A LETTER TO A NOBLE LORD AT LONDON FROM A Friend at Oxford: Upon occasion of the late COVENANT taken by both HOUSES.  
Printed, 1643.   

A LETTER TO A NOBLE LORD at London from a friend at Oxford, upon occasion of the late Covenant taken by both Houses.  
My Lord,  
I Have received your Lordship's Letter of the tenth of this instant, with much more trouble and sadness of mind then any thing you have sent me this whole ill year: All your Declarations, Votes, Ordinances, and Orders with your General's powerful Commission to kill and slay all good people, made not half that impression in me (though I have not been ender in letting you know what I think of the best of those) as your Sacred Vow and Covenant (as you call them) which with Mr. Pym's Speech at the Common-hall of the discovery of the great Plot, (I received enclosed in you Letter) hath done. Are all your humble and earnest desires and solicitations for Peace, all your Pangs and Throws for a Reformation in Religion, delivered at last of a Sacred Vow and Covenant against both? Have you at last thought fit to tell the World that there is no possibility or hope of Peace, but by blood and desolation? Have Mr. Burroughes, and Mr. Case so perverted all ●…ts of Scripture, and Sergeant wild, and Mr. Glyn so confounded all Rules of Low, that your Consciences are grown so dead to the one, and your Understandings so dull to the other, that in plain English, you promise God Almighty to assist any body as kill the King, and set up new Covenants of your own, point blank against your Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, and publish all this to the people as the Articles of your new Creed? And yet that your Lordship should tell me that your affection and duty to the King continues still the same you have pretended it, that you have still not only the same desire, but the same hope of peace; and that you are confident that the Anabaptists and Brownists (whom me thinks you have sworn to defend) will shortly ship themselves for another Climate, is so strange to me that Amazement itself is not more confounding. You tell me of a trick your Lordships have found out, to save your harmelsse from any obligation by this Oath, a Salvo to all your other Oaths Lawfully taken, and those being in a Diameter contrary to this, you have upon the matter engaged yourselves to nothing by this new Covenant, and so having cunningly evaded the design of the Contrivers: Oh (my Lord) can you please yourselves with these shifts? Is this the Wisdom, Vigilance, Integrity, and Courage of the Highest Court of Judicature (for so the House of Peers in Parliament is) to lead the people by their Example to so solemn an Act as a Covenant with God Almighty, which at the instance you took it you intended should signify nothing? Will the poor people of England, whereof it may be too many have looked upon your example with Reverence, and thought many things fit or lawful only because you did them, when they shall find that you have vowed in the presence of Almighty God, the searcher of all hearts, as you shall answer at the great Day, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that you will according to your power assist the Forces raised and continued by both Houses of Parliament, against the Forces raised by the KING; will they (I say) think that your Lordship intended nothing by this Vow, but what you were obliged to by your Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, that is, to defend the KING, to the utmost of your power, against all Conspiracies and Attempts whatsoever, which shall be made against His Person, His Crown, and Dignity, and to do your best endeavour, to disclose, and make known to Him all Treasons and Conspiracies which shall be against Him, to your power to assist all Jurisdictions, Privileges, Preeminences and Authority belonging to Him, or united to the Imperial Crown of this Realm, and indeed to do all things which by this your new sacred Vow you have forsworn to do? Will this Salvo reconcile all those contradictions? and is this subtlety the first fruirs of your Humility and Reverence of the Divine Majesty, your hearty sorrow for your own sins, and the sins of the Nation, and your true intention to endeavour the amendment of your own ways? For God's sake (my Lord) talk not of preserving the true Reformed Protestant Religion, and opposing Papists and Popery, when your Actions destroy the Elements of Christianity, and admit a latitude to your Conscience to introduce Atheism, and Rules which the Turks in pure natural honesty abhor and detest. Get yourself to an opinion and avow it boldly, see what you hazard, and ply your game out above board, be a desperate Gamester, if you cannot be a skilful one, and so be capable of advantage by good luck; but to be cozened and cheated to serve other men's turns, and to help to cozen yourself by little shifts and evasions, makes you be hated by them you serve, despised by us, and will make you be laughed at when you are dead.  
