THE FREE MAN'S PLEA FOR FREEDOM, AGAINST The arbitrary unwarrantable actions and proceed of the Apostate Associates, commonly called by others, LEVELLERS.  
Wherein is briefly discovered how unsuitable they walk to common Right and Freedom, being more arbitrary and Tyrannical than any they oppose, wanting only a power to exercise their Cruelty.  
By R. L. A Member of the Army.  Job 11.3. 
Should thy lies make men hold their peace? and when thou mockest shall no man make thee ashamed?  Psal. 50.19, 20. 
Thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit, thou sittest and speakest against thy brother, thou slanderest thine own mother's son.  Job 15.5, 6. 
For thy mouth uttereth thine iniquity, and thou choosest the tongue of the crafty, thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I, yea, thine own lips testify against thee.  
London, Printed for Robert White. 1648.   

IT being the grand design of all deceivers to look one way, and row another; to kiss, when they mean to betray; it cannot be judged unnecessary to try all things, and to choose only that which is good; and the way to judge of the ends and designs of men, is not to take notice of what they talk of, but of what they do; for Absolom pretended justice to the people, when he made war against his Father, but his design was to make himself King; so the Jews could say they were Abraham's seed, and had one Father, even God, but Christ believed them never the more for that, If you were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham, John 8.39. If God were your Father, ye would love me, ver. 42. But ye are of your father the devil, and the works of your father ye will do, ver. 44. He judged them by what they did, and not by what they said; Therefore it is not enough for men to say they are for our freedom and liberties; but let us consider what they are doing; the stature of Hercules may be taken by the length of his foot; he that cannot employ one talon well, is not to be trusted with five; therefore before we can believe you mean to do as you say, we must be satisfied with these following Queries.  
First whether those things you call common right, and freedom, be so common as you say they are, or no? whether every free man in the Kingdom be equally interested in them, or not if they be, whether one particular man be not as competent a judge of his own freedom as another? and if so, whether any thing can be called the agreement of the people, if you mean the whole, before every man, or at least the Major part concerned in it, hath owned it, and subscribed it? if not, whether it be not a presumptuous delusion, for a few men to represent any thing to the People's representative in the name of the whole, before the whole, or half, or any considerable part of the People hath entrusted, or desired them to do it.  
Quaerie. 2 If we should approve of, and twne your paper, or most of those things comprised in it as those things, wh●ch so fare as we are able to judge, might be very much conducing to our good▪ and accordingly should desire you to represent them to the Parliament in our behalves, as our desires, whether or no do ye intent we should leave them to the judgement of the Parliament to own, or not own them? if not, to what end do we represent them? if we do, to what purpose are those resolutions annexed to it, wherein you resolve to maintain them against all opposition whatsoever, without exception?  
Quaerie. 3 In case we did fully approve of the things, and could willingly desire the settlement of them, both in relation to ourselves, and the Kingdom, and should do our utmost in using all lawful means for the attaining thereof, and should find such opposition, as that they could not possibly be so accomplished, whether then or no would you with 〈◊〉 rest satisfied, till God did give a further opportunity, and make our way more plain before us? if not, how shall we then partake with you in prosecuting a good work, and not be ensnared in the using of unlawful means? we judging it not lawful to do evil that good may come thereon. Rom. 3.8.  
Quaerie. 4 If you at this time being so inconsiderable a party, and the things which you propound so disputable, if not dangerous, shall be so uncharitable in your judgements, so rash in your censures, and so ready to trample upon, and despise all men that are not able to join with you in all your actions, though otherwise very forward in prosecuting all the same things you pretend; what measure can be expected from you▪ if once you become a powerful and prevalent party in the Kingdom, but harsh and cruel usage, if we cannot in all things join with you? and if so, what difference is there betwixt you and others? only we are ruined by others under the colour of prerogative and privileges, and by you under the pretence of liberty and freedom.  
