and his convening them is an act of royal duty, etc. 
Lex, Rex▪ quest. 24. p. 210.  all this is Mr. Rutherford's, and therefore should take more with Non-scribers. And again, the Parliament is coordinate with the King ordinarily; but the coordination on the King's part is by derivation, on the Parliaments part, originaliter and fontaliter. In ordinary there is a coordination; but if the King turn tyrant, the Parliament is to use their fountain power, and that of the Law, Par in parem non habet potestatem, is no better from his pen (saith Mr. Rutherford,) that is from the excommunicate Bishops of Rosse, then from Barclay, Grotius, Arnisaeus, Blackwood, etc. We hold the Parliament that made the King at Hebron, to be above their Creature, the King. See then (Reader) who are the Patriarches and Prophets of Non-scribers, fast Cavaliers, excommunicated Prelates. But what say Non-scribers to this Argument? Even, run themselves into the height of Cavalierisme. 
Appendix. p. 35.  The Author of the Engagement vindicated, saith, the people choose their Representatives, and they set up Kings, who are therefore merely the people's Creatures, depend upon continuation of their pleasures: Ejus est instituere, cujus est destituere. To this they answer, This is spoken as if it were undeniably true, that Kings with us have been wont to be set up by the Representatives of the people; but we have neither seen nor read of any such custom in England, we have not any one precedent of a King, created merely by a Representative. Is this their knowledge of Histories, to which they send us elsewhere for satisfaction? Sir Thomas Smith calls the Parliament the Representative body of all England, wherein every Englishman is presumed to be either by himself, or by his Proxy. And many Kings have been made by this. Who made William the first King? his Conquest (Non-scribers will say) was no just title, the right successive heir of the Crown Edgar Etheling surviving? who made William the 2. and Henry the 1. Kings, while their elder Brother Robert was alive?  
What Title had King John by succession, as long as Arthur and Anne, the Children of his elder Brother George Frey, Duke of Britain lived? the latter of which Anne, lived in the Reign of Henry the third Son of John. The Archbishop Hubert at the Coronation of John spoke thus, Noverit discretio vestra, etc. Be it known to your discretion, that none hath right or any fore title to succeed another in a Kingdom, unless first he be (with invocation for grace and guidance of God's spirit) by the body of the Kingdom thereunto chosen. 
Sovereign power of Parliaments. part. 1. p. 54. Rights of their Kingdoms. p. 70.  So Mr. Prinne out of Hoveden, to which all the Assembly consented scientes quod non sine causa sic defini verat as the Author of the rights of their Kingdom, out of Matthew Paris and Wendover, compared with Hoveden and others: which Author tells us, that if Bracton and Fleta, 2 ancient Judges, may be made Judges of our King's Titles, they will tell us that in their times our Kings were elective. And one of them lived in Henry the thirds time, the other somewhat after. Edward the 3. was made King by the same power that his Father was deposed by, and what that was, 
Speed. Ed. 2. S. 74.  Speed will tell you, the sentence was pronounced by William T●ussel, of all the men in England, and of the Parliament Procurator. 
Fractus Temporum. part. 7. Rich. 2.  Henry the 4. was chosen and made King of England by the people, for the rightful manhood they found in him, as the old Fructus Temporum. But to conclude, who made Henry the 7. King? not succession; for by his Father he was a mere stranger to the Royal Line, and by his Mother of such a sprout of the Family of Lancaster, as was excluded from succession to the Crown, by that Law which made it capable of succeeding to ordinary Inheritances, 
Speed. Hen. 7. S. 1.  as Speed confesseth. By his wife he had it not; for he exercised all the Acts of Royal Power before he was married. His Conquest Non-scribers will deny to be a Title, it must then follow, 
Speed. Rich. 3. S. 53.  that it was from the Parliament he had his Title, unless they will say (with Speed) he had it by election of the people in the field at B●sworth: But I believe, Non-scribers will say that Act was more valid, which was done by an orderly Parliament, then that which was done by the Soldiers in the height and heat of their victory. If they have not seen or heard these things, they are strangers in English History. But it was not the obscurity of these things in our Histories, that made them say thus; but to make the King absolute supreme, and giver of life and being to Parliaments, as is evident from that of theirs; we have no ground to think Represe●tatives antecedent to Kings, 

Appendix page 35. Lex. Rex. quest. 21. page 177 Lex, Rex. quest. 6. & 19  
Námque munus illud, quâ vi, quâ gratiâ & favore, imo quo pretio denique et corruptelâ, pro temporum hominumque conditione, & sub specie feudi, aliisque diversis praetextibus, in peculium tandem conversum est, & ex temporario haereditarium factum. Guicc: Descrip. Hannoniae. p. 440.  
Nunc nullus in honorum nominibus est modus, neque praeter inanem titulum, ullus Nominum usus, Buchanan, Rerum Scoticarum. lib. 6. Verstegan. cap. 10. Rights of the Kingdom. p. 9●   which is the rotten ground of Ferke, the Author of O●soria●um, etc. as Mr. Rutherford will tell them Ag●in, they tell us that the People's constitution of their Government, either collectively or by Proxies by way of election and consent, is no valid argument of any superintendent power in the people to make or unmake Kings. To this I say, that the people do not constitute their Governors by a bare election and consent; but they are their efficient cause, and give them their civil power and agency. Kings and other Magistrates are the effects of the people, and therefore inferior to them. This nail is driven home to the head by the forenamed, learned Scotchman, they know the common principle, Quod efficit tale est magis tale; and for their comparisons of Servants and Pastors, I must refer them to the place quoted in the Margin, where they may be satisfied. 2. The Lord● were not coordinate with the Representatives of the people: I shall not stay (for I shall soon dismiss them) here to relate the first rising of the like dignities in other places. That learned Historian Guicciardin tells us, that after Lotharius the Emperor had divided the Empire into three parts among his three Sons, they out of fl●ath, began to give up divers Lands to their Palatines, who before were as Judges, sent to govern them, and from hence came up so many Earls, as now we see, what by force, what by favour, what by price and corruption, under divers pretexts the Office of Palatines was turned into a propriety, and of temporary became hereditary. N●t shall I insist upon honest and learned Ge●rge Buchanan's verdict concerning this kind of men, who informs us that Malcolme the 2. was the first who brought the● into Scotland, rather for vain ambition than any use, and afterwards complains, There is now no measure in new names of honour, and no use of their names, besides the empty Title. To come to our own Lords, The Dukes which were among our Saxon Ancestors, I cannot conceive to be any other than the Heretochii, that are mentioned in the Confessors Laws, who were the Captains of the Kingdom's Militia, chosen by the people in their Folcmotes; for Hertzog is the term by which the Dutch (of whom●th● Saxons were a branch) express a Duke to this day: a word derived from Here an Army, and toged to lead, and fitly expressing the Latin Dux, the fountain of our word Duke. Earl a name of honour, as Grave, of Age, was wont to denote amongst them the principal Judge of a shire, which was also elective. The Norman brought in the Title Baron, and the Norman Barons, were nothing else but the great Freeholders' of the Nation. All the Peers are said by Lawyers to sit in the house as Barons, in which right the Bishops also sat, as being Barons by tenure: as also other Barons were before any was so by Patent, which manner of Creation, viz. by Patent is not much elder than Edward the 3. and indeed, was one of the prime plots of our Kings, whereby they strengthened their Tyranny: they saw the great Freeholders' that were Barons by tenure, were vigorous Patrons of the people's Liberties: they therefore gratified many of their own Creatures with Patents for that Honour, that they might gratify them with their mercenary Votes. Now, the most, if not all of the Lords, were no other than the King's Pattentees, whereof some had bought their Title, others were called to it, to draw them off the service of the Commonwealth, as Strafford, Digby, etc. Others raised out of the King's private affection, so that they were no other than bubbles, blown up by the breath of exorbitant prerogative. These things premised, I shall demonstrate, that the Lords were not coordinate with the Commons by 3. mediums. I. The power which they had was but Judicial, and that over the King only. 
Sovereign power of Parliaments. part. 1. p. 5. in the Margin.  Rex non habet superiorem in terris praeter Deum & Legem & Curiam Comitum & Baronum, qui ideo dicuntur Comites, quia sunt socii Regis, saith Bracton, quoted by Mr. Prince, and their Office is that debent ei fraenum ponere. Nay, the last King in a Declaration of his (as I well remember I have read, though now I have it not at hand) saith, that the Lords were as banks between him and the Commons, to restrain the excesses of prerogative. Legislative power at the first they had none, & should we grant that since their good services for the people, they had a share of legislative power allowed them, yet this would not prove them coordinate with the Commons. For, the modi of Parliaments (saith an able Lawyer) will not only tell us, that the Commons have better and stronger Votes than the Lords, 
Rights of the Kingdom. p. 88.89, 90. Idem, Ibi●●● p. 82.  but that there may be a Parliament without the Lords, which he proves and defends against Objections. Which author tells us, that the Lords lost this Judicial power, by accepting Patents from the King, and so becoming incorporate with him, his personal Commissioners, who was not able to constitute Judges, when himself was a party.  
Nay, should I grant, that Power to the House of Lords, 
Non secus ac Patronus, cum clientis adversario de quota litis pactus, si Clientis causam prodidisset, si minimè noceret, non potest ita sanè ista Magnatum in damnum necémque populi inita conspiratio, quidquam ejus juri detrahere: Verum & illi in poenam legis quae in praevaricatores lata est incident, & his ac si res omnino integra esset, & Patronum alium eligere, & jus suum denu● persequi Lex permittit. Vindiciae contra Tyrannos. Quaest. 3. pag. 98. Rights of the Kingdom, p. 87.88. Valer. Max. li. 2. cap. 2. Antiquitus [Tribuni Plebis] ant valvas positis subselliis decreta patrum perpendebant, & si quae ex iis improbâssent rata esse non sinebant. Janus, Gulielmus de Magist. Pop. Rom. ca 14. So, Lipsius de Magist. Pop. Rom. cap. 15.  that they were by office the Patrons of the people against the Inundations of Tyranny, yet will not this make them coordinate with the Commons. The means are subordinate to the end. The Patron is but an honorary servant to his Client. As, if a Patron, having bargained with his Client's adversary for a share of the profits, should betray his Client's cause, he would not hurt his Clients rights; So, the conspiracy of great ones to the hurt and destruction of the people, cannot detract any thing from the People's right; They will fall into the punishment the Law ordains against prevaricators, and the Law will permit the people to choose another Patron, and pursue their own right. Thus Junius Brutus. If the House of the Lords than refuse to judge Hamilton's Army public Enemies, if they continue in a destructive Treaty with a Tyrant, their Judicial power which themselves desert is lost: The legislative power may deprive them of that power for the future.  
2. The Fountain of this power considered will show them not to be coordinate with the Commons. The fore-praised Author, out of the British Antiquities, and an old Law-book called, The Mirror, shows, that the Lords were raised out of, and by the Commons; of late they have been made by the King. Now if the King be not coordinate with the Representers of the People, much less can they be that have their Honour from him. The Kings of England heretofore have been constrained by Parliament, to lessen the number of their menial Servants. And, although the late Kings might be tolerated to make mushroom Lords to furnish out a Court-jigge, or a Coronation-Pomp; yet could they make none to equal them, who gave Laws to them both, the Commons of England. 3. The Lords sat in a personal capacity only, not so much as representing their own Families, thence were their Brethren and Sons Members of the House of Commons, as Denzill Hollis, Nathaniel Fienes, etc. So many single Persons cannot equal the Representives of the whole people. The Senate of Rome (who had a greater power than the House of Lords) were not equal to the College of the Tribunes of the people.  