But (my Lord) admit you were indeed too hard for them by this Salvo, and by the interposition of three or four other words (in order to the security of preservation of the true Reformed Protestant Religion, etc. according to your Power and Vocation, etc.) had notably reserved a liberty to yourselves of complying with your former Oaths; That Oaths were to be intercepted according to the Intention of the Person that takes them, (which being an instrument between God and Us, and so every Covenant being to be taken strongest against ourselves, cannot be admitted) yet if another man who hath taken this Vow believes himself obliged by it, to the utmost Act even against the Life of the King, hath not he reason to believe that you have bound you self to assist that Person in what he shall do in pursuance of that Oath? I would I were able to make an answer for you; but admit further, that in all the promisory part which contains what you will do, or what you will not do, that you were safe, and had engaged yourself to do no more or no less than your Duty: pray consider the positive part, what Salvo have you for that? you do believe that there hath been and now is a Popish and traitorous Plot for the subversion of the true Reformed Protestant Religion, and the Liberty of the Subject, and that in pursuance thereof a Popish Army hath been raised, and is now on foot in divers parts of this Kingdom: which Army you imply to be the Army raised for the King, and therefore you promise to assist against it. Now it seems your Lordship doth not believe the Preamble to be considerable, or any part of the Oath, for I am sure you cannot believe any Popish or Traitorous Plot to be on this side; where the Treason is, the Law will judge, and where the Papists are will best be found in the Muster-Rolls of both Armies; you have had whole Troops of that Profession, and no fault found with their Religion, till they have given over being Rebels: whilst they are with you, they defend the true Reformed Protestant Religion, but when they revolt to their Allegiance they are Papists, and aught to be disbanded: indeed you take the course to compel the King to do His duty by driving them to Him for Protection, which he cannot deny to His Subjects, but you keep them from performing their duty in assisting their Prince, by stripping and plundering, and leaving them naked to the World. In good faith (I ask Pardon of Discretion and Truth for being startled) your confident discourses of Popish Armies and Supplies from Papists made me once imagine the King might in truth receive some notable supplies from the persons of that profession, and it was not hard for me to believe that that party which felt so much rigour and cruelty from you, and were sure to suffer an utter extirpation if you prevailed, should willingly sacrifice all they had to that Sovereign Power which might mercifully allay that fury, and preserve them still in the number of his Subjects; but I find there is a narrowness, a vulgar spiritedness, and a scandalous parsimony in all Religions, even these men will have the comfort of being starved with money in their purses, for I am a●…red by those who are conversant with those Accounts, that all the money His Majesty hath received from all the Papists of England, since He hath been put to raise and continue these Forces, is not half so much as is in truth due to Him by the Law, upon those moderate Compositions made with them: And for any assistance He hath by their personal service you have long ago heard (and I have reason enough to believe) that the Papists in all His Armies will not make one Regiment: how many more you have, and how many more you would be glad to have, your Lordship can better judge then I.  
Well, there hath been a treacherous and horrid Design lately discovered, to surprise the Cities of London and Westminster, and God knows what, and you do abhor and detest that wicked and treacherous Design. 'tis well done, whether you know it or not: but what may this treacherous Design be, that Mr. Pym says, would have destroyed the City and the Kingdom, and in their Ruins have buried Religion and Liberty? Another Gunpowder Treason, like that of the Protestation against the first Remonstrance? The King hath sent a Commission (for now it is printed, all the World knows what it is) to certain persons to use their utmost power to suppress those who are in Rebellion against Him, and assist those who are oppressed by them. Is there one Popish or popishly affected person in that Commission, or to be employed in the whole Design? Is there one clause in it on the behalf of Papists, or against the Liberty of the Subject? Indeed it may seem strange that the King should so much consider that Apostate City, (where the rage of some, and the tameness of others, have made up one general Gild) as to offer them any countenance to relieve themselves: but that it should be a horrid and treacherous Design, when you have in all the Counties of England, Commanders of your Militia and Commissioners even at this present to assess, rate, and collect Money for the maintenance of your Rebellious Army, for the King to be willing to have an Army in London or Middlesex, whereby all other Armies, and that too might be speedily disbanded, will need an Orator no less powerful than Mr. Pym, or his Excellency himself, (who in in these nice Arguments is the better Orator) to make evident to the World. Believe it (my Lord) whilst there is one honest man left in that City, there will be always a Plot to reduce it to its Loyalty, and to destroy this wicked Rebellion: neither will that unparaleld Act of inhumanity executed upon the two famous Citizens of Bristol (who will live gloriously in the Annals of this Nation, as the stout Champions and Martyrs of Allegiance, when the name of their Murderer (Fienes) shall not be mentioned but with infamy) so far fright good men from their Duty, that your wild fury will rage's long uncontrolled.  