Quaerie. 5 If at this time, while there is so little appearance of any considerable interested people in this Kingdom joins with you, much less of honest godly people, you be so apt and ready to engage any sort of people to you, and chief those who are most probable to join with you, or any others upon mercenary selfish consideration, their interest in this Kingdom being no other but their own present livelihood and subsistence, and those to engage to you by delusive promises and false suggestions; what assurance shall we have, that you will not by the same evil means, use the same instruments to destroy all our just interests, if we do not in all things submit to you, though against our own reasons and consciences? and if so, where is our freedoms and lib●rties?  
Quaerie. 6 If it be your principle, that no obligation by way of engagement or declaration though never so public and peremptory, is binding longer than you have nothing to object against it, as it hath been publicly maintained 〈…〉 several meetings, why do you then blame the Army, for not making good their declarations and engagements? it is possible they may have something to object against them, which if they have, how is it possible for any man to act to your satisfaction, when you will neither give him leave to be guided by his own reason, nor your principles?  
Quaerie. 7 If that we are the cause of your dissatisfaction in the Armies proceed, their not making good their engagements and declarations, why did not you, when you were so earnestly desired by them, join with them in the reviewing what they were engaged to, and wherein they had failed, to the end it might have been amended? But on the contrary, propose new things, quite beside their engagements, and contrary to them, except you designed a desamation, rather than a reformation of the Armies proceed.  
Quaerie. 8 If the cause of England's present misery flow from its divisions and distractions, and no probable means left to prevent its present ruin, but a christian, sober, friendly compliance of all the honest interests distinguished among us by the names of Presbytery, and Independency etc. and no such visible means to ruin and destroy it, as the further adding to, & increasing of the divisions and distractions already in it, how is it possible for any man to judge you desire the life of the Kingdom, that are such utter enemies to the health of it? That you desire the liberty and freedom of the People, that are such grand enemies to the peace and safety of them? unless you can convince us, the nearest way from York to London, is by Barwick.  
Quaerie. 9 If you affirm, that the way to stop the Gangrene of England's distractions and divisions, and so consequently its ruin, is to propound some general heads to be agreed on by the People, containing the fundamental rights and liberties of the Nation, we agree with you. To propound & present such things according to the fundamental rights and freedoms of the Nation, is good, which is an orderly Parliamentary way; but for you to propound the fundamental rights and liberties of the People, and to prosecute the evident ruin and destruction of the People, is a strange way to demonstrate your good intentions; as thus, if our Brethren of Scotland should march with an Army over Tweed, and should tell us they came for our good, and to help us against the common enemy to the Covenant and cause, which formerly they have assisted us in, and in their march should p●●nder and spoil us of our goods, ●●●rison and destroy our friends, fight with and oppose our Armies, etc. we should have very little cause to ●●leeve them; or thus, if any of your houses were on fire about your ears, ●●d a company of People should come with empty buckets, and pretend they wo●●d endeavour to quench the fire, and in the interim plunder and spoil you of your goods, and in stead of water, cast on pitch, or combustible matter to increase the flame, you would have very small cause to thank them. And thus friends, while you are proposing to us good things, and filling our ears with many good words, consider what your actions have been: Judas could cry Hail Master, when he betrayed him. You have been telling us of a free representative of the people in Parliament, in order to which, you have used all possible means to bring this present Parliament under force, to put conditions upon them, by prescribing rules, and setting bounds to them, vilifying, reviling, and reproaching of them to their faces, in such an audacious and uncivil manner, as few that have either conscience or prudence, would do their servants, nay hardly their dogs, if they were capable of receiving a reasonable reproof; calling them the supreme authority of England to day, and deny there is any such thing as authority remaining in them another day; as in Major White his book, Style them the honourable house of Commons one day, the degenerate, unjust, arbitrary, tyrannical Parliament another day; Print papers, entitled, An humble petition to the supreme authority of England, the honourable house of Commons, on the top of the sheet: appeal to the People against them, charging them with falsehood, lies, tyranny, injustice, ruling