Neither should we grant, that there were an equality of Power between the King, Lords and Commons, would it follow, that therefore they have no power one over the other. There are exceptions from the general rule, Par in Parem non habet potestatem. Neither will their Major be firm should we keep the term coordinate: For, 1. The End of Coordination of Powers, is, that if one should prove pernicious to the Commonwealth, there might not be wanting a Power to restrain it, and if necessity require the taking of it away, there might be a face of public Authority remaining. 2. Superiors may become obnoxious to their Inferiors, when by contract they make themselves so. Much more may coordinates' become obnoxious to each other, if they be all bound to pursuc one end and some prevaricate. 'Tis to be confessed indeed that ordinarily Coordinates' have no privitive power over one another, but yet the Rule holds not in all cases, where one Coordinate endeavours to destroy the End for which it was ordained, the other Coordinate may remove it. The End of both their Coordination being to be preferred before the means conducing to it, and it being (not only dangerous to let the remedy fall into the hands of the multitude, but) unlawful for the innocent coordinate to quit his station. Constantine the great, 
Pari potestate praediti● notum verò est, quod vu●go dicitur, Par in parem non habet imperium; nibilominus tamen Con●tantinus Licinium, Christianos, in iisque nobiles plaerosque religionis sive causâ, sive praetextu, re egantem, divexantem, contrucidantem, bello pe●it, religionis liberum cultum Christianis vi impetrat, fidem denique frangentem & ad pristinam saevitiam revertentem Thessalonicae morte mulciari jubet. Vindiciae contra Tyrannos. Quae. 4. pag. 204.  and Licinius were both of them Emperors in one Commonwealth, of equal power, and that vulgar saying is well known, Par in parem non habet potestatem; yet notwithstanding, when Licinius banished, vexed, killed many Christians, and among them many Noble ones, either because of their Religion, or under that pretence, Constantine waged war upon him, by force procures for the Christians free exercise of their Religion, and at last puts Licinius to death at Thessal●nica, who had broken his promise, and returned to his former cruelty; so Junius Brutus, who also adds, that when the Empire was divided between Constantine's three Sons, and Constantine the eldest maintained the Arrians, Constans the youngest the orthodox, the younger threatened the elder to force him to restore Athanasius, whom he had banished. The Consuls were set up at Rome, 
Ne potestas so●●tudine corrumperetur. Florus l. 1. c. 9 Suet. in Julio, cap. 49. Plea, etc. p. 21.  lest a power without companion should turn to Tyranny, the Consuls therefore were coordinate, yet, when Caesar affected Tyranny, his Colleague Bibulus proscribed him, and had he had strength would, doubtless, have executed the sentence he pronounced.  
But yet there is another stumbling block. Those that removed the King and Lords are not an House of Commons, they are but a parcel of one of the Estates, the majority being excluded by them, and kept from them by force of Arms.  
To which I answer. 1. By denying that the House did exclude the Members that were excluded at the first, the force that was used in exclusion of them, was not by the consent of their fellow-Members, as appears by their Message to the General and Council of War. Neither doth the omission of the prosecution of the Authors of it argue their consent. The punishment of an Error (suppose that this we speak of be one) may be omitted by Authority, if such punishment be dangerous to the Public Peace, 
Page 9 10.  but of this the Exercitation Answered speaks sufficiently. 2. By denying that they are kept out by force, but by Order of the House, which hath power to punish its offending Members. The majority of the House that followed the King to Oxford, were excluded by Vote. The House past several Votes to exclude them that would not take the Covenant, yet none ever questioned the remaining part to be an House, unless it were the Oxford Cavaliers. The majority of the Lords House were excluded by Vote, 
Petition of 12500. etc.  and kept out by the minor part, and yet the Lancashire Ministers call this minor part, The House of Peers, in their Petition, and their Answer received August, 25. 1646. the Answer of the House of Peers. And, I can conceive no reason, why the exclusion of some Members out of the House of Commons should make them no House, and the exclusion of the major part of the House of Peers not make ●hem no House, unless it be, that Non-scribers have forsaken their former principles. But, 
Plea, etc. p. 23.  this Vote by which the majority was excluded, was contrary to the Vote of that majority, therefore they were unjustly excluded. Lend me this argument, and but suppose that the majority of the Lords and Commons that followed the King to Oxford, had had the hearts to have stayed in the Houses, till by the most voices they could have Voted it unlawful to resist the King though he turned Tyrant, and I can by the same prove all our defensive wars to be unlawful. 
Potior saniòrque pars, alteram compeliere in negotio aperto potest. De jure Magist. in subditos. Quaest. 7 Seasonable Testimony against Toleration, p. 12.  Meliority not majority is in this case to be respected. The Vote which was thus disannulled was, That the King's Concessions in the Isle of Wight were firm grounds for the Establishment of the Peace and safety of the Nation. Of which Concessions the judgement of the Kirk of Scotland was this, The Lord is highly displeased with those proceed in the Treaty at Newport in reference to Religion and Covenant: Concerning which they accepted of such Concessions from his Majesty, as being acquiesced in were dangerous and destructive to both. And, Non-subscribers cannot deny that in the Propositions that were made to the King there, 
Simple Cobbler, page 58.  the King was still suffered to have continued his Negative voice, so long opposed. Now the Kings Advisera was (as a now friend of theirs expostulates) the Gravamen of the Nation, to Religion and Peace. Indeed, to grant it were to suffer a King to be as absolute as the great Turk: there being no way to establish a necessary Law, if a wilful King shall refuse, no way to establish the safety of a Nation, if he must ever have the liberty to pretend dis-satisfaction, and say he would advise, when State-danger calls rather for action then Counsel. To conclude, it had been to give away the legislative power, and to lose the King of his obligations at Coronation, 
Si Regibus impotenter grassantibus & humili p ebeculae insu●tantibus conniveant, eorum dissimulationem nefariâ ●erfidiâ non carere affirmem: quia populi libertatem cujus se Dei ordinatione autores positos norunt, fraudulenter produnt. Inst. ca 20. §. 30.  wherein he swore to defend and confirm the Laws quas Vulgus elegerit Calvin will tell them what popular Magistrates are that collude with a Tyrant. If (saith he) they connive at Kings impotently oppressing, and trampling on their poor people, I should affirm that this dissimulation wants not wicked Treachery, because they fraudulently betray the Liberty of the people, of which, by the ordinance of God, they know themselves to be appointed Defenders. The prevarication of excluded Members in receiving such Concessions as were destructive to Religion and Liberty, and voting them sufficient grounds for the establishing of both, could not deprive the innocent Members of their power of voting. Injury cannot take away a right. The revolting of abundance of the Members now from the interest of the Commonwealth, can no more invalidate the Right of the others, than the flying of so many to Oxfrrd, as made a mongrel Parliament there, could take away the right of them that remained at Westminster. So that (notwithstanding what the Plea hath said to prove the contrary) the House of Commons is still a whole House legally, which, ex abundanti, might be proved. 1. Because they are in number above what the Law acknowledges an House. 2. Because they have a lawful call from the people to be their Representers, unrevoked. 3. Because they never gave their consent to their dissolution. 4. Because the Law by which they sit is unrepealed: And neither a face from without, nor the prevarication of their own Members can make them cease to be an House.  
Thus it being proved that the King, Lords and Commons were not coordinate, and that granting they were coordinate, yet in case of necessity faulty coordinate powers may be excluded from trust by their coordinates', it will follow that the Power that dispossessed the King and Lords is warrantable, notwithstanding what hitherto Non-scribers have said to prove the contrary.  
But it was not the House of Commons, 
Plea, etc. page 23.24.  that did Enact the removal of the King and house of Lords (say Non scribers): because that is contrary to the Engagements of the said House in their Declarations. To this I answer. 1. By the same reason, it was not the House of Commons that voted a Treaty with the King at Newport, because it was contrary to their Votes of Non-addresses, and the Reasons given in their Declaration to the whole Nation, and their Engagement to settle the State without him. 2. What was properly fundamental in our Government, the House doth maintain, what was artificial or adventitious their being the Supreme Lawgivers of this Nation, bound them to abrogate if they found it dangerous to the people's safety and liberty, notwithstanding their Engagement. That Magistrates are bound to prefer the safety of the people before any other Engagements of their own, 
K. James his Declaration in the introduction to the Archbishop's trial. pag. 47.  King James is a Witness, his Majesty intends really to perform what he hath promised, the suspension of the Laws against his Catholic Subjects, but with this Protestation, that if they abuse his favour to the embroiling of his State and Government, the safety of the Commonwealth is in this case Suprema Lex, and his Majesty must, notwithstanding his Oath proceed against the offenders, etc. 3. The Declaration of April 17.16.6. saith, Our intentions are not to change the Ancient form of Government, but to attend the end of the primitive institution of all government: which only infers thus much: That they would not make any change in the Government, if they could without it keep the Nation in safety; but infers not, that when that Established government came in competition with the People's safety, they either might not, o● would not change it. 4. All your other Testimonies infer nothing else, but, 1. That the Commons truly and seriously desired the late King's safety, and the continuance of his Government, if it might consist with the good of the people that entrusted them. 2. That they were unwilling to make any change, till they saw all other means of the People's safety un●ffectuall. 3. That they did not out of malice or ambition seek the King's life, or deposing (as he and his Cavaliers charged them) but only the preservation of them that entrusted them. All which are far short of making this conclusion, Therefore they did not, or had no power to take away abused Royalty and Domination, although it were never so pernicious to the Commonwealth.  
Nor will their Testimonies out of the Army's Declarations, stand them in that stead, 
Plea, etc. p. 25.  which they suppose. 1. The Army (say they) confesses that their breaking the House of Commons was irregular. To which may be answered, 1. That confessed irregularity cannot take away the Right of the remaining Members. 2. That whatsoever is irregular is not presently unlawful. 
Matth. 12.3, 4.  David's eating the shewbread was irregular, but not unlawful. Man's Laws must all stoop in case of necessity to the divine Law of Nature, and to the safety of the people, 
Quoniam, inquit, Consul dum juris ordinem sequitur, id agit ut c●● omnibus Legibus Romanum imperium corruat, egomet privatus voluntati vestrae me Ducem offero.  the Supreme Law. When Gracchus endeavoured to subvert the Roman State, & the Consul Scaevola refused to oppose him by force, Scipio Nasica said, because the Consul, while he follows the ordinary course of Law, suffers the Roman Empire with all its Laws, to be in danger of perishing, I a private man will be your Captain; & accordingly (though a private man) he repulsed Graechus with his complices. So Scipio Africanus when the public treasury should have been opened, for the necessary use of the Commonwealth, and the Quaestors, because they did think it forbidden by Law, refused it; 
Valer. Max. li. 3. cap. 2. Valer. Max. li. 3. cap. 7.  Scipio (Isay) being a private man took the keys and opened the Treasury, and made the Laws stoop to the public benefit. Nor will the irregularity of hindering Magistrates from doing unlawful Acts be less defensible. 
1 Sam. 19.40.45.  The people's act in rescuing Jonathan from Saul will justify it. They had professed their subjection to Saul, yet they hindered him from oppressing his son who had wrought deliverance in Israel. The Army then might well and lawfully, (though extraordinarily, and therefore irregularly in reference to ordinary rules) hinder the Members of the House from Voting such a Peace, as would have oppressed not only one but all our Jonathans', who had wrought deliverance for our Israel. 3ly. Non-scribers say that the Army affirmed, the Judgement of the House of Commons incompetent and inconclusive, in their constitution, before they were purged. Which may be thus answered, That the Army affirmed the Parliament morally incompetent and inconclusive at that time, because so many had shuffled themselves so far into the King's interest, as to prefer it before the Public interest, not Politically incompetent and inconclusive. 
Sovereign Power of Parliaments, part. 2. page 40.  There is no reason why Non-scribers should be angry that the Army calls the House of Commons the Parliament, it is such language as Mr. Prinne teaches. The Parliament (saith he) is elective, consisting, for the most part, of the principal men in every County, City, Burrough, etc. And again, The Parliament consisting of the a blessed men of all Counties, 
Sovereign power of Parliaments, part. 1. page 39  etc. And in another place, whatsoever the people of Rome might do either Centuriatis comitiis, or Tribunitiis, is and may be done by the Authority of Parliament. The Lords were not elected out of Cities, Counties, Burroughs: Cannot resemble the Roman Comitia: therefore, in Mr. Prinnes Judgement, not so fitly to be called the Parliament.  