Another of your Propositions is, that you do believe in your conscience, that the Forces raised by the two Houses of Parliament, are raised and continued for their just defence, and for the defence of the true Protestant Reform Religion and Liberty of the Subject, against the forces raised by the King: Does your Lordship in truth believe this? Take it in pieces. The two Houses of Parliament, being convened by the King's sole Writ, to advise with Him about the great Affairs of the Kingdom, form their Coursels with such success, that in above fifteen Months, (time enough to have reform and repaired all former mistakes and irregularities in Church and State) they never found the least nonconcurrence with them from His Majesty in any particular proposed for the ease or benefit of the Common wealth; what was during that time done by His singular Justice and excess of Bounty is so well and particularly known to all the World, that if your Treason and Rebellion were away, there would be ingratitude enough left to make you odious to the present, and infamous to succeeding Ages. When did the first Act of your defence begin? Not till you came to Edgehill; then I must confess, you were put to it: for it cannot be denied, the King went eight Miles out of His way to find you; from thence you took your stile of defensive Arms; except you will needs date them from the tenth of January, when you had been overun by the Law, if that defensive Army of the City had not been raised to rescue and preserve the good Lord of Kimbolton, and his five precious Members from a legal proceeding.  
In this sense you have, I confess, been much upon the defensive part, otherwise you never pretended ground or Argument for your taking Arms, but Fears and Jealousies, no danger of an assault from an active Enemy; except some few Papists under ground, whom your vigilancy hath kept still there. When you first voted your great General, and raised your wanton Army, it was to fetch up the King to you from York, not to defend yourselves against him: and you cannot but know you were so fare from being in danger to be assaulted, that setting aside your acts of hostility in your Votes and Ordinances, by which you had surprised Forts, Towns, and the whole Navy, when you had a form Army of Horse and Foot (I believe much greater than you have now) the King had not so many Muskets, as you had Cannon, nor so many Swords as you had Companies; and on my Conscience (I will so fare excuse you from intending it should come to this) if you had thought He could have got any, your Lordship and many more of your good friends, who for quietness sake have done much mischief, would have prevented these troubles. But why are you less ashamed to be cozened still then to confess you have been so; you expressed well in your own honest Speech, how much you have been deceived, trust them no more that deceived you, much of that is fallen out you then foresaw, the rest will follow, it is a misery to foresee, and not to prevent, at least bearing a part in doing the mischief which you foresee must destroy the Doers. Remember you were told there was no design against Bishops to alter the Government of the Church, you see they are now inconsistent with the Protestant Reform Religion, and a new way must be found out of Government; and then as M. Martin, and M. Morly use you now, M. Case and M. Calamy will use you then, between both, you will be a great Lord. Remember you were promised when this Army was first raised, there should be no fight, no Resistance, (and in truth when you saw Votes could enable you to raise Armies, who had no power, it is no wonder you believed they could keep the King from raising any who had Power) that the King should be brought gently up to you, and you should have what Places you pleased: There hath been fight and resistance, the King is not yet brought up to you, & I do not find the places are like to be disposed as you desire. You were assured all possible regard was to the safety of the King, & you were yourself required by your Protestation to promise to defend His Person, you have since been assured in what danger His Person hath been, by the assault of your Army, and you are now compelled to swear you will assist that Army against him; When will you think yourself cozened enough to abhor these men? do you not yet apprehend that these men every day whilst they persuade you they intent a Peace, do somewhat to make Peace impossible? Is the imprisoning the King's Messengers who come to move you to Peace; the accusing the Queen of high Treason for loving Her Husband, and for doing that for which the present Age must reverence and posterity will envy Her; the murdering of the two good men of Bristol in cold blood (a murder that will call for Vengeance from God, and Justice from the King till a full expiation) and this new sacred Vow, excellent ingredients towards a Peace? Are you awake, and do not see those things thrown in only to make Peace impossible, but content yourself with a Vote that your Arms are defensive, when all the distractions and all the Violence throughout the Kingdom are the effects of those Arms.  