by their crooked wills, and damnable lusts, in the bottom of the same sheet, as you may see in a petition delivered to the house of Commons presently after the rendezvous at Ware, in the behalf of the Agreement of the People. Colonel Ayres, and Captain Bray, etc. is this a demonstration of your great affections to the People's representatives? is it the freedom of the People's representative to be taunted, reviled, reproached, and scandalised, and that publicly in Print to their faces, in such a manner, as the meanest man represented would not endure, nor put up, without reparation. But the People, and the representative, may expect both to drink in one cup; the representative will but swallow down the top, the People shall be sure enough of the dregs: These carriages differ much from Paul's spirit, who said, it is written, thou shalt not sp●ake evil of the ruler of the people, Acts 23.5. and so in Tim. 5.1. Rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father. But the Scriptures and M●gna Charta are both of one authority, which most of these men, only the latter for the present is most in request; another ge●●●●●● good which they have held before our eyes to humble us with, hath been the easing of the Kingdom of, or from those sad oppressions and burdens which they lie under, as Excises, Taxes, and freequarter, etc. and in order to this, they have endeavoured to prevent and stop all means used for that end, the greatest visible burden which lay upon this Kingdom being the Soldiery, especially before the disbanding supernumeraries, and taking them off from freequarter; and ever since the Parliament hath been about that work, they have been endeavouring by all possible means to prevent it, both by persuading the Country from paying their money, without which the work could not be done, and telling the soldiers they ought not to disband, nor suffer themselves to be disbanded nor divided, etc. And if God had not prevented their attempts in opposition to this work, the Kingdom would have sunk under the burden of freequarter by this time, or else have broken its own back, by endeavouring to shake its burden off by force, and the soldiery, whom they have so much endeavoured to delude by their plausible plead for their rights, have been wholly frustrated and prevented of all those things, which by their moderation and patience, God hath enabled the Parliament to do for them, in order to their Accounts, Arrears, proant pay, indemnity, etc. so that what real pity or affection you have towards the People's ease from their burdens, let themselves and the world judge; And thus, if it were either worth the reading, or my penning; it is observable, through your whole course, you have pretended one thing, and done another; cried up the People's liberties with your mouths, and destroyed them with both your hands.  
Quaerie. 10 If it be the liberty of the People you would so feign be fight, and wading in blood for, what People are they? if for the whole Kingdom, when did they choose you? if for the Major part, how should we know it? if for the Minor part; where will you leave the final judgement? for if it be lawful for you, as the Minor part of this Kingdom, to force those things you judge to be just, on the Major part; without controversy, it is more lawful for the Major part to defend themselves, and oppose you, if they judge the same to be unjust; therefore, if this be the liberty of the People to fight with, and destroy one another upon every apprehension of a just ●ause, you may spare your pains in procuring a safe and well grounded p●●ce; for according to your principles, it must last no longer than you, of ●●y ten men of your mind judge it to be just, which will be but a very little wh●●●▪ if you change your principles twice a week, as it is easy to prove many of you have done.  
Quaerie. 11 If according to your pretended principle, there is no legeslative power inherent in any person or persons, but what is derived from the people and that the people's representative alone aught to be the sole judge of their Rights and Liberties, and that all others are Tyrants and usurpers, which do not exercise their power by virtue of a trust, especially in making or repealing Laws; by what authority, or from whom derived, did you take upon you to give out Orders to the Army, Rules to the Parliament, and Laws to the Kingdom, as you have several times done, wanting only a power to enforce them? which you likewise have endeavoured to obtain, but by an arbitrary, tyrannical, usurped power; and have hereby manifested yourselves to be worse Tyrants than any you oppose: Usurpation attended with violence being the top of Tyranny. Nay again, by your own pretended principles, it is not lawful, just, nor equal for any man to be judged by a Law which he never gave his consent unto in his lawful representative, duly chosen and elected; and yet you yourselves, though you represent not the least County, nor the least Corporation in the Kingdom, take upon you to prescribe Rules to a Parliament now sitting, to give Laws to a Kingdom, which is the highest piece of unequal and unjust presumption that ever was acted.  