These things considered, Non subscribers had small reason to parallel the deposition of the King and Lords, 
Plea, etc. page 21, 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Med. 28.  with the Act of Corah, Dathan, and Abiram, as they do, borrowing this similitude from the late Tyrant, and fulfilling the prediction of the Publisher of that fine piece of Hypocrisy, Vota dabunt, quae Bella negârunt. For, 1. Moses was innocent in the administration of his Government, the King and Lords betrayed the trust reposed in them. 
In seditione enim, duas omnin● parts esse necesse est, quae cum de contradictoriis plerunque certen●, unius justam, alterius injustam causa● esse consequitur. Justa (inquit Bartolas) quae tyrannicum regimen deponere volet: inju●ta, quae justum. Licita, quae ad bonum publi●um, illicita quae ad privatum tendit. Itaque, ait Thomas, quia regnum Tyrannicum quod non ordinatur ad bonum publicum sed privatum regentis, non est justum, perturbatio istius Regni non habet rationem seditionis. Vindiciae contra Tyrannos. Quaest. 3. pag. 178, 179. Appendix to Sovereign Power of Parliaments, page 187.  2. The men that acted then, were not the Supreme Magistrate, nor so much as coordinate with Moses: The house of Commons, the faithful part of them I mean, which are proved before to be legally a House, are the Supreme Magistrates. 3. The cause was ambition in Corah and the rest: in the Parliament, the safety of the people. 4. The Action of Corah and his complices was sedition: but in opposing a Tyrant, the Tyrant and his complices are the seditious persons. For in sedition (that I may use Junius Brutus) it is necessary that there be always two parties, who when they strive about contradictory things, it must follow, that the one's cause is just, the others unjust. That is just (saith Bartolus) that would depose a tyrannical Government, that is unjust, which would depose a just Government: That is lawful, which tends to the Public good, that unlawful, which tends to a private good only. Therefore, saith Thomas, because a tyrannical rule which is not ordered to the public good, but to the private benefit of the Ruler is not just, the overthrowing of such a rule hath not the reason of sedition: unto which Mr. Prinne adds out of Aquinas, That it is the Tyrant rather that is seditious. As for that place out of the Epistle of Judas, wherein the error of some Christians is paralleled with Corah's sedition, it makes nothing for Non-scribers. For, 1. These Christians were mere private men, and the meaner sort of private men. 2. The Power they would have deposed was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and Aristotle understands, by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Supreme Power in a Commonwealth; they must therefore venture another strain of Criticism about that word, as well as they do about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which when they understand, we shall tell them that the Laws of England, and the People in their Representatives, the Masters and Makers of those Laws have the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 3. The sin by the Apostle there reproved, is the putting down of all Magistracy in general, not the deposing of faulty Magistrates, or changing inconvenient forms for those that are better. So that all Non scribers big words are but bruta fulmina: 
Mr. Perkins on the Epistle of Judas, ver. 8.  yet the People of England might do well to take notice, in what a miserable case their Ecclesiastic and Civil Liberties were, if such men's (as Non-scribers) domination, were not strictly limited, and narrowly confined.  
But what will Non-scriber, say, if I prove that the former constitution of the Government of the Nation was not deposed or dispossessed by the present power. The constitution of this Nation was a multiformed Government, say Non-scribers, and I add, that if it was a mixture of just species, it was of Royalty, Optimacy and Polity, properly so called. The Powers that were dispossessed were, Tyranny of a Scarlet die the in the late King, Oligarchy in a Company of Pattentee-Lords, and Ochlocracy in the seditious Commons, who voted a Treaty with the Tyrant, they complying with the seditious Surrey and Kentish Petitioners. Now Tyranny, Oligarchy, and Ochlocracy, are specifically different from limited and lawful Royalty, Aristocracy and Polity. And consequently the present power dispossessed a mere novel power. The former Government being dispossessed by the King turning Tyrant, the Lords accepting Patents, and the Commons that are excluded, abetting Tyranny and Tumults. Set the Saddle on the right Horse, and let Non-scribers judge who dispossessed their former Government. Nay, yet further, the Non-scribers and their beloved party, were they who, even according to their own principles, deposed the King, House of Lords, and Majority of the Commons. The civil being of a King is in his Royal Power, this Non-scribers Friends had taken from him, and made him not only less than a King, but then a private freeman, their Captive. 
Plea, etc. pag. 24.  The Majority of the Lords house they kept out, and according to Non-scribers principles, the Majority of a house is legally, and as to action and power, the whole house. 
Familiar est hominibus omnia sibi ignoscere, nihil aliis remittere, & invidiam rerum non ad causam, sed ad voluntatem personásque dirigere. Velleius Paterculus. Vol. Posterius.  The like they did by the Commons who followed the King to Oxford, who were (for aught I can learn) the Majority of that house. All these things they did by no less force than was used in that Non-scribers so much quarrel. It's a familiar practice among some men, to pardon themselves in every thing, others in nothing, and to cast the envy of actions upon other men, which when it stood with their own will and advantages they did themselves.  
But go to, let us see whether Non-scribers afford us not an Argument to prove the dispossession of the King and House of Lords, and his other Adherents lawful. In their Appendix they have this passage: some kinds of Governments are in their own nature unlawful; so is that of the Beast, Rev. 17. And the 10. King's [or Kingdoms many understand] giving their power and strength to the beast. Suppose now that it can be proved, that the King and those who would have reduced him in his impenitency, did give up their power to the Beast, (as I doubt not to prove that they did) will it not then follow, that their power was in its nature unlawful? and that it was lawfully dispossessed, which was a power of its self unlawful and not to be submitted to? 
Introduction to the Arch-Bishops Trial pag. 47.  go to then, let us see whether the King did not give up his power to the beast. I shall not here stand upon King James his Declaration (wherein he undertakes to suspend the execution of all Laws against Papists, and to hinder the making of any more) though published by Mr. Prinne: 
Popish Royal Favourite. pag. 41.  nor upon King Charles his Letter sent from Spain to the Pope, wherein he not only calls the Pope most holy Father, but averts himself to have been always fare from encouraging of novelties, or being a Partisan of any faction against the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Religion: upon which passage Mr. Prinne notes that our Religion was deemed but a novelty and faction by the King. 
Truth's manifest. p. 20. King's Cabinet opened. let. 8. p. 7. Ibidem. let. 19 p. 19 Popish Royal Favourite. p. 1. to 30. Introduction to the Arch-Bishops Trial. p. 84. 85. Cabinet opened. let. 7. p. 7.  He that dispatched a Commission under the great Seal of Scotland, to the Rebels in Ireland, to empower them to Massacre the English Protestants: He who did give his Popish Wife Authority in his name to promise that he would take away all penal Laws against the Roman Catholics, as soon as he was able: He that commanded his Lieutenant in Ireland to promise the like to the Irish Rebels: He that was always an uxorious observer of a Romish wife; that hath employed all his power to free Priests and Jesuits from danger; that to gratify their French King a Papist, lent him his Ships against the poor Protestants of Rochel, and hath armed many thousands of English Papists, besides Irish Rebels, against his Protestant Parliament: He that avoweth his constancy to Bishops, and all his own & the Queen's friends, whom Non-scribers have oft called Atheists and Papists: the man (I say) that hath done all this, hath given his power to the Beast: which power he hath by instigation of the Beasts Emissaries employed against the Lamb and his followers. They who would have set this man over us again, without any provision against his negative voice, or any taste of repentance, gave up their power to the Beast, in giving themselves up to him that was the Beasts Client. 
Declaration of the Irish in Ulster.  Nor is the state now changed, the interest of the Irish Rebels is now one with that of the declared Kings of Scotland, as they have publicly testified to the world. So that all that strive to reduce him serve the Anti hristian Interest, and it is remarkable, how the Irish Rebels, Scots and Non-scribers, agree in their opinions concerning our present Government. To conclude, such a power being unlawful in its nature, as Non-scribers tell us, is lawfully dispossessed by any that hath the power of a Magistrate, and hates the Beast, and all that refuse to exercise their power in destroying the Beasts Government, may well be concluded under the curse of Meroz, because they reward not the whore as she hath dealt with the Saints.  
The second Medium whereby Non-scribers would prove the Common wealth of England to be an unlawful power, 
Coal from the Altar p. 42. Plea, etc. p. 26. Arist. Polit. lib. 4. cap. 9  is in regard of its erection. And here they kindle like Dr. Cole against the Bishop of Lincoln, for saying the Children of the Commonwealth, we live (saith Heylin) in a Monarchy not under a Democracy. So they cry, at the first fight, it looks like that which they call a Democracy. If they would have consulted Aristotle, he would have told them what that is which looks like a Democracy, and is none; he lays it down as the mark of a perfectly mixed Polity, 
Qui concentus sanè admirabilis, illam exprimit laudatam Platoni Rempublicam, quam optimates regunt, cum plebis consensione. Hugo Grotius. De Antiquit. Reipub. Batavicae. cap. 1. pag. 38. vulgatum est nullam fisco praescriptionem nocere, multò verò minus universo populo, qui Rege poti●r est, cujúsque gratiâ Princepids privilegium habet, Vindiciae contra Tyrannos. Quaest. 3. pag. 96. Appendix. pag. 36.  to be so mixed of Oligarchy and Democracy, that its doubtful whether the form of the Commonwealth be Oligarchical or Democratical. So is the Commonweal of England mixed, the people's election of their Delegates is Democratical, the Government of these Deligates is Oligarchical, they being chosen out of the wealthiest of every County: and both these put together, make up a Pol tie as Aristotle calls it; but as Plato (whose terms differ from Aristottles) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To prove the erection of this unlawful, they much labour; but that toil of theirs might very well have been spared. The people of this Land have in all ages had a supreme power over their King and Lords, which was exercised by their Representatives; who by old Laws were to meet twice a year, and by a latter Statute once a year, though the Tyranny of wicked Kings had brought that of late into a disuse. Which prescription, notwithstanding, cannot take away the People's right. It's vulgarly said, That no prescription lies against the King's Exchequer, much less can a prescription lie against the People, who are greater than the Prince, and for whose sake the Prince hath that privilege, 
Dicores quatuor esse in quibus sita est tota vis & Majestas Reipublicae, nimirum, Jus Magistratuum creandorum, Deliberationes omnes de Pace & de Bello, Legum lationes, tandèmque Provocationes. Donatus Janottius de Repub. Venetâ. pag. 59 Speed. Book. 5. Chap. 5. Suma imperii bellique administrandi, communi concilio commissa est ●assivellau●e.— Nostro adventu commoti Britani, hunc toti bello, imperióque praefecerant. Caesar Commenter. l●b. 5. Spe. d. lib. 7. cap. 1. S. 6.  saith Junius Brutus. The form of Government is that which dat esse & operari, as Non-scribers say, and natural order and reason requires that propriae operationes propriae formae respondeant: if therefore it be proved, that the Representatives have ever had de jure a power to do the Acts proper to the supreme power, it will follow that the supreme power was formally in them, and that they were a Commonwealth, having supreme Authority in themselves. Let me here use the words of a learned Florentine, I say (saith he) that there are four things, in which the whole power and Majesty of every politic body is placed, the power of creating Magistrates, all deliberations concerning Peace and War, making of Laws, and the last appeals: If therefore the Representatives of the people have had the right, to create all general Magistrates, to consult of Peace and War, to make and abrogate Laws, and the privilege of the last appeal to be made to them, they have been the supreme power. That they have had these Rights, I shall prove and begin first with Creation of Magistrates. Julius Caesar (before whose entrance into this Island, the times are obscure, through whose mists no Eagles eyes can pierce, as the beloved Historian of Non-scribers, Speed confesseth) found the supreme power of electing Magistrates, in a Common-Councel of the people. The chief power of Rule, and administering the War, was by a Common Council committed to Cassivellau●e. And again, the Brit●ains being troubled at our landing, set him (that is Cassivellaune) over the whole War and Empire. The Common Council then that made Cassivellaune King and General, was a Tan-Britanicum, an Assembly representing all Britain. And when the Romans quitted their tooting here, the Britain's being invaded by the Picts, jointly united their means and powers, and with one consent elect a King to manage those affairs which was Vortigerne, whom afterwards they deposed and elected his Son Vortimer. But I must for further satisfaction in this point refer them to the Author of the Rights of the Kingdom, who after many Examples of such Creation of Kings, concludes thus: We see the Law, at lest the custom of those times, both for electing, anointing, judging and executing of Kings themselves, among our British Ancestors. Concerning our Saxon Ancestors (saith the same Author) the Minor is very clear, that they did elect or choose their Kings from among themselves, who well agrees therein with the witness of Tacitus, 

Rights of the Kingdom. p. 55. Rights of the Kingdom. p. 35. Reges ex n●bilitate, deuces ex virtute sumunt. Tacitus de moribus Germanorum.  