The next Article of your Creed is, that these godly Forces of yours are for the defence of the true Protestant Reform Religion; This indeed hath always been your care, and your Reputation, but give me leave to tell your Lordship I much fear you rather hate that which is not the Protestant Religion, than love that which is. I will not grieve your memory by representing to you the happy flourishing state of the Protestant Religion in this Kingdom, till your Counsels disturbed and endeavoured to deface it. Let Us only consider what you have acted and what you have designed towards this defence, and to use your own phrase of your Covenant, in order to the Security and preservation of this Religion. There is not a Godly, Learned, Orthodox Divine in England, whom you have not traduced, imprisoned, or eminently reproached and discountenanced, even those whose Learning and Integrity first gave credit and reputation to your great Reformers; you have not only difused and suppressed that Excellent Book of Common-Prayer, (the first and glorious instance in this Kingdom of the true Reformed Protestant Religion) but scurrilously and profanely reviled and scoffed at it, to the scandal of Christianity; you have carried yourselves with such impious and debosh behaviour in Churches and Consecrated places, committing such horrid and Beastly outrages, that the Heathen themselves would tremble at the mention of them, and all this out of pure zeal to the true Reformed Protestant Religion. This you will say is done without your Consents by the disorderly Soldiers, whom you cannot restrain. By your Lordship's favour you have very pretty Votes of one or both Houses which directly encourage those Soldiers to most of this. What remedy have you provided for these disorders, if the King concurred with you in all you propose to yourselves? You have presented Him a Bill to pull down the whole Fabric of Church Government, to leave Heresy, Incest, Blasphemy, and Adultery, as unpunishable as any other Acts of good fellowship, to take away His Supremacy, and so cancel the Oath you have all taken to Him, and to take away Bishops, and so cancel the Oath He hath taken at His Coronation to defend and protect them, and have not yet so much as fancied amongst ourselves into what shape you will lick that monstrous Chaos you would produce, this you leave to your Synod, of such men, as most of them no Schools or Nurseries of Learning ever knew, men never known or heard of but by their Faction, Treason, and Rebellion, such who never had title or subsistence in the Church of England, till your Votes, as Patron and Ordinary, imposed them upon Parishes, and over Cures in the places of those, whose Religion was not Rebellion. Oh (my Lord) can you forget the excellent times in which you were borne, and the happy times in which you have since lived, the flourishing state of Religion here in Doctrine and Discipline, in the Lives and Learning of so many reverend Divines famous throughout Christendom, can you so much forget this, to believe these courses, the way to defend the true Reformed Protestant Religion? If you were a Protestant two years since, I am sure they are none whose directions you now follow; Is the countenancing and joining with Anabaptists, and Brownists, (names as odious to you, and so mentioned by you even in your last Letter, as the Papists) to advance the Protestant Religion? But 'tis no wonder when you take your Rules of Allegiance and Fidelity from Traitors and Rebels, that you should take your directions of Religion from Hypocrites and Schismatics. I do not know your face better than your heart in this point, you are no more of my Lord Says mind in Religion, than Bishop Wren is; when you have recovered the Courage to love Truth again, this Clause if there were nothing else in your Covenant, will take your Sleep from you, and leave you no comfort, but in the Charity of those you have endeavoured to destroy.  
A word now of the Liberty of the Subject, the last pretence of your Army, and I have done. In so sad an Argument I should not be merry with you, and say, that by this Liberty of the Subject, you mean Liberty in every Subject, to do what he list, which indeed seems to be the proper business of your Army, and yet I would you would leave men this liberty, that you would not compel them to be worse than they have a mind to be, and you would be contented to absolve them from the Law, and trust them with their own inclinations; though you pull down the Enclosures, use no violence to hunt them from their known Paths; let their own love of Liberty lead them, without being driven by your fury: Consider the liberty of the Subject before you found out this device to defend it; How strongly was it guarded and fenced by known, clear, excellent Laws, not capable of any damage or inconvenience, to which there was not a proper reparation and remedy prepared: if any little breaches had been made in this Fence (for in comparison of the gaps you have since made in it in one hour, what was done in 16 years before was but little) with what diligence, Industry and Bounty did His Majesty comply with you to make them up, and so finished the Work, that if you had not taken all this monstrous pains to destroy it, you Country now had been the wonder and envy of Christendom, in Peace, and all the Ornaments of Beauty, Plenty, and Lustre which Peace desires to be adorned with: What pressure or violation was offered to this Liberty when you first took up your defensive Arms? See now to what degree you have advanced it, as it hath reference to our Goods, Estates, your Ordinances of sequestration, your weekly Assessments, and your order for the twentieth part, abundantly expresses your Care; as it hath reference to Our Persons, the full Gaoles in all places, and the very many Houses you have turned into Gaoles for the safe keeping of Our Liberty, will be rare Monuments to Posterity, as it concerns Our Conscience, you need no other Evidence (though you have store) than this your sacred Vow and Covenant. If this be your course to defend Liberty, I would you would for variety sake practise some way to