Object. You mistake, we do not intent to give Laws to the Kingdom, but only represent to them a paper, wherein is contained the substance of the People's Rights and Liberties, to which we desire agreement, and accordingly have entitled it the Agreement of the People.  
Answ. You have given it a wrong name, you might more properly have called it their disagreement, or falling out. But if it be an Agreement, as you call it, we hope you mean a voluntary agreement, by free consent; which if you do, what means all this endeavouring to engage men in Arms to own it? will Swords and Guns convince men's reasons, and inform their judgements of the equity and justice of the things? or if it be an agreement that ye hold forth, what means those resolutions among you, that if you have but ten men on your side, you will make your way through the blood of all the rest? Will nothing serve to seal an agreement but blood? nay, it is probable you will be as good as our word; for those that are not tender of men's names and reputations, will never be tender of their blood, and I am sure you have endeavoured already to make your way thorough the honour and reputation of such men whom God hath chief owned and honoured in all those chief deliverances he hath wrought for this poor Kingdom in the late war; but considering, they are men who are not desirous to be praised in Print, who had rather have their own actions demonstrate their innocence, than other men's Pens; I shall desire them to consider, there was a day when Shimei cursed David, and he comforted his heart with this consideration, It may be that the Lord will look on my affliction, and that the Lord will requite good for his cursing this day; and his expectation was not in vain, and therefore for men to call that an Agreement of the People, which they intent to make a Law to them by force, pretends a Paradox; for what doth this differ from that Agreement William the Conqueror made with the People, which you call the Norman yoke, for whatsoever men are forced and compelled to, can no more be called an Agreement, than Imprisonment can be called Liberty: If this be Christian Liberty, than the Spanish Inquisition is a Christian privilege. Again, if it be freedom and liberty you contend for, why will you not give that to others, which you so highly prise yourselves? if it be your liberty to devise, prepare, and propose things in the behalf of yourselves and others, before any others besides yourselves, either hear, or see what you propound. Is it not as much the liberty of those others you speak of, to read, consider, and judge of what is proposed by you, before they agree with you? and if so, then surely when a Paper, entitled an Agreement, or Petition is delivered to the Parliament by a small number of persons in a Kingdom, in the name of themselves and the People, it is the Parliaments liberty, as they are free Commoners of England; if you will not allow it their Privilege as they are a Parliament, to consider, judge, and determine what answer will become them to give to such a petition presented to them by such Petitioners, and to deny as well as grant, if their judgements lead them for it, unless you intent to engross the whole power of judging and determining the People's liberties to yourselves, and convert the concurrence of King, Lords, and Commons into one negative voice, and lay them all aside together.  
As we have little cause to judge you are so purely public principled for common right and freedom, as you pretend by you● actions, so have we less cause to expect it from you, when we observe your dispo●●●●ions and qualifications, there being naturally an inveterate dislike, and an abhorring of all things that are not of your own creating, and of all men that are not of your own principle and opinion, there being no more good nature in you then in Lions, Bears, Tigers, etc. the worst of them being friends one to another of the same kind, which is all the ground of friendship or charity that ever I could discover among the generality of you, which is so fare from pure principles of common right and freedom, that the worst of Tyrants I have heard or read of, hath exceeded you, they have out of a principle of policy commonly exercised a great deal of clemency towards people, whom they have known did not favour these actions, thereby to delude them into subjection; nay, many of them have used much seeming indulgency toward their open enemies, if they would but acknowledge their courtesies to be acts of grace and favour towards them; but you have been so fare from having any of these moderate humane natural principles found in the worst of men ruling of you, that you have degenerated from a great deal of that good nature and disposition which is found in many beasts; the fiercest mastive dog, who wears a clog and chain to keep him from biting strangers will know the people in the same family with him, and especially those from whose hands he receives much of his food, and will be so far from exercising his natural cruelty towards them, that he will run the greatest hazard in their defence: nay, it is observed in Bears, after they have received acquaintance, or have received Courtesies from a man, they will not hurt him, but will admit of much familiarity with him, and I have some time heard, that the favour of a Lion may be won by courtesies.  