Sovereign Power of Parliaments, part. ●. p 78.  
Sovereign Power of Parliaments. part. 2. p. 41.  
Sovereign Power of Parliaments. part. 1. p. 91.   who speaking of the ancient Germans (of whom the Saxons were a branch) saith, they chose their Kings for their Nobility, their Leaders for their virtue: which Testimony informs us, that they ennobled some for their virtues, and out of them chose their Kings. Concerning the Normans I have spoken already. To conclude with the Testimony of Mr. Prinne, who tells us, That our Parliament and Kingdom (observe the opposition) anciently have both claimed and exercised a Supreme Power over the Crown of England itself, and that we may be sure what he means by Parliament, in another place he saith out of Fortescue, Chancellor of England in Henry the sixth's time, that Kings were created and elected at first by the general Votes of the people, from whom alone they receive all their lawful Authority, having still no other or greater lawful power than they conferred on them, (only for the defence of Laws, Persons, Liberty's Estates and the Republics welfare) which they may regulate, augment, or diminish for the common good as they see just cause. Neither did the setting of Kings over them, divest them of the supreme power itself, if Mr. Prinne (while a defender of Parliaments) may be credited. I doubt not (saith he) but our Parliaments, Kings, and all other Nations would say, they never intended to erect such an absolute, eternal, unlimited Monarchy over them, and that they ever intended to reserve the absolute, original, sovereign jurisdiction in themselves, that if their Princes should degenerate into Tyrants, they might have a remedy to preserve themselves. An impregnable evidence that the whole Kingdom and Parliament representing it, (observe what is a Parliament, the Representative of a Kingdom, and then not the Lords that represent no body) are the most Sovereign power, and above the King, because having the supreme jurisdiction in them at first, they never totally transferred it to the King, but reserved it in themselves. I should tyre my Reader, should I say all that might be said concerning the Commons Creation of other Magistrates. 
Sovereign Power of Parliaments. part. 2. p. 7.  Mr. Prinne brings in Sir Edward Cook, affirming, that the Lord Chancellor, Treasurer, privy Seal●, Lord chief Justice▪ Privy Councillors, Heretoches, Sheriffs, with all Officers of the Kingdom of England, and Constables of Castles, were usually elected by the Parliament, to whom of ancient right their election belonged, who being commonly styled the Lord Chancellor, Treasurer, chief Justice, etc. of England, not of the King, were of right elected by the Representative body of the Realm of England, to whom they were accountable for their misdemeanours.  

Rights of the Kingdom. p. 77. 78.  2. All consultations of Peace and War, of right appertain to the Commons of England. It was the great Council (saith the Author of the Rights of the Kingdom) that treated with and against the Romans at all times, and when the Romans could not attend the Britain's fear, it was this that called in their Neighbours first, and after the Saxons. All military Affairs (saith Mr. Prinne) of the Kingdom heretofore, have originally of right (for their original, 
Sovereign power of Parliaments. part. 2. p. 5.  determining, councelling, disposing part) been ordered by the Parliament, the Ministerial only by the King. The Act of 28. E. 1. settles the Militia in the subject (saith Mr. Derham) and adds, the absolute and general power of the Militia, and the Militia positive or regulated by positive Laws, 
Manuel of the Rights of Parliament. p. 95. 98.  are both by Law invested in the people, or the Representative body, the Parliament. And again, the same Author (whose whole book tends to vindicate the supreme power of the People's Representatives) saith, We may safely conclude, that the Subjects right, and consequently of their Representative body to dispose of the Militia and great Offices of the Kingdom, remaineth yet undoubted to this day. In a word, neither King nor Lords, jointly nor severally, had any power to mould or manage a new Militia, or raise a man, or levy a farthing towards the payment of an Army, before the Commons by their Legislative power had decreed a War, the proportion of Men and Horses to be raised, and of money to be levied, so that though we grant the King and Lords as Heretoches, etc. to have had an executive power, as General, Colonels, Captains, etc. yet the Commons ever had power to decree Peace and War, and the supreme power over these their Ministers.  
3. The interest of the Commons in the supreme legislative power, hath been evidenced already out of the Coronation-Oath, to which may be added that of Fortesc●e, 
Sovereign Power of Parliament. part. 1. p. 38.  quoted by Mr. Prinne. The King who is head of that politic body, cannot change the Laws of that body, neither can withdraw from the said people their proper substance, without their wills and consents; for such a King ●f a Kingdom politic, is made and ordained for the defence of his Subjects Laws, and of their Bodies and Goods, whereunto he receiveth power of his people, so that he cannot govern his people by any other Law. 
Rights of the Kingdom. pag. 89.  The Author of the Rights of the Kingdom tells us, that if we look to the old Writ of Summon●, we shall find the Commons called ad consentiendum & faciendum; and the old Writ added, quod quilibet & omnes de Comitatu facerent, vel faceret, si personaliter interessent, as it is in the modus of Parliament, with sufficient intimation, that without the Commons nothing could be done: which the late Writ expresses thus, Ita ut dicta negotia infecta non remaneant pro defectu potestatis: but the Lords are called, de quibusdam arduis tractaturi & consilium impensuri, etc. only as Councillors, not as Lawmakers; for the very same words are in the Writs for Judges and others coming to Parliament, although they do not vote in making Laws. 

Sovereign power of Parliament, p. 47. & 51. of the first part.  
Ibidem. part. 1. pag. 43.   And if it should be replied, that Statutes are said to be enacted by the King and Lords, as well as the Commons, I shall answer, that the King's consent is required ex debito, by virtue of his Office, to every Law the Commons make, and he cannot alter one tittle of it: nor hath he any negative voice in matters of common Justice, and that Laws might have been made if all the Lords had been absent, as Mr. Prinne telleth us from Vowel: whereas the Commons were neither bound to give consent to what the King and Lords proposed, nor could the King and Lords act any thing without their consent.  
4. The privilege of the last appeal, was the Jure, the right of the Commons. Mr. Prinne calls the Knights, 
Sovereign power of Parliament. part. 2. p. 24  Citizens and Burgesses of the Parliament, the supreme Councillors and Judges of all others, to whom all other Courts, Councillors, Officers, Judges are responsible, for their actions, judgements, advice. Appeals arise, either from obscurity of Laws, and who so fit to interpret Laws, as they that make them? or from new cases not yet by Law determined, and then the Legislative power must only interpose: or from the corruption of officers and errors in judgement, and then none are so fit to judge as they who have the Fountain-Power, and derive it to all other Officers.  
Thus having showed that the supreme power hath appertained of r●ght to the Representatives of the people, it will follow that the Commonwealth of England is not a thing of yesterday erection; but the Commonwealth which hath heretofore been, doth now more clearly appear; we have the proper fundamentals of our most ancient Government still standing: the alteration or abolishing of some Offices and names of Magistrates, 
Commutatis Magistratuum nominibus atque officiis non statim alia Respublica est; dum vissumma imperii primáque potestas, & illa, ut ita dicam, mens qua corpus omne movet atque continet, una maneat atque eadem. Grotius. Epist. Dedic. ante libellum de Antique Reipub. Batavicae. Nec essentiam Reip. Romanae concidisse quis dixerit, cum exactis Regibus, Majestas ad Optimates transiret. Jacobus Lampadius Tract. de Repub. Romano-German. par. 1. S. 60. Plea, etc. pag. 27.28. Plea, etc. pag. 29.  doth not make a new kind of Government, as long as the supreme primary power, and the soul (as I may call it) which moves and quickens the whole politic body, remains one and the same. Let no one say (saith a learned politic Councillor of the Duke of Brunswick's) that the essence of the Roman Commonwealth perished, when the Kings being driven out, the Majesty passed to the Optimates: much less, is a new form of Government erected where the Majesty remains in the same Subjects that ever it did. The King's power being but executive, the Lords judicial, both but fiduciary and upon trust, the Commonwealth laying them both aside for breach of trust, can no more be said to have changed its Government and erected a new one, than a Master of a Family that turns away a wasteful Steward, and some other unfaithful Servants, and fulls thriftily to deconomize himself, can be said to change the form and nature of his Fami●y-Government.  
From what hath been said it appears.  
1. That the House of Commons had a power to lay aside the King and House of Lords, in case of breach of trust.  
2. That their power by taking of them away is not lost, that house being as a soul to the body, without whom the King and House of Lords were a liveless trunk, and could do nothing.  
3. That the power which at present they enjoy, is that wherewith they were invested by the people, when they chose them to be their Representatives, so that their power is not of themselves, as calumniating Non-scribers would persuade us. Neither will what they quote from the Army's Declaration be of any avail to them. We say (with the Army) that the continuance of the same Representatives is not fit to be drawn into ordinary precedents, lest their power should be corrupted by length of time: yet in times of extraordinary danger, when a great part of the people are disaffected to the means of their own safety, and elections are like to be made of such as would return us (it may be) to our former slavery, it is not unjust that power be continued in the hands of the present faithful Representatives, who yet are not to be looked upon as those that must ever, continue in t●at power: that which we engage to is to the commonwealth of England, which intimates (as was said before) succession of Representatives.  
Non-scribers add to prove the power unjust. 
Plea, etc. page 30.  1. That it is against the Ancient and indubitable legal Rights and Tithes of the King, Prince and Peers, to their respective hereditary dignities and powers. To this may be answered. 1. That those powers and dignities in their first institution were not hereditary: this hath been proved already. And further, things properly transmittable from Father to Son as Inheritances, are only bona fortunae; 
1 Chron. 23.1. with 1 Chron. 29.22.  Kingdoms and dignities are not so communicable. Solomon was no King till the people had the second time anointed him, notwithstanding his designation by his Father. Ahaziah notwithstanding the death of his Father and elder Brethren, 
2 Chron. 22.1.  was not King till the Inhabitants of Jerusalem had made him so. 
Lex. Rex. Quest. 10. pag. 76.  Nor doth the settling the Kingdom succession upon a line by a Law, make the Kingdom the King's Inheritance. Arnisaeus saith, that the Son hath not the right of reigning as the patrimony of the people, but as a propriety given him by the Law of the Kingdom by his parents; which assertion (saith Mr. Rutherford) is all one as if he said, the Son hath not the right of reigning as the patrimony of the people, but as the patrimony of the people, which is good nonsense: for the propriety of reigning given from Father to Son by the Law of the Kingdom is nothing but a right to reign, given by the Law of the people, and the very gift and patrimony of the people. He adds many arguments to prove that Kingdoms go not as a heritage from Father to Son. To whom I may add Junius Brutus, who denies, 
Vindiciae contra Tyrannos. Quaest. 3.  and that upon good grounds, that the King is either proprietary, or so much as the usufructuary of his Kingdom: much less hath he such an interest in it, as a man hath in his Inheritance. An Inheritance may be sold, pawned, changed, 
Grotius. de jure belli & pacis l. 1. cap. 4. §. 10.  none of these can be attempted by a King to be done to his Kingdom without losing his right to it. For the Lords, Mr. Rutherford saith, That the King can make heritable Judges more than he can communicate faculties and parts of judging, I doubt. Riches are of Fathers, but not promotion, etc. Honour is properly the reward of virtue, and consequently not properly communicable to posterity. Our Lords were at first elected by the People, and ennobled for their virtues. 2. Though we should grant, that the Kings had the Kingdom, and the Lords their dignities as Inheritances, yet the right to an Inheritance may be lost, may be seized. Where God hath not bound conscience, men may not bind themselves and their posterity; but God hath not bound any Nation irrevocable to any Royal line or form of Government: Ergo, No Nation can bind their conscience, 
Lex. Rex. que. 10. pa. 78.  or the conscience of posterity either to one Royal line, or irrevocably and unalterably to Monarchy. 
