CONSIDERATIONS UPON The present state of the Affairs of this KINGDOM. In relation to the three several Petitions which have lately been in agitation in the Honourable City of LONDON. AND A Project for a fourth Petition, tending to a speedy ACCOMMODATION of the present unhappy Differences between His MAJESTY and the PARLIAMENT. Written upon the perusing of the special PASSAGES of the two Weeks, from the 29 of November, to the 13 of December, 1642. And Dedicated to the Lord Maior and Aldermen of the said City.  
By a Countryman, a Well-willer of the City, and a Lover of TRUTH and PEACE.  PHILIP. 4.5. 
Let your moderation be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.  JOB 13.7. 
Will ye speak wickedly for God, and talk deceitfully for him?  2 COR. 13.11. 
Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in Peace, and the God of Love and of Peace shall be with you.  
London, Printed Anno 1642.   

HE hath not the heart of an Englishman, or of a Christian in his breast, whose bowels do not roll within him, when he considereth the miserable Distractions of this divided Kingdom, threatening a German desolation thereof, and of the Church of God therein. I have therefore much wondered to see so many religious men, and good Patriots, more ready to bring Fuel and Breath to the kindling and increasing, than tears to the quenching, or hands to the putting out of that fire, which in a short time, hath already seized on all the Parts of the Kingdom; and if it burn a while after the rate it hath begun, is like soon to make us the scorn, as we have long been the envy of all our Neighbours. But I was altogether astonished to find the sheet of the special Passages of the other week, to begin with these words; This Week hath produced matters much conducing to the Peace and Safety of the Kingdom; A Petition against an Accommodation (unless the King come to the Parliament) from divers well-affected Citizens of LONDON. And yet I would not be thought to differ from men so well-affected in this judgement, That the Kings return to that his great, and most faithful Counsel were not the most sure and speedy way to recover a right understanding between His Majesty and His Parliament; and that happiness of a well established Peace throughout the whole Kingdom, which no man without breach of Charity, can suspect His Majesty doth not most sincerely affect, and so much more than any one of His Subjects, as His interest therein is greater. But because I conceive it as hard to induce His Majesty thereunto, as to persuade the Parliament to adjourn to another place, till those vehement, though groundless Jealousies which either of them hath of each other, be extinguished, or at least allayed: I can therefore by no means approve of the counsel for good, being, as I doubt, impracticable, though I believe as much as another of the good intentions of the persons that gave it. For if there be cause to fear, That the King will never be drawn to agree to any reasonable terms of Accommodation, while His Majesty is imprisoned by the Cavaliers, and encircled by those wicked Counsellors, who by this Writer are presumed to be about him, and to have power to seduce Him: Can it be reasonably thought, That the Cavaliers will be less vigilant to keep His Majesty from making an escape, Or those Counsellors to charm Him from stirring from them, though it be for the Peace of the Kingdom, till their own be first made with the Parliament? But the Petitioners advice is, To have those Cavaliers and Councillors pursued, and His Majesty freed from them by that means; perhaps this may prove a thing easier to say then to do, as experience hath showed. Let us not so soon forget what we have lately learned, at our great charge. His Majesty had erected His Standard at Nottingham, to which there was no such mighty nor hasty confluence as was expected. The Cavaliers (which term I would not consent to abuse, if it were not at the present impossible to reduce it to the right use again) had attempted Warwick and Coventry, and failed in both. They had marched against the Forces of the Parliament near Southam, in no very unequal strength, though the numbers were somewhat unequal, and had fallen off in a disorderly Retreat, without striking stroke. This was likely to give so much discouragement to the King's Party (not too forward to show itself before) that it was thought a matter of much difficulty, if not impossibility, for His Majesty to raise His Forces, than very weak, to a complete Army, in time to oppose that of the Parliament, then ready to march, and abundantly provided of all necessaries for the War. Hereupon the Parliament rejected a reiterated Offer of His Majesties to treat, and with high Wisdom, as then in hope the King might have been necessitated to have abandoned certain Delinquents, or they the Kingdom, besides the weighty Reasons expressed in their Answers. But