By the way you may take notice of that common story of the traveller losing his way in the wilderness, found a Lion who had caught a thorn in his foot, which he pulled forth, for which courtesy the cruel beast was so grateful, as to become his protector till he brought him past all danger; and how unworthily ungrateful many of you have been, and still are to particular persons, and whole societies of men, who hath made your condition their own, who hath and do still tender many of you as pieces of their own flesh, whose hearts and affections desires your good as their own who would joyfully live or die in any righteous cause with you, if y●● would prosecute it only in a righteous way, and put more trust in God in the use of lawful means, and less in your own subt●●ty and craftiness; yet these are the men whom the sharpest of your arrows are shot against, whose blood you lie in wait for, as a Lion doth for his prey; it being your meat and drink to hear and devise falsehoods against them, to speak and print evil of them, that they may justly take up that complaint against you which David used against some such ungrateful friends of his, Psal. 35.12. False witnesses did rise up, they laid to my charge things that I knew not, they have rewarded me evil for good, so in Psal. 109.4. For my love they are my adversaries, and they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my good will: and as you are naturally ungrateful, so are you as eminently malicious and revengeful, which is another principal branch of tyranny. I never being able to find the least inclination in many of you, to put up or forgive the least personal wrong or injury, but rather to rest unsatisfied, as a bear rob of her whelps, to be revenged, and have full reparations, and as you are thus ungrateful, malicious, and revengeful, so are you as ambitious, proud, and haughty, esteeming highly of yourselves in your own things; he being a man not worth the calling a fellow-commoner that hath not exalted his arrogant, resolute, pride and haughtiness above his sense, reason and judgement; that hath not resolved to maintain any cause with resolution; if he be once engaged in it, be it good or bad, that is not able to speak great swelling words, and look mighty big looks in the face of any Authority he comes before, though for the most scandalous offence that can be committed; and if these be your virtues, the best part of you, what kind of things are the worst can we expect from such a corrupt fountain as this wholesome waters? Do men gather grapes of thorns, and figs of thistles? Matth. 7.16. Sirs be not deceived, God will not be mocked, For wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest dost the same things, Rom. 2.1. Thou hypocrite, first cast the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye, Matth. 7.5.   

A POSTSCRIPT.  
To those private soldiers of the Army which hath been deceived by these men's delusions.  