Superior verò universus populus, quíve eum repraesentant. Vindicae contra Tyrannos, Quae. 3. p. 178.  So Mr. Rutherford. Junius Brutus tells us that a Tyrant doth In populum tanquam in Feudi Dominum feloniam committere, commit Felony against the People as against the Lord of his fee; and adds from Bartolus, that he may be deposed, and punished by his Superior, and his Superior is the whole people, or they that represent them. Treason according to our Laws taints the blood, and makes the children of Traitors uncapable to succeed in any thing of inheritance. The Kings of England were as much subject to Law as any private Subject. 
Sovereign power of Parliaments, part. 1. pag 34.  Though in exhibendo jure he were maximus, yet in suscipiendo jure (saith Bracton in Mr. Prinne) minimo de Regno suo comparatur. He was to be obedient to suffer right, as well as others of his people, saith another Lawyer out of the Mirror, an ancient Law-book. No wrong therefore is done to King or Prince, 
Rights of the Kingdom, p. 31.  they having committed Treason against their own Crown and dignity, by raising war against their people, and so falling from all right to their hereditary dignities. Had it been true that Naboth had blasphemed God and the King, it had been no sin in Ahab to have seized upon his vineyard, though the inheritance of his father. Non-scribers brethren that call themselves a Pack of old Puritans, show themselves to be a Pack of Episcopaturient Parafites, by their making the King as innocent as Naboth, and the Kingdom as much his Inheritance as Naboth's vineyard was to him. The Lords also by denying concurrence with the Commons in proceed against the Tyrant and his friends, betrayed as much as in them lay the Commonwealth, and therefore are deservedly removed from that Authority they had. The great Charter saith, Nulli negabimus, nulli vendemus, nulli differemus justitiam. The Lords denying justice, broke that which is (if any be) a fundamental Law of the Nation, and for that are justly punished by the Commons their Superiors. A Judge delaying, or denying justice, may be deprived of his office, and why not the Lords? whose office (if they be not of the nature of those officers who have nec munus nec usum) was judicial only, as was showed before.  
2. That it is against the House of Commons; 
Plea, etc. p. 31.  but to prove that they bring nothing but the cram bis cocta, of the Engagement of the Declaration of April 17. 1646. the putting of the name of the House upon a part, and the prostitution of privileges; all which have been spoken to already.  
3. That it is injurious to the people. 
Plea, etc. ibid. In civium numero non sunt habendi, violatores enim sunt humanae societatis, aut certà proditores. Buchanan. de Jure Regni apud Scotos.  1. In bereaving them of their Ancient Authority, & imposing a new, without and against their wills. The removal of what authority is taken away is justified: no new one is imposed, as hath been proved. What is done is so far from being against ●he people's wills, that the best of them rejoice at it, & praise God for it: the rest that would have colluded with the Tyrant, are not to be accounted Members of any civil society, because they are violaters of, or traitors to humane society. 2. In debarring from the House of Commons, Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses chosen by them; yet the people were not wronged by debarring from the House of Commons those that denied the Covenant. The House may exercise Authority over their own Members, without wrong to the people: to whom it is the greatest blessing, to have those punished that would betray them, that trusted them. 3. In bringing things upon them which the Scripture makes a curse. To this I say. 1. That things done by Law, as the King's execution, and the abolition of Kingly and Lordly power were, cannot be said to be done violently. 2. That all the violence that was used was justifiable against him that violently assaulted their House, and raised up Arms against his Parliament and people. 3. It's no curse to be freed from a Tyranny, I deny a Tyranny to be a Kingdom. 4. Kingly Rule is not a more especial blessing then any other Government. God when he settled Israel in the best condition gave them a Commonwealth: 
Num●. 11.6, 17. Luk. 22.25, 26. Rev. 17.12, 13.  and Christ notes those Nations to be miserably Lorded over, who had Kings, though such slaves, as Non scribers, called them Benefactors, and tells his disciples, it should not be so among them. King's are foretell of as being the horns of the Beast, and that time we are yet under, few Kings being not the Beasts slaves. 
Mera somnia & certa signa hominis laborantis febri Monarchicâ. Bellarmin. enervatus. lib 3. cap. 1. Rarò in aulis Regum Deo haberi justum honorem. Marlorat. In Matt. 27.14. Historical vindication of the Kirk of Scotland, part. 1. p. 66. Voluptatum illecebris tracti & falsâ specie honoris decepti. De Jure Regni apud Scotos. G. Buchanan. Epig. lib. 1. De Casare & Codro.  Dr. Ames tells Bellarmine (who held Monarchy to be the best of Governments) that his commendation of Monarchy was an idle and foolish speculation, and this his proofs of it (which are somewhat like in strength to Non scribers sweet stuff) were nothing else but mere dreams of one sick of a Monarchical Fever. Marlorate out of Calvin notes, that God is seldom duly honoured in King's Courts. Mr. Catherwood, an eminent Scotch Divine, the Author of Altar Damascenum, wrote and published, that in all Kings naturally there is an hatred to Christ: which Mr. Baily doth vindicate and approve, though he over-mollifies Mr. Catherwood's sense. Buchanan affirms, that the Kings of his days were such as would never yield to be defined by those things that were necessary to the definition of a King, and describes them as those that are broken with the allurements of pleasures, and deceived with a false show of honour. An Epigram he hath to this sense.  

Pro patriae in strictos Codrus ruit impiger enses:  
In patriam flummas Caesar & arma tulit.  
Ille suo patrias firmavit sanguine leges:  
At patriae peperit sanguine Caesar ope●  
Nemo tamen regum j●ctat se nomine Codri:  
Caesareum nemo non sibi nomen avet.  
Quae ratio? in promptu est: nam qui nunc regna tuentur,  
Illius oderu it istius acta probant.   

Codrus for's Country rushed on swords of foes:  
Caesar by fire and sword wrought's country's woes.  
By Codrus death his country's Laws firm stood:  
Caesar (to rob his Country) spilt much blood.  
Yet no King boasteth of Codrus his Name:  
But all think Caesar 's stile adds to their fame.  
Why so? the reason's plain: for all Kings now  
Caesar 's acts love, Codrus his disavow.   
What instruments of the Churches good our late Kings have been, old Puritans can tell: Non-scribers (I believe) but claim brotherhood with old Puritans. Many a sad heart hath been poured out by them that were really old Puritan, for the anguish of their souls, and their cruel bondage under our late Kings. Mr. Prinne, I believe, will not refuse the name of an old Puritan, and yet he tells us that we could have no assurance of the last Kings maintaining Protestant Religion, which he draws as a Corollary or conclusion from all the Engagements, Oaths, Promises and Ties, 
Popish Royal Favourite, p. 72.  wherein he had tied himself to the Popish party. From all this it is evident, that the Parliament hath not deprived the people of any thing truly a bl●ssing, but rather freed them from the curse and snare of the reign of Hypocrites: 
Job 34.30.  as the last perjured Tyrant was, and the King of Scotland little better, who underhand upheld Montrosse, and publicly disavowed him; who took the Covenant, and then refused to testify his humiliation for the blood that lay upon himself and house, shed in acting against the grounds & ends of the Covenant; who feigned such a humiliation at last, & yet is lately declared by a party in Scotland, to be walking in opposition to God and the Covenant. 4ly, Non-scribers say the people are wronged by endangering of them to a war either civil or foreign. But who could have promised that if the King and Lords had continued we should have been free from war? The Army in they Declaration of Novemb. 16. 1648. evidence beyond all reply the certainty of those troubles and commotions▪ which would have ensued upon compliance with the King, (where they also testify their Humiliation for the Passages Non-scribers urge, and I should think it not very Christianlike dealing to plead that as a man's testimony which he professes his repentance of.) To what purpose else were his Commissions continued to the late Prince, Montrosse and Ormona, if he kept them not as a reserve to war upon us, 

Auctáque cum bello sama & opes. Grotius, Ep●st. v d. ante Ant. scip. Bat.  
Civitas, in●redibilc memoratu, a● epic li●ertate, quantum brevi creverit. Sallust. Bellum. Catilinar.   when he had once mounted the Throne again? Besides, a war with liberty is a far better condition then quiet with slavery: so much the better, by how much a people may more easily resist professed oppositions, than burdens and grievances masked under the name of public Authority, and backed with force. Our Neighbours of Holland have been so far from th' nking the continuing of the r war a wrong to them, that they have been great gainers by it. When the people of Rome had shaken off the●r Kings, it's a wonder to say (saith Sallust) how the City grew in a short space having gotten liberty. 
Judg. 3.27, 28.  Ehud wronged-not Israel, when after he had slain Egl●n, he blew the Trumpet, and called the people, by War, quite to shake off the Moabitish yoke. Would such as Non-scibers cease to abuse the Parliaments lenity, and the People's credulity, we should less fear civil commotions: and for foreign enemies (blessed be God) he hath delivered us, and we hope will yet deliver. Lastly, Non-scribers say the people are wronged, 
Plea, etc. P. 33.  because the force, Bond, and security of all the Laws, are changed by this change. To this I say, That the Laws are the people's Laws, they choose them, they make them their representatives, are the supreme Magistrates, who have the supreme Authority, to make and confirm a Law, and as long as the people want not these, the security of the Laws can never fail: but their security is so much the more provided for, by how much any power that pretends interest, in the making or confirming of a Law, besides the Representers of the people is kerbed. So that the People's Laws are more secure now, being out of danger of being hindered in their making by a royal advisera, or in their execution, by protections against Law, flowing from an unlimited prerogative. And whereas Non-scribers say, that the Parliament hath violated the Legal, and most foundational property of their Superiors; I would have them know, that the people of England represented in Parliament, have no superiors under God, which is a truth of such force, as drew from King James himself a confession, that he was no other than the great Servant of the Commonwealth. 
Plea, etc. p. 34.  The punishment against such as engage not (which Non scribers urge to prove, that the security of Law is loosed) is no other than the Rational practice of all our Law-Courts. viz: To deny them the benefit of the Law, who deny the jurisdiction of the Court: And they deny the jurisdiction of all Courts which is but derivative, who deny the Supreme power of the Com-monwealth of England, which is in respect of other Courts, Original and fountain power.  