whether by God's blessing upon the sincerity of His Majesty's Protestation, most solemnly renewed near Wellington, with a necessary Exception thereunto; Or by the Industry and courage of some persons active enough before, but then quickened by their desperate Condition; Or by what other more secret providence or means I know not; sure I am, That in a very short space of time, the Scale was so far turned, even beyond the expectation of Cavaliers and Counsellors, as may be showed under their hands, that His Majesty's Army gave Battle to that of the Parliament, fought it so well, that it is not yet agreed who had the Victory. But if the Cavaliers were defeated, they marched within seven miles of the Parliament after their Defeat, there stood in Battle again, and thence made one of the most resolute, if not the most soldierly Retreats hath been heard of in our Age; so improsperous is the excess of confidence in the success of War, as well as of Duels: and let us therefore beware of stumbling again at that stone, as the Petitioners might have observed the Parliament to be. Why His Majesty hath no Money; and without the strength of that sinew of War, His Cavaliers, as gallant as they are, can have but paralitique Arms. A vain conceit, That silver and gold should not soon be brought under the power of Brass and Iron; Or that he that is grown well-nigh Master of the Field, should not in humane reason soon become Master of this whole Kingdom for want of Money or Ammunition: I forbear to say by what means, lest I should be thought to have a mind to give crafty counsel to the wicked Counsellors, of which they have no need, nor I any disposition, if I had ability, to help them. And besides, may it not be feared, That the Parliament may ere long have no superfluity of that all-working Engine, when the Petitioners, who have born the greatest part of the charge of the War, and whose Purses have been so open hitherto, upon the security of the public Faith only, are now fallen so much from their former speed, that the Parliament hath found it necessary to promise a speedy re-embursement of the moneys now desired to be advanced, out of the first that shall come in upon the Ordinance of Assessment; of which, what the effect will be, upon that generation of men that were not forward to set up their rest upon this War, when the Game was much fairer than now it is, peradventure there may be some little question. O but if we should chance to need any help, the Petitioners have been assured it is ready to come from Foreign parts: For the Penner of the Passages had told them, before he told us, in the beginning of his second half Sheet, That the States of Holland and Zealand, and the States general, have unanimously agreed on a Declaration to be sent into England, desiring to join with this Kingdom in mutual assistance each of other, and with Scotland likewise. Then which (understanding it (as this Writer doth) of those States, so joining with the Parliament, standing in the terms it doth with the King) I had rather see any tolerable Accommodation of the differences between the Parliament and His Majesty; and yet I wish His Majesty, by advice of His Parliament, were in such a League with those States, as much as any other man doth, that hath an eye therein to the public Interest only. So much is the master of the Passages above the reach of my understanding in Affairs of State, if he have not overreached his own, when he conceived of this Production of this Week, as of a thing much conducing to the Peace and Safety of this Kingdom: of which stretches (the Issue of partiality and a good wit) I presume every intelligent Reader hath observed many in his former weekly Accounts, which is all I know of him, not having the least imagination who the man is. But the best is, that he hath been abused by his Intelligencer on the other side, as well in the News, as in the goodness of it; which I would not so confidently affirm, having myself no Correspondent there, if it were a thing unknown to any man that knoweth the Fundamental Constitution of that State, and the present temper thereof, That an unanimous concurrence in any matter of this nature among any of those States, against the mind of the Prince of Orange, is a thing only not impossible. And howsoever the wisdom of the Parliament of England is too great to be caught with the Bait of such an Overture, which under the show of helping us to bear our burdens, would shuffile an incomparable heavier of their own upon our shoulders, of which we should quickly come to bear more than our part. I will therefore here pray the Petitioners to beware of believing all they read in Print hereafter; and so I leave them, I hope not ill satisfied with me, when I have here publicly professed my sincere concurrence with them in the main matter of the chief of their former Petitions, though I cannot subscribe to this.  