FEllow Soldiers, I having had the happiness to be a spectator of those great things God hath done for you, and by you. I am invited by that affection and duty I own and bear to you, to represent these things to your consideration, well knowing there is not only a spirit of zeal, but of judgement in many of you, able to discern betwixt good and evil, while you acted in the way of God to accomplish the work of God. God then dwelled among you, his glory was upon you, you were then a comfort to your friends, and a terror to your enemies: but if you forsake his way, he will own you no longer in his work. Will you do wickedly for God, and talk deceitfully for him, Job. 13.7. Let not men which make lies their refuge, falsehood and deceit their strength, be our leaders into evil ways, for when the blind lead the blind, than both fall into the ditch: and how wilfully blind those men have been which hath endeavoured to lead you into irregular ways, to the great dishonour of that God who hath so much honoured you, is visible:  
What is become of the great design your Officers had to advance the king's Interest, and thereby procure their own greatness, Is Lord General Cromwell made Earl of Essex yet? or Captain General Ireton Field Martial General of Ireland? Is the King at White-Hall yet, without giving satisfaction to the Kingdom? is the Army or any part of it disbanded without sufficient indemnity, present pay, and security for Arrears? Do but review those delusive lying pamphlets entitled Putneys projects, a Call to the Army, an Alarm to the Headquarters, the grand design, etc. And take notice with what confidence and boldness they accused the Parliament and Army in general, with many particular men, who hath been eminently faithful to the Kingdom's Interest, of treachery and baseness of spirit, declining their principles, etc. and all grounded upon their under hand compliance with the King, their carrying on His Designs by private conferences with Him, etc. All which suggestions doth plainly appear to all that hath not willingly given up themselves to believe lies, to be false and scandalous slanders; yet these and such like are the only truths that pretended infallible spirit revealed to these men at the time of the Randezvouzing at Ware, and did I not yet discover the same spirit raging in the same men, with as much boldness and confidence as if they had never been the author of all these lies, I should have forborn any testimony against them, and rather have judged what they then did, might proceed from rashness or mistake, and not done plotting or designingly; but it hath since appeared the contrary, they continuing to this very day by the same evil means to prosecute the same things, which is to set you one against another, and every man else against you all, endeavouring to make you odious to the Kingdom, and the Parliament, and your Officers odious to you.  
First, they Print petitions in the name of the People, and make you, whom God hath used to be the instruments of their deliverance, the cause of all their oppression and miseries, c●●ing out of oppression, violence, taxes, freequarter, etc. all which they charge equally upon you, as you are an Army, making the miscarriage of one man among a thousand, to reflect upon all; on purpose to render you odious, making you the cause of the decay of trading, and of that deareness and scarcity that is in the Kingdom, as if they would have the Kingdom rise, and cut your throats to save your victuals, and make corn cheap; and yet when the Parliament is using all possible means to pay you off, and disband you; and the General with your officers using the utmost of their interest to obtain honourable and satisfactory conditions for you: both Parliament and General endeavouring to their utmost to ease the Kingdom of their burdens, and requite you for your faithful services, then are they of another mind, then are they sending their Emissaries among you, to stir you up to disobedience, telling of you, you ought not to divide, nor suffer yourselves to be divided, nor disbanded, etc. so what they would have you to do is worth your enquiring after, for they would not have the Country either pay you, nor give you victuals: neither would they have you to disband, nor suffer yourselves to be disbanded; they have only left you these two things to choose one, either to continue in your warfare upon your own charges, or else to live upon the spoil and ruin of the Kingdom: the former I fear you cannot do, and the latter I am confident your souls abhor to think; therefore consider, God hath placed you under men that have preferred your well fare and safety above their own; they trampled upon great gifts and high places, and were willing to stand with you, nay to fall with you, rather than to stand themselves, and see you fall: and therefore let it never be said, that an Army of men so principled, so regulated, whom God hath so honoured under the conduct of men so eminently faithful, honourable, and successful, should be disobliged from their obedience, by false and scandalous suggestions of men, wh● make it their business to vent their rage, and their passion against all that are not approvers of their disputable, if not evil actions: And since you have found the power and presence of God so visible among you, while you every one acted in the same place God hath called you to, in the work he laid before you, Wait upon God there still. It was the counsel Moses gave the people in the greatest strait that ever they were in, to stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord: and they did take his counsel, and God did save them, and by the same hand ruined their enemies: And if you do wait for the salvation of the Lord in the use of lawful means, he is able and faithful to do you good, and to make the sea of all those dangers and difficulties that stand before you, to become a wall on the right hand, and on the left unto you: and to make those things you most fear, to be most subservient unto his end, which is his glory: and to your ends, which I hope is the settlement of this poor distracted Kingdom, in a safe and well-grounded Peace; Which, that you may be instrumental in, is the constant prayers, and earnest desires of your faithful servant.  
R. L.  
FINIS.