Plea, etc. pag. 35, 36.  I have thus done with their first Argument, which militated ('tis Non-scibers paedantique word) against the Engagement abstractly considered, I shall come now to a view of their second ground which, concerns them, (they say) as English men; As ●●e●, say they, are preingaged, and in regard of precedent obligations, it would be perfidy (another of their Elegancies) to engage in this; Their engagements are twofold, as Subjects, as sworn under that relation. Their first argument in pursuance of this second reason is this. If the tye of Subjects to Magistrates is upon us, in relation to an Authority and Government, which cannot be said to be a Commonwealth, without a King and house of Lords, than we cannot engage; but such a tie is upon us, Ergo. I deny the Minor, there is no such tie upon them, or any English man. The power to which they say they were obliged, was not a power consisting of three coordinate estates, as they suppose, but, of a Polity or Commonwealth, the University of the people, being represented by their chosen delegates, in whom all Majesty and supreme power of the Commen-wealth resided, the King, an honorary Servant of the Commonwealth, to see its Laws put in execution, and the Lords, as Judges appointed to judge between the Commonwealth and King. When the Commons say, that the fundamental Government consists in the King, 
Plea. page 37.  Lords and Commons, fundamental is to be taken in its largest sense, and we must distinguish between what is properly, what is ascititiously fundamental. That a people inhabiting together in one Land, be a Commonwealth having all power to themselves, for self-preservation, and are to be governed by whom themselves shall choose, is natural, and properly fundamental: that they set a King to execute their Edicts, and Lords to judge him in case of miscarriage, is voluntary and improperly fundamental. If therefore the Representatives of the people, by the people's fountain-power, which they neither can, or do give up to any King or Lord, do take away the King and Lords, to whom the people cannot be given up irrevocably, the King and Lords so taken away are no more a power, have no more Authority. Let us now hearken how they prove, that this authority of the King and Lords remains, (for that the House of Commons is still a legal representative of the people, hath been proved already: and I shall avoid repetitions, as far, as following Non-scribers, in their wild goose chase will give me leave.) They say, 
Plea, etc. p. 38.  The only ways of dissolving Government appliable to the occasion are, either that it must be done by some Act of those in power to do it, or by forcible and violent ejection. That what was done, was done by unjust violence, I deny: that it was done by them, who had lawful power to do it, I affirm. Nonscribers strive to prove that they which did it, (for they confess acts of repeal to have been made) were not qualified with power to do it, by two Medium's. 1. Because they never had such power committed to them, nor did any of their capacity ever exercise such a power. To this I confidently reply, that the Representatives of a Nation, (In all Nations that have had the happiness to enjoy such) have a power to depose their Tyrannical Magistrates, by what name or title soever they be called, (Proof of which may be seen at large in Junius Brutus, 
De illarum sanctionum genere, quae mutationibus temporum non sunt obnoxiae, sed in primo generis humani natu in mentes hominum incisae sunt, & mutuo propé omnium gentium consensu comprobatae, & unà cum rerum natura, irrefragabiles & sempiternae perennent, ipsaeque nullius imperiis obnoxia omnibus dominentur & imperent. Bucan. Rerum. Scotic. lib. 20.  and the Author of the Treatise, De jure Magistratus in subditos,) and that by a Law, which is of kind to those sanctions, which are not obnoxious to the changes of times, but were at the beginning of mankind, engraven upon the minds of men, and approved by the mutual consent of all Nations, and (together with nature itself) are irrefragable and eternal, ruling over all, subject to none. I borrow the expression of some honourable Scotch Lords Ambassador to Queen Elizabeth, in justification of their ejection of Mary Grandmother to our late Tyrant. And for their ignorance of any such principle in Scripture, it argues their careless search of it. There they might find Israel using their native liberty, in deposing Samuel, and setting up a King, though Samuel was innocent, and God himself was interessed: As also the defection of Libnah, (one of the Priests Cities) from under the hand of Jeboram, because he had forsaken the Lord God of his Fathers: and if one City for themselves may reject a King, much more the representatives of a whole Nation. 2. They say, the legislative power, was seated in three estates, therefore the Abrogative: The falsehood of which assertion I have showed before. Kings of politic kingdoms as (England was in Fortescue's Judgement) cannot change the Laws, 
2 Chronicles 21.10. Sovereign power of Parliaments. Part. page 37.  but the people are to be ruled by Laws only of their own making. If the Representatives of the people have by the Law of nature, a power over their Magistrates, and have exercised in it almost all Nations, and the legislative power in England rests in them, they had a power sufficient to take away the King, and House of Lords, and the powers that are taken away by their lawful superiors are no Power, nor doth any tye lie upon their quondam Subjects to obey them.  
What they add ex abundanti, 
Eccles. 5.1, 2, 3. Plea, etc. page 41. Rom. 13.7.  to prove the power of King and Lords still to remain, is from such abundance, as their sacrifice is, whose voice is known by a multitude of words; indeed, mere Battology.  
They say 1. The sanction of that Government from God is not disannulled, they busy themselves to find out a way how it may be said to be dissolved. I shall tell them, 
Obedientia limitari semper debet, secundùm limites potestatis, quam habet superior praecipiens. Medulla Theol. lib. 2. cap. 17. Thes. 54. Plea, etc. page 42.  God commanding obedience to powers, commands to give every one their due; and learned Aims will tell them, that obedience ought always to be limited, according to the limits of the power of the superior commanding; whence he concludes that the bond of obedience to an inferior power ceases, when the superior power commands it not to be obeyed. We may safely conclude then, that the Sanction of obedience to King and Lords is disannulled by the taking away of their Offices by the Representatives of the People of England, their lawful Superiors.  
2. They would persuade us that the original constitution of the people, in King, Lords and Commons coordinate is not made void. But the people never constituted such a Lordly King and Kingly Lords as they dream of, they never gave them a joint power with themselves. Non-scribers are pitifully mistaken, in saying, that the people chose their Delegates to consult and concurrently act with the King in Parliament. They were chosen ad faciendum, as the writ of Summons speaks, to make Laws for Kings and Lords as well as others, not to be only Councillors, or concurrent actors with them. For their Reasons (which they say they would produce to prove that it is unlawful for a people to depose their supreme Magistrate) they would be very impertinent at the present; for the supreme Magistrate is not deposed as long as the House of Commons stands, and (I doubt) unconclusive, unless they fully answer what Mr. Rutherford and Mr. Prinne two of their own friends, have said in asserting the people's power in that particular.  
3. Laws (say they) are not repealed, that give the sway of Government to certain persons and their issue. To which I answer, that such Laws, 
Plea, etc. page 43.  (if such there were) are at lestwise virtually repealed in the Acts for taking away the Kingly Office and House of Lords, and such repeals are lawful, the whole legislative power being in the Representatives of the people, who (as an House) are above all our common Law and positive Statutes, and may change, altar, and abrogate them, as they see most rationally convenient for the public utility of the people. These things considered, engaging will appear nothing contrary to the Scriptures they quote (page 37.) The Senate was above Caesar, and our Representatives of greater power than the Roman Senate, the Parliament and people are the highest power. No King is dishonoured by a Tyrant's deposition, no Ordinance of God is violated, since God never ordained Tyranny in Exercise more than in Title. Non-scribers are the men given to change, who joined with the Parliament in Arms against the King ere a while, and one of the highest Acts of Sovereignty is the voting and making War) and now are ready to join, with his hopeless brood against the Parliament.  

Plea, etc. page 44. In Judaeos' & Mahumeristas sub Christianism● latitantes exerceri solet. Grotius. Antiqu. Reip. Bat. c. 6. Paul Servita, History of the Inquisition. page 12.  Their second Argument to prove that they are preingaged, is grounded upon their Oaths, Protestations, Covenants. Of which they affirm. 1. Their contrariety to the Engagement. 2. Their unremitted obligation. In the entry to the answer of this Argument, I cannot but observe, that Non-scribers make the same use of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, Protestation and Covenant, which the Spaniards make of the Inquisition-Office, which being at the first erected for the purging out of Jews and Moors, professed enemies to Christianity, is now used for the keeping out of all power of Christianity from coming amongst them: so those Oaths and Obligations which were at first imposed to secure us against the enemies of our State, and to discover Priests, Jesuits, and Cavaliers, are now urged in the favour of a party, who hath interwoven their interest so, with that of the Romanists and Malignant Royalists, that (should they be observed with Non-scribers interpretation) our Religion and Liberties are likely utterly to be subverted, at lestwise we should be put into as dangerous contests for them, as we have (through God's assistance) waded through, in our late commotions. Should we grant them that those former Engagements are opposite to the Engagement (which well may be denied, in the proof of which negative some of late have worthily traveled) yet it will not thence follow, that the Engagement is unlawful, if it may be made appear that the obligation of them is ceased. Non-scribers confess, 
Plea, etc. page 52.  that an Oath may be rendered void.  
1. By the revocation of a Superior, having lawful power in the matter of the Oath. The lawfulness of the superiority of the People's Representatives over the King, etc. hath been proved, and if they had power over the Powers to whom the Oath is made, so that they might lawfully divest them of their power, they had power over allegiance, the matter of the Oath. Neither is this power of theirs over the matter of the Oaths weakened by any thing that Non-scribers say. For 1. Notwithstanding the Oath of Supremacy, acknowledges the King to be supreme Governor, yet the Parliament and Kingdom are the supreme power, paramount to him, saith Mr. Prinne. He was the supreme executioner of public justice, had a supreme executive power, but not a supreme legislative power, 
Sovereign Power of Parliaments: part. 1. pag● 104.105.  that still was retained by the Representatives of the people. To this we may add what Mr. Prinne saith, that the supremacy given to the King, relates to the Popes and foreign Prince's Authority formerly usurped, not to Parliaments and their jurisdiction, with whom Mr. Rutherford well agrees, who scaning how the King is called supreme, saith he is called so in opposition to all foreign jurisdictions, 
Lex. Rex. Quest. 43. page 437.  and over all Persons and Estates separatim, but not over Laws, or over Estates taken conjunctim, as convened in Parliaments. The King was Major singulis; but minor universis: so that asserting him supreme in the Oath of supremacy, infers not that his power and consequently allegiance, was not under the power of any other: for though he was supreme in respect of every single person, yet the Representatives of their whole Nation were above him. 2. Notwithstanding all the Knights and Burgesses of the House of Commons took the Oath of Allegiance themselves, it will not follow that they had no power over allegiance, they took that Oath as private men, not as Representers of the Majesty of the people. As Parliament-men, they cannot fall under the notion of singulars, they vote not as singulars, but as public Representative persons, as those who have the power of the Counties and Towns they represent entrusted to them: they therefore representing the community of the whole Nation are not, were not properly Subjects. Every singular person was a Subject to the King; but the whole Community or University of the Nation is a Commonwealth, having a Nomothetique power in itself, Paramount to all its Magistrates; and this University is represented by the House of Commons. They therefore as Representatives might vote, as a Parliament might enact the abrogation of allegiance. As for that evasion of Non-scribers, That the privilege of a Superior to unloose the Oath or Vow of his inferior is expressly restrained by the Law of God to the immediate declared dissent of the Superior. 
Plea, etc. pag. 53.  I answer, that granting this were so, the Parliament never gave way to the taking off the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy in Non-scribers sense, they never intended to make the King above Parliaments, they never gave him an irrecoverable power, as I have showed before out of Mr. Prinne. They assented that the Oaths should be taken, whereby the King was acknowledged the supreme executer of the Laws, it will not follow from hence that they made him free from all Laws, that he should not be as a Subject to them, as the meanest of his Subjects, as by ancient Laws he ought to be: nay, they could not do this, it had been a giving up the power entrusted by the people to them, and could not have obliged the people, 
Sen. Contr. lib. 2. Cont. 9  et si parendum in omnibus Patri, in eo non parendum est, quo efficitur nè Pater sit, The Parliament gave the King a power to execute Laws made and to be made by them the makers of all Laws: the King by force, endeavours to cut in sunder the Laws which he ought to have protected, and raises Arms against the Parliament his superior, to the dissolution of their Government, as they voted May 23. 1642. he hereby becomes guilty of High Treason, the Law excludes Traitor's issue from all hereditary successions: here is no need of dissent to the Oaths once taken for upholding his Authority, it was forfeited by himself, his Superiors by Law executed him, by Law judge his posterity uncapable of succession, the Subjects are free from obligations, unless we must say, that the King is above all Laws, as Court-Parasites have done. Non-scribers therefore abuse the world, when they say a dissent came too late to that which was never sworn to by any Englishman, the Oaths were never allowed to be taken, but with the necessary employed Salvo, saving our obedience to the Laws and Common wealth. Nor do they deal any better in the case of the House of Lords. We are bound by Covenant to preserve the privileges of Parliament. 
Plea, etc. p. 47.  Now (say they) we are confident that at the taking of the Protestation and Covenant, there was no usage of the word Parliament, either in written Laws, Statutes, or other Records, but what necessarily intended the House of Lords, 
Sovereign Power of Parliaments. part. 1. p 43.  as one main and separable part: but they must be believed upon this their confidence; for besides confidence, (I might say impudence) they have nothing to prove it. One of Mr. Prinn's Authors was as confident on the other side, that there were Parliaments in England, when there was neither Bishop, Earl nor Baron: so that the Privileges of Parliament may be safe, and yet neither Bishop, Earl nor Baron be in any power. The House of Lords were not intended as a main and inseparable part of the Parliament, but as Judges in all plaints against the King and his Children; with whom, when faulty, if they collude, and neglect their trust, the Commons might discard them; nor will it stand with the Rule of Christian obedience, that any private persons should def●nd them against the just sentence of the Commons their superiors, whose privileges were above theirs, and therefore are to be respected before them.  
2. Non-scribers grant, 
Plea, etc. pag. 53.  that Oaths cease to oblige by the cessation of the matter sworn. The matter is ceased. The King and House of Lords are ceased to be a power, in regard of right, as I have showed before. Thus by their own concessions, it is evident, that the former Oaths are no just bar to hinder them from taking the Engagement. I might add other ways how an Oath may be rendered unobliging: but I shall content myself with their own concessions, and leave what they say in their Appendix, to such who are engaged already, by Non-scribers quarrelling with their principles.  
It were but to waste Paper, 
Plea, etc. pag. 51. 53. 54.  to answer what else they say about the duration of the obligation of those Oaths: we require no Pope nor other power to absolve us from them: we are not drawn aside by any changes: we see the powers to which the Engagements were made, taken away by their Superior power, and now being a nullity, which is in Non-scribers language, a civil Idol, we are sure nothing can oblige us to that which is not, either in being or right. Nor are the Powers of the King and Lords, hîc & nunc, lawful: they were lawful heretofore, because established by the Legislative power: now the same power hath abrogated them, and are to us as if they had not been. Neither is it possible to set them up again, I mean, to any merely private. Illud possumus quod jure possumus. 
Lucius Florus. lib. 1. cap. 9  I dare not own the possibility of that which is unlawful. Brutus put his two Sons to death, for endeavouring to reduce Tarquin, the reason was not because Kingly power was unlawful, but because it was at that time unlawful to them, the Laws of the Roman State forbidding it. I wish Non-scribers so much wisdom and morality as that heathen Counsel had: for in all their Plea there is want of sound reason to maintain what they call the dictate of their conscience: nor in deed bring they any thing but Sophistry and jingling about words to the Bar on their own behalf, and such quirks shall then deserve to be called conscience, when science falsely so called shall deserve to be called good Divinity.  
If, therefore, the Power in the Engagement be neither unjust in its return, or dispossession of others, nor preingagements hinder (which I have showed) the Engagement may lawfully be taken by any Englishman (notwithstanding what Non-scribers say to the contrary) which was the thing to be demonstrated.  
I have done with Non-scribers Doctrine, and should have spared their Application, if it had not been as full of Calumnies, as their Doctrine of ignorance and error. Their Application is a threefold Exhortation.  

Plea, etc. page 57 58.  1. To the Imposers of the Engagement, whom they exhort to stop their course and descend to reason it out with them, as if the supreme Authority of the Nation had nothing to do; but to argue with a Company of juggling Sophisters, who must have satisdiction not satisfaction, and whom non persuaseris etsi millies persuaseris: Yet I doubt not but these Gentlemen (which is the best term that these proud men can afford the Representers of the Majesty of the People) are able and will he willing to discourse with them; but what little hopes of success there is in such a condescension, is evident from the virulency of their addresses here to the Imposers of the Engagement. 
Appendix. pag. 54. Margin.  These Barasites (that can in defence of the late Tyrant quote that of Elihu, Job 34.18. Is it fit to say to a King, thou art wicked?) are bold to tell the Parliament, that their actions are unjust, scandalous, perjurous, etc. There is little hope that reason should prevail over them, who call evil good, and good evil, put light for darkness, and darkness fo● light, and sin being condemned of themselves. But let us hear the motions they put this exhortation on by. The imposing of the Engagement (say they) is scandalous. 
Dodonas Grove in Octavo page 146. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Med. 7.  So the jingling Cavalier that calls himself their Majesty's Vassal, with the Candenians, that is, Soots rising against the King, cast a brand upon the Eusebian, the Protestant Profession, in losing the bands of passive obedience. And the Tyrant himself tells us, that he feared such motions (as the Parliaments just Arms) would be an alienation of mind, and divorce of affection of his Queen from our Religion. I would know to whom the imposing of the Engagement is scandalous. Non-scribers intimate that it will be so to the Sticklers in the Tyrant's quarrel. And I say, that this i● the fairest dealing in all their Book, to acknowledge their good friends the Cavaliers, and to plead against offending them. But I have learned from Mr. Calvin, that there are two sorts of scandals; scandala infirmorum, 
Infiitution. cap. 12. S. 11.  which we must carefully avoid, & scandala Pharisaeorum, this which they would make of the latter sort, and therefore it may be said of the Cavaliers and Non-scribers their Patrons, as our Saviour said of the Pharisees, when the Disciples told him that they were offended, let them alone, etc. But Non scribers will prove it scandalous. 
Mat. 15.14.  How? Thus, The King laid an aspersion upon the Parliament, that their intention was to destroy Monarchy, and pull down the House of Lords, the Parliament abhorred the imputation, and engaged the contrary.  
To this I answer, That it is no marvel, though Tyrants suspect the just events of their Tyranny before they come upon them, and if the Parliament had professed against the Government of himself, his Posterity and Court-Minions, they had done nothing scandalous. They stood too long shaking hands with what they should have shaken off. Besides, the Engagements the Parliament made in favour of him, took not away those Laws which made him and his Heirs liable to loss of their Crown and dignity, and therefore it could be no scandal to execute those Laws, or to bind the People to be faithful to them, having done what was righteous. Though Non-scribers cannot, (yet it is possible to) defend against the Cavaliers the justice of our Wars, notwithstanding the abolishing of Kingly Government. We entered into contest with them. The just party did maintain the liberty of the People, the unjust, the Tyrant's exorbitancies. The just parties first desire was to regulate those exorbitancies, thinking they had proceeded from bad Council only; but when it appeared that the Tyrant was his own worst Councillor, and all other means (even after Conquest of him) were ineffectual, and that by the restless machinations of the Tyrant and his Partisans, the danger was grown so great, that had the Tyrant remounted, an utter destruction of the people's Liberties would have followed, it was but just to take away the Spring of those destroying differences, especially the Engagements made in favour of the King, being but conditionally made, that he and his Authority should be preserved, if we, our Religion, and Liberties might have been secured. But when these were like to be ruined, it was as just, rebus sic stantibus, to abolish Kingly Government, as it was at first to seek by force to restrain prerogative inundations; if that therefore were not scandalous in its time, neither is the imposing of an Engagement against Kingly Government now scandalous, there is the same reason of both. It were indeed scandalous to our Nation, that there should be found among us a prevailing party that should transcend the Romanists in their falsifications and State-undermining. But (if there be any such party among us) it is Non-scribers and their party, who having sworn the defence of the people's liberties, would bring upon us one whom they would set in supreme Authority from a foreign Nation, who having sworn to bring Delinquents to condign punishment, maintain the unquestionableness of the Architect of our miseries, and canonize him for a Martyr, who suffered for evil doing of a scarlettincture. And if to set up a Nation in a Nation, professedly under an Authority contrary to the Authority in rightful possession, be not the very Romanists State-undermining, I know not what it is; & this I am sure is Non-scribers endeavour.  
But Non-scribers mean, that good men in other Nations will be offended at the late actions in ours, and the present Engagement, considering former Engagements. But, I have a more charitable opinion of our good Neighbours, and hope that they being not interressed, and consequently free from what may divert their judgements from right, will justify the righteous actions of our Nation, and cannot but continue in this hope, as long as I see other Nations have done the like actions, notwithstanding the like obligations to our former ones upon them. 
Sovereign Power of Parliaments. part. 3. pag. 146.  In the year 1572. William Prince of Orange and his Confederates in Arms protested against the Duke of Alva; yet withal, engaged themselves to hold the Country of the Netherlands, under the obedience of their Prince and natural Lord, as they ought to do; for so are the words of their protestation, in Mr. Prinne's Book: yet in the year 1581., 

Hugo Grotius, de Antiq. Re●p. Batavicae. cap. 5.  
Paulus Merula, de statu Reip. Bataviae Diat●iba. Johannes de Latt. Descrip. Belgicae. tit. Hollandia. cap. 7. Henricus S●terus. Suecia. pag. 131. & Seq. & pag. 202. 206. 216.   they solemnly abjured the King of Spline who was ●●e Hereditary Earl of Holland. And the Earls of Holland were not in any thing short of a justly regulated King, and had as much Authority there, as the Kings of England among us, as the Authors in the Margin inform us. The States of Sweden in the year 1544, changed their Elective Kingdom into an Hereditary which they entailed upon Ericus the eldest Son of Gustavus their King then, and his issue male, and if such issue failed upon John the King's second Son and his heirs male, and in like manner upon Magnus, and Charles Duke of Sudermannia the King's younger Children, to this they swore solemnly. Yet Ericus for his Tyranny was deposed by the States, and John the second Brother crowned; he dying and leaving Sigismond King of Poland and John Duke of Ostrogothia his 2. sons behind him. Sigismond was crowned King of Sweden; yet because he endeavoured to destroy the Protestant Religion established among them, and Warred upon them, he was deposed by an Act of the States Assembled at Stockholm, in the year 1599, and in the year 1600, both he & his posterity excluded from all government in Sweden, by a Decree of the States assembled at Lincop: nay more, they excluded from the Kingdom, John Duke of Ostrogothia, the brother of Sigismond, because they feared, lest he, out of natural love to his brother, should enter into any part or Covenant with Sigismond and his heirs which might bring detriment to their country: and then they chose Charles Duke of Sudermannia for their King. And if the States of Holland might abjure their Earl and not be scandalous to us, nay, and we join with them, as our Nation did in Queen Elizabeth's: days if the States of Sweden might abjure Sigismond, 
Ministri in hac sententia constanter permanserunt, posse, viz. Magistratum sub leges vi cogi. Buchanan. Rerum. Scot lib. 17.  his brother and issue, and not be scandalous to us; nay more, and we help Gustavus the Son of Charles, whose right was built upon Sigismund's ruin, I can see no cause why our actions and engagement should be scandalous to any honest man among them or any other Nation, that approved the equity of those actions in Holland or Sweden. Scotland (it may be) will frown, because the current of Pensions from England is stopped: but they that laid the foundation of Reformation in Scotland were of another mind then their present Kirkmen: Mr. Knox defended the Lawfulness of putting Tyrants to death in a General Assembly. In the Scotch Queen Maries days, 

Buchanan. Rerum Scot lib. 20.  
Magis formidamus nimiae lenitatis apud omnes bonos reprehensionem, quàm apud mal●s crudelitatis calumnium. Actio contra Mariam Scotorum Reginam. pag. 100  
Plea, etc. page 60.   the Ministers were constant in this opinion, that the Magistrate, might be brought by force under the Laws: and the Earl of Morton and other Scotch Lords Ambassadors to Queen Elizabeth justified their deposition of Mary, and affirmed that they might by the Law of Nature and their Country, have dealt more severely with her, and that her life and the successors of her Son depended upon their clemency: their Oration which was presented to Queen Elizabeth, a Latin Printed Copy whereof I have, ends thus, We more fear to be reprehended by good men for our overmuch Lenity, than we do to be slandered by the bad with cruelty. Were Scotland's Kirkmen the true successors of Mr. Knox and Buchanan, we could not offend them; but we being their successors in the truths they professed, and the Scots Apostatising, we may well cast them in with Non-scribers, and contemn the offences they take against us, with, Let them alone, etc.  
But the imposing of the Engagement (say Non-scribers) is scandalous, because it takes away the Liberty of Conscience, which the Imposers professedly maintain, and they cannot see any reason but that they should leave Conscience free in Civil matters, who would have it free in matters of Religion. But, besides that the Imposers of the Engagement, have not (for aught I know) owned the Patronage of so va●● Libertinisme in matters of Religion as Non-scribers would ●ather upon them, their Argument may be retorted upon themselves. It is scandalous, that they who hold toleration of difference in outward forms of Discipline unlawful, should claim a toleration in Civil matters: and it would be scandalous in the Magistrate to tolerate any thing, 

Festus Hommius. col. Anti-Bellarminianum.  
Disp. 34. Thes. 4.5. Sam. Bolton. Arraignment of error. pag. 335. 336. Plea, etc. pag. 61.   or to grant any privilege, which by the Privileged is looked upon under the Notion of sin; and Learned Presbyterians (into the number of whom Non-scribers itch to be received) rank opinions destructive to the public Peace with such as are blasphemous, and contrary to Fundamental truths, and allow the Magistrate an equal, nay greater Power to punish them that are seditious, then them that are so erroneous.  
Concerning the Agreement of the People, I have this only to say that the Parliament never owned it; and therefore Non-scribers do merely Calumniate them, in laying it at their doors. But their new strain of Poetry, wherein they would make Sphynx a resolver of riddles, I must say that, for aught I have read, 
Isti quidem orationi Oedipos epus conjectori est, qui Sphyngi interpres fuit. Plautus in Paenulo. Act. 1. Scen. 3. Plea, etc. page 42.  the proposing of riddles is only attributed to Sphynx, the resolution to Oedipus. And for the Riddle itself, since Non-scribers are the Sphynges, I will make them (according to their own Poetry) the unriddlers. Non-scribers call the Government by Kings, Lords and Commons, the constitution of the People, yet make the People subject to it. So that the people (by their own concessions) may have a radical virtual Power of Sovereignty, which when they have derived, and it is in the Magistrate formally, they are to obey the Magistrate made by them. The people as a Community gave their Power to their Representatives, as singulars are required to Engage. They who aggregately, as a Community are the Original of power, may severally and personally be the Recipients of it.  
The rest of their Rhetoric is spent in bewailing the Tyranny, 
Plea, etc. page 61. 62. 64.  oppression, Injustice, which our Nation (as they say) is under, notwithstanding the imposers of the Engagement, profess opposition to Tyranny, and make Justice and Liberty their Motto. But, that you may know how good Politicians or Moralists they are, instance only (to make all these accusations good) in the Act for taking the Engagement. These servile Souls never knew what true public Liberty is. It is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, whereby a Nation hath freedom to make and change their own Laws, without being hindered by any single man's Advisera, or the collusions of enslaved Robes and Coronets: this we have: and the Non-scribers say that we want; but they want Liberty. 
Act for subscribing the Engagement.  I know none they want, but a Liberty of destroying themselves and the Nation. The Act which they so accuse doth Enact, that in case a Non-scriber sue any debtor, and the debtor plead their not subscribing the Engagement, further proceed in the suit shall be superseded: In the close whereof it is provided, that no person complained of for Treason, Felon●, breach of the peace or good behaviour shall have any benefit by pleading the Plaintiff not to have subscribed: so that this neither amounts to Outlawry, they being under the protection of the Law, only the payment of Debts being superseded till they submit to the Supreme Authority, nor gives the money to the Debtor, but he is still liable to suit upon the Repentance of the Non-scriber, nor doth it lay them open to loss of Limb, Life, Estate or Liberty, they having Freedom to sue any even for breach of the peace or good behaviour. So that as many invectives as there are against the Act, so many false and wicked calumnies there are; but none v●ler than that wherein they parallel their case, 
Plea, etc. page 65.  with the Jews case under the fear of Haman, and intimate plots to be laid for their lives. A calumny so unbeseeming Christians, as it argues the Authors of it to be Acted by him who is the accuser of the brethren, a liar and the father of it, and upon whom as the guilt of Cain's sin lies (they having made themselves guilty of their brethren's blood by justifying them that shed it) so Cain's curse lies upon them also, 
Gen. 4.14.  they fear every one that meets them will kill them. A calumny to be answered only with just indignation against and execration of their malicious jealousy. Their hopes that deliverance would come unto them from some other place are in part defeated already, and he that hath delivered, doth, ye and will deliver us, from Non-scribers Brethren.  
Much may be said for the Justice of that light punishment, that is enacted against Non-scribers, but more, if we look upon them as such as these Cheshire and Lancashire one's would persuade us, that they themselves be, viz. Such as adhered to the Parliament in the late Wars against the Tyrant; in such refusal of the Engagement is a sin.  
1. Of great ingratitude, they therein denying their fidelity to them, who freed them from the yoke of Episcopacy, High Commission-Court, Star-Chamber, (for these cannot be said to be the Tyrant's benefits, he striving by his sword to bring a greater slavery upon them, than he had freed them from by his word of assent to those Bills (whose Authority armed them with Power to defend themselves against the Tyrant's Emissaries: 
Superseded te habere civem tanti muneris impium aestimatorem: abi igitur & esto servus, quoniam liber esse nescîsti. Val. Max. lib. ●. cap. 6.  in a word, whose continued labours for the recovery and continuance of their Liberties deserve to be written with letters of gold in monumental Marble, or what else is more durable. The Athenians had a custom, that if the freed servant were ingrateful to his Patron, he was deprived of his Liberty. I account not thee a Citizen (said the Master) who art an unthanfull esteemer of so great a benefit; Go therefore & be a slave, because thou knowest not how to be free. Were Non-scribers deprived of their Liberty, it might be justified by the example of this much moralised Nation.  
2. It's a sin of Apostasy; for what else, but wilful back-sliding can it be, for them who acknowledged the supreme Authority of the Representatives of the people in a matter of supreme powe●, 
Manlius eras mihi cum praecipites agebas Senenes, postquam mutari coepisti, unus factus es ex Senonibus. Val. Max. lib. 6. cap. 3. 1 Kings 2.26.27.  viz the power of the sword against an encroaching Tyrant, to deny obligations to them, and what they represent, and that in favour of the Tyrant's pretended Heirs and abettors? It may be well said to them as to Manlius, who after he had defended the Roman People's liberties against the Gauls, endeavoured to enslave them, Thou wast Manlius to me, when thou overthrewest the Senones; since thou beganst to be changed, thou art become of the Senones thyself. Their lives themselves had been forfeited in that Commonwealth. They were favourably dealt with, if the Parliament only dealt with them as Solomon with Abiathar, whom he would not put to death, because he had been afflicted with David in all his afflictions, yet thr●st him out from the Priesthood for following Adonijah. Very little reason have they to complain, who find milder dealing than any of the forementioned, whose crimes they equal.  
Their second exhortation is to the takers of the Engagement, 
Plea, etc. page 67.  whom they exhort to consideration of what they have done, and to return back to their former slavery. By their fulminations, they endeavour to make the hearts of the righteous sad, 
Ezek. 13.22.  whom God hath not made sad, and to strengthen the hands of the Cavaliers, that they should not return from their slavish principles. To this purpose they use inducements, taken (they say) from the matter of engaging, wherein they charge them.  
1. With rashness and precipitancy; 
Plea, etc. page 68  perhaps because some of their flocks consulted no more before they took the Engagement, with these pragmatical Confessors, than Andrew and Peter did with the High Priests before they became Christ's Disciples. There were principles and books enough to satisfy Conscience about a business of this nature, before the Engagement was thought of. Mr. Rutherford and Mr. Prinne were sufficient, with whom (I am sure) some seriously consulted about it, and some Congregations were prepared by their peaceable Ministers to the subscribing of it. For the construction which Non-scribers put upon Books written in defence of the Engagement, it savours too much of that spirit that taught them to brag of their skill in soule-Physick. Certainly, I should think it a work as much to the satisfaction of Conscience, to defend a controverted truth, as to preach the first principles of truth to them that never before heard them.  
2. Non-scribers charge the takers of the Engagement, with slight grounds. I will not say but some might engage upon such sandy foundations as Non-scribers speak of; 
Preface before the Answer to the King's Portraiture. Plea, etc. page 69. Canon. 36. of them that were published Anno 1603.  but I dare withal confidently aver, that the most of such are to be found in Non-scribers Folds, whose Pulpit-stuffe, both first and last, hath been the Doctrine and perpetual infusion of slavery and wretchedness to all their Hearers, that I may use the judicious censure of our Iconoclastes. Et Turpe est Doctori, cum culpa redarguit ipsum, it is such guides sin and shame, that their people in the midst of such contentions for liberty, are no more acquainted with the nature of it; which ignorance is the cause why some remain in the infernal vassalage of a misinformed Conscience, and others sin in doing good things doubtfully. How their third inducement should be taken from the manner and circumstance of engaging is more than I can see; but Non-scribers say it is so, in my eyes it was an Argument taken from the noxious event of engaging. Non-scribers say, they have heard of some perplexed for engaging. But hear-say is no sound proof with understanding men; and if there be any such, they show more tender-heartedness to Non-scribers, whose sorrow for subscription when they entered into Orders, (as they call it) wherein they affirmed the Book of Common Prayer, and of ordering Bishops, Priests and Deacons, to contain nothing but what was agreeable to the word of God: few or no men, or Churches ever heard of, no not though they covenanted the extirpation of Episcopacy, as contrary to sound Doctrine and the power of Godliness. Furthermore, 
* Superstitious persons are as much troubled for neglecting any voluntary service of man's invention, as if they had offended against the direct Commandment of God. Dr. Sibs, soul's conflict. c. 13. S. 2. Mr. Cotton, way of Congregational Churches cleared. p. 4. Plea, p. 69. 70.  a misinformed Conscience may feel wrack, agony and anguish for that which is not really sin. Mr. Bolton's recanting of his opinion concerning separate Churches, Non-scribers will say was not sin; yet the sin of this so dogged his Conscience, that he laid violent hands on himself; and I should think Conscience then to be in its greatest agony, when it drives to desperation and self-murder. The terrors that fall upon an erroneus Conscience, for sinning against that error, which it is conscientious in, is no Argument to prove that whatsoever is contrary to that error, is either sin or falsehood.  
Lastly, they address themselves to their own dear Disciples, to whom they give Council that might be called good, if they had not before taught them to call evil good, and good evil. Constancy in ignorance and error is so fare from being commendable, that it is a high aggravation of sin where it is wilful. It is the cause, not the suffering that makes a Martyr. They that suffer as enemies to Authority, are so far from being followers of what is good, that they suffer as evil doers. But the Epiphonema of their Book, which is also the motive they use to build up their Miriones in their obstinacy, is most ridiculous, Be true (say they) to just principles (that is the Non-scribers and Dr. Ferne's) and powers (that is the declared King of Scots and Pattentee-Lords) and ye shall not be without a King and Lord in Heaven. With such sweet allusions do Non-scribers feed their Sheep, and truly, were they not something like the Thistle-eating beast that made the man smile who never laughed before, their lips would not endure such lettuces. 
Rom. 13.2.6.  I had rather believe Paul then all the Non-scribers in England, and he tells me, that he that submits not to present possessing powers, that attend on the business of ruling, receives to himself damnation; and I must make bold to tell Non-scribers and their misled followers, that if ever they come to Heaven, they shall find no such Kings there as Non-scribers patronise. Tophet was of old prepared for such, and Hell opens its mouth upon them, 
Isa. 30.33. Isa. 14.9. 1 Cor. 1.26.27.  as upon the Babylonian Monarch that had slain his people, and very few of their kind of Lords will be there. Not many Noble are called; but God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty: Unto which God I humbly bow my knees, beseeching him who causeth light to shine out of darkness, to open the eyes of Non-scribers, and the seduced by them, that they together with us, may under the present Authority, live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. 
1 Tim. 2.2.  And for our Nation I pray, that it may long flourish under that Government, which God established among his own people, when he would have them best governed, that it may be thankful for its great deliverance, 
Zach. 2.5.10.  and walk worthy of them, that God may delight to dwell in it, be a wall of fire round about it, and the glory in the midst of it; even so, Amen.  
FINIS.