The unadvisedness of this Petition, and it may be the seeming inequality, between being assessed and forced to pay moneys in a great proportion, towards the maintenance of this War, without any hope of re-payment (for aught can be discerned by the Ordinance) and the Loan of like, or it may be less sums, upon engagement of the public Faith for re-embursement with Interest, seemeth to have stirred up a great multitude of dis-affected persons (as they are styled by the Contriver of the Passages) to subscribe a Petition for Peace in more absolute terms than it may be was altogether fit, yet may better be excused, than the petitioning against Peace in the most complying Language can be devised.  
And the direct contradiction of these two exorbitant Petitions, and the high Contestation of the Petitioners about them, seemeth to have moved the wise Senate, and Common-counsel of the City to enter into a deliberation about the framing of of a third (mentioned in the Passages of this last week) which I would not be thought to have the presumption to censure further than this, That (knowing what I know) I do much doubt, the infusion of the grievances annexed thereunto, may make it too strong a Medicine for our disease, considering his stomach from which it must receive all the operation it can have towards our cure.  
The News of these three divers Petitions all on foot at the same time, in the same City, hath stirred thoughts in me of the danger of a City divided in itself, and of another of greater consequence, particularly and inseparably involved in the division of the City of London, that being such an Epitome of the whole Kingdom of England, That out of the History of what is doing there, whether good or evil, a wise man may ever write an infallible Prophecy of what will ere long be in agitation in the whole Land. And the consideration of the aforesaid dangers, joined to the hope I have, That in contemplation of them, the City will think it no presumption in us good people of the poor plundered Country, in such an overgrown storm as this, to desire to be allowed an Oar in the rowing of that Boat to shore, in which we, and all that we have, are embarked, as well as they, have raised up my spirits to make an Essay whether it may be possible to project such a way, tending to the bringing of the King and Parliament together again, as may be suitable to the several Intentions of the respective Petitioners of the City; and so by God's blessing, a means to reduce them, and by them, the whole Body of the Kingdom to that Unity, which if I might but live to see, I should then cheerfully sing by Nunc dimittis. And because experience hath taught me, that the rarity and greatness of affairs and accidents of State, doth I know not how dazzle the eyes of men unaccustomed, and unacquainted with the judging and handling of them, and that the best way to dispel this mist, is to look on such things and courses which are usual in common life, and by them to take the right proportions, and measure, and way of managing of the other less known, my first endeavours shall be to find out such a parallel for that business now in hand. And as I know no comparison doth run better, or more fit than that of a man and his wife with the King and his Parliament, so I would our present distempers were not too like the condition of a Woman and her Husband first parted upon Jealousy, and other discontents between them, and then not knowing how with credit to come together again, when the great increase of both their discomforts, occasioned by their separation, hath sufficiently disposed them unto it. For in this case, which is of too common knowledge if through the working of their own good nature, or the solicitation of others, they shall take a resolution to make haste to meet again at one great stop by passing over all that hath passed between them in silence, (which seemeth to be the way on which the opposite Petitioners are yet agreed) it is a hundred to one, that once within a month, or a year or two, some new falling out upon old reckon will happen between them, and then this second breach will be harder to make up then the former. On the otherside, if they shall resolve to live asunder till satisfaction shall be given for every cause of distaste, and till every ground of difference between them shall be fully reconciled, by the going of friends, or sending of Papers between them (which is the way of the third Petition) the adventure is no less, that pickthank tale-bearers, and such other persons, as either are gainers by their being at odds, or in danger by their reconcilement, will give so many cunning interruptions to the length of such a Negotiation, that one of their lives will be ended before the Treaty be concluded; in this case therefore it hath ever been found best to go a middle way by compounding all the principal grounds of their separation before their return into the same house, and to leave the rest to be agreed between themselves, which after they have had a new taste of the contentment of living as they ought together, will easily be done in that field where all quarrels between Husband and Wife should be fought out. In imitation of which proceeding approved by many experiments, let us first inquire after the Original grounds of the present wide differences between the King and his Parliament, and then, after the most probable expedients, to agree them. And if I be not mistaken, this great inundation, which in a short time hath almost overwhelmed the whole Kingdom, hath arisen from theree so small springs, that a man, who hath not observed the times, and places, at which other rivers and torrents fell into their channels, