A DECLARATION OF Maj. Gen. Harrison Prisoner in the Tower of LONDON: WITH His Rules and Precepts, to all Public Churches, and Private Congregations: And an ANSWER thereunto;  
Also, the Resolution of the Fifth-Monarchy-Men, Anabaptists, Quakers, and others.  
London, Printed for Nathaniel Tomkins, 1660.   

A DECLARATION OF Major General HARRISON, Now Prisoner in the Tower of LONDON.  
SInce the committing of Major General Harrison to the Tower of London, divers of his Friends and Relations have had a Conference with him, touching the Grounds and Motives of his Actings: To which he declared, That he was throughly convinced of the Justness of the Cause he first engaged in; That he esteemed reading of the Word of God an Ordinance of God both in private and public, but did not account reading to be preaching; That he esteemed that preaching best, wherein was most of God, least of man, when vain flourishes of wit and words were declined, and the demonstration of God's Spirit and Power studied; yet could he distinguish between purest plainness, and negligent rudeness: That he accounted perspicuity the best grace of a Preacher, and that method best which was most helpful to Understanding, Affection, and Memory: That he esteemed the Lords Day a Divine Ordinance, and rest on it necessary so far as conduced to Holiness: That he was very conscientious in observance of that Day as the Mart day of the Soul; That he was very careful to remember it, to get house and heart in order for it, and when it came he was studious to improve it; That he redeemed the morning from superfluous sleep, and watched the whole day over his thoughts and words not only to restrain them from wickedness, but wordlyness. And that all parts of the day were alike holy to him, and his care was coninued in it in variety of holy Duties: what he heard in public, he repeated in private, to whet it upon himself and Family: Which Rules and Precepts, he desired to be made practicable throughout all public and private Congregations, for the enlightening the dark Corners of the Earth, etc.  
A Gentleman standing by, being transported with sundry Reflections, replied as followeth:  
Sir, I might with reason believe that first election of the Party wherein you stood engaged, proceeded from inexperience and the mistake of your Zeal; not to say from your compliances to the passions of others; because I know how obsequious you have always showed yourself in several Actions, especially in your former Obedience to the Commands of a Monstrous Tyrant and Rebellious Usurper.  
But, upon discovery of the Impostures which perverted them, and the signal Indignation of God, upon the several Periods which your eyes hath lately beheld, of the bloodiest Tyrannies, and most prodigious Oppressors that ever any Age in the World produced. To put the Balance (therefore) into the hands of every Rational Englishman, to poise the State of this Kingdom, which through the unexampled distraction and confusion of a most sordid and horrid Rebellion, was an unsufferable weight to be born by any Man, who could make Title to Understanding; To hear with silence, people pretending to Religion, and to nothing else; crying up against Reason, a Reformation, in which themselves are (however in themselves insensibly) to the stranger standers by visibly ruined. Provoked therefore by compassion to my Country, I shall endeavour to convince the Opiniators of a Reformation, by putting yesterday and to day, this and the end of a preceding septenary in the Balance. And therefore invite such who are in any capacity of being advised, to a retrospection, so far as the year, 1639. Where they may, if they look not thorough State-Spectacles, see a King selected, whose Royal, or Christian Reputation, Fame dared not; could not, with so much as whisper, ●●lley; Rich in the accumulate Hearts of a Numerous and Loyal People; and a Court in which (himself being Precedent) the Men and Manners completed an Academy. They may see a Church full of Light, Order and Discipline, having a form beautiful, and an inside garnished, and enriched with as much (not to swell the comparison) Learning and Piety, as Observation or Story can attribute to any since Christianity was a Profession. Those then inconsiderable few Opposers, or interrupters of its Peace and Government, being persons of as obscure mark, as of clandestine and mycheing motion, skulking like young Foxes, and no sooner unkeneled, but as Vermine pursued, the general Odium being contracted upon them: They may see a Nobility, Lustrous, like Mirrors by the Suns, their Princes, reflex in the badges of their Honour and Office, a flourishing Gentry, plentifully sharing Dignities, and Trusts in the Military and Civil Magistracy. But behold the Scene is again changed, blessed be God; and these State-Mountebanks, that formerly served and raised up themselves to that pitch and Investiture, are blown away; and these Puppets of policy are also taken in the same Nets and Gins that they laid for others. When I seriously reflect upon all this, I cannot but detect them in their procedure, and deplore the sadness of their condition. For, since you are apt to recriminate, and boast the Justness of your Cause, let us go back to the source, and search the very principles; and then see, if ever any Cause had like success indeed. First then, be pleased to look North-wards upon the Scots, who made Reformation their pretence, to gratify their own Avarice, introduce themselves, and a more than Babylonish Tyranny, imposing upon the Church and State, beyond all example. I say, look upon what they have gotten by deceiving their Brethren, selling their King, betraying his Son, and by all their perfidy; but a slavery more than Egyptian, and an Infamy as unparalled, as their Treason and Ingratitude. Look nearer home, and tell me if there be a person of them left, that can show me his prize, unless it be that of Sacrilege, which he or his Nephews must certainly vomit up again. O the perpetrated Actions of these Sons of Thunder! What hath been spawned under their Atheistical Government, is beyond all comparison: Under the Sun was never such things heard of: Yet those that died by the sword, fell in the bed of honour; their Religion and their Loyalty will be renowned in the History of Ages, when the Names of Traitors will rot with their Carcases, a● dung upon the face of the Earth.  
To proceed to the essential Parts of our gracious Sovereign, this beyond comparison is observable: 1. If we consider him in the Natural Endowments of his Mind, those his most Transcendently Symmetrical Organs are full stretched, with the internal gifts, and most accomplishing graces of a serene Soul: Of a most piercing Apprehension, nimble Wit, but sound Judgement: Of so constant a Reservedness and Majestic gravity, 'tis questionable whether he can be angry or pleased, grieved or rejoiced, so far as to betray his Sensations to every Beholder; so merciful and kind in his very Severities, and so severe in his Kindnesses, that his greatest Enemies become his greatest Friends, and his Friends can never be otherwise, but by the envy of his Virtues, and winning Sweetness; So moderate, He pleads for his cruelest Adversaries, and so tender a Father to his unnatural Subjects, He pities (not inveighs against) their miscarriages: Of a constant Resolution, and undaunted Courage, none more valiant, none more merciful; none more Amiable, none more Chaste and Temperate, and withal so Religiously Devout, and so Piously Constant in all Divine Worships and Services, that He may truly be called a good Churchman, as well as a good King.  
But lest I lose myself in so large a field, give me leave from this sweet Subject to come to his Education, where you may expect I should bewail the averseness of his Stars, and those Disastrous Times, and Tempestuous Seas, and Avious Deserts, he was forced to trace the Muses in. But we find no want in him, either of a strict and constant Tutorage, the Nurse of Art, the Converse of a Flourishing and Glorious Court; yea, we cannot but see that those Providences which to others would become the greatest disadvantages, have been to this most Excellent Person the highest Improvements.  
In a word, Those ingenuous and candid Principles connatural to Him are so approved by his Afflictions, the experience of the inconstancy of this Transitory World, those true sparks of Religion and pure Conscience which seem to flame in him, and the sweet content his Majesty took in his innocent Retirement, that he could seem to project nothing in his return to England, but the saving his unnatural Children from that inevitable ruin and misery they would have brought upon themselves and the Threé Kingdoms, had they gone on in their disobedience: Nay, often hath his Majesty been heard to say, No Enormities could or should disoblige him from that Fatherly tenderness to his Countrymen and Subjects, would they but return to their duty, and that he saw no reason any Sect whatsoever should be disowned by him (as such) more than a deformed Child by a Natural Father; since 'tis in the power of God alone to reform the Conscience.  
To conclude, so affectionately doth many of these Sects with Loyalty submit under the influence of so good a Prince, That divers of the People called Quakers, Anabaptists, Fifth-Monarchy Men, and Levellers, Do wish from their hearts, that our gracious Sovereign may be, and the Kingdoms by Him, more happy than any; and that the true ends of Government may be had and communicated fully; that every honest Heart may have cause to rejoice in GOD, the KING, and their LAWS. Resolving, (through Grace) to rest quiet and content under God's Vicegerent, and to let the King of Kings alone with ruling the World, to whose Wisdom and Power all Creatures ought to submit.  
And further they have declared, That they will be passive under Authority, rather than impatient; to procure the quiet and peace of the Nation to their utmost; to mind things invisible, and of a better consistence than these below, and to pray for the happiness and welfare of his Majesty, and the rest of the Royal Issue, Whom God long preserve.   
FINIS.