destroy it, it may be it might prove the more Sovereign Remedy to the Commonwealth: 'tis Mr. Pyms third Observation of the evil Conscience of those who were in the late Plot, they that pretended to take Arms to defend their own Property, obtained a Commission to violate the Property of others, they would take the Assertion of the Laws of the Land, but assumed to them such a power, as was most contrary to that Law, to seize upon their Persons without due process, to impose upon their Estates without Consent, to take away some lives by the Law Marshal; This is a Text I hope your Lordship will believe, and is so truly an instance of evil Conscience, that if His Majesty had used these words in any of His Messages or Declarations, they had been voted at least an imputation upon both Houses, and a Censure of their Proceed. But Mr. Pym may Libel against you (and in earnest you will find most of his speeches to be such) without breach of Privilege, he hath found out too new Conservators of our Liberty which we never heard of till now, instead of King, Lords and Commons, The Parliament, (that is the close Committee) the City, and the Army are the three vital parts of the Kingdom, in which (he says) not only the well being, but the very life and being of it doth consist, and yet they persuade your Lordship they are willing to disband this Army. You will say these Invasions upon Liberty are the effect of these distempers, which 'tis your business to suppress, which being done the Subject shall have no more cause to complain. But, my Lord, We that live at a distance have well observed that the principles and foundations for all this mischief were laid, long before your Mistress Necessity was owned by you, long before your Arms were raised; all your rapines, all your Plundring and Imprisoning are not more destructive to the Liberty of the Subject, than your Votes of the fifteenth of March, your assuming power so to declare Law, that what you said or did, was therefore Law because it was yours. How many men were imprisoned and undone by you, expressly against the Law and the Petition of Right? How many Acts of Parliament suspended, and actions done by you in a Diameter, contrary to Acts of Parliament, so that in truth all your excesses since which you excuse by imputing them to your Army, and the raising that Army, are but superstructures upon the foundations you laid in your calmest and most undisturbed Government, and there is nothing that you of the moderate Party have since refused to consent to, which might not very well have followed from some of those propositions which even yourselves have before admitted, defended, and contrived.  
I have troubled your Lordship longer in this Argument than I meant, and have the vanity to believe, that your often reading this over, though it be no more than you knew before, may make some impression in you, do not think that which is in itself simply ill can be made good by a Vote, or that the word Parliament can give Reputation to Actions absolutely wicked in themselves: Mr. Pym tells you in this goodly Speech of his, that a Parliament is but a Carcase when the freedom of it is suppressed, that is it be deprived of its own Liberty, it is left without life or power to keep the Liberty of others: Alas (my Lord) though you will answer no other part of my Letter, tell me upon your Honour, would you have taken this last Covenant, if you had had liberty to have refused it, if you had not, where is your freedom of Parliament? Can you yet look upon that Assembly with reverence? Think of their number, think of their quality, think sadly of their Actions, and you will easily find a way (and there is but one that I know) to evade your Covenant: It was unjustly, impiously, imposed upon you, rashly, unlawfully (to say no worse) taken by you, you ought no●, you must not keep it▪ But that is not enough, wind yourself out of this Labyrinth with Courage and Magnanimity, and in your ●…vening do somewhat that may redeem the faults of the day. Consider that these men who by your Assistance prosper in their bad ways, are doing their own business, and every day make a Progress to their own ends. My Lord Say, since all honest men have been undoing, hath bettered his own Estate above twenty thousand pounds, besides advancing his younger sons to full and ample Revenues: Mr. Pym hath sweat to purpose, and hath thrived so well in two years, that he is your equal at least. They who abhor Bishops revenge themselves at your charge, and every Action that advances that Design is more pleasant to them then life. Your great General hath the Sovereign delight of opposing the King, and having his Health drank with loud Music. Pennington, Venus, Fulk, and Manwaring are from broken, beggarly, contemptible Varlets, become your fellow Peers, and no doubt when they have reconciled your Lordships and the Commons into one House, will have the negative voice, which you two have snatched from the King, deposited in their hands. That vital part of the Kingdom, the City, will never be trusted in your Custody who have managed all the rest so ill. If any Accident should happen, Providence or Victory to defeat them, these men have been good and wary Husbands, and have the fortitude to love any Country equal to their own; Is your Lordship of a constitution fit to mingle with these men? Is your Revenue improved, or Exchequer enlarged since these troubles? Is any one design of yours satisfied by your concurrence, or can you be content to die a Peer of New-England, or the Isle of Providence? Is not your Reputation and interest with all good men lost, and have you one friend left whose face you knew a year before this Parliament? These are Melancholic considerations, but you must pass through them, and then if some Noble, at least honest resolution do not possess you, resolve to die the last of your name, and to leave this Character behind you, That notwithstanding all your discourse and pretence of Religion, you would have turned Turk, if the Major part of both Houses, and the stronger part of the Kingdom had required you to take a Covenant to that purpose.  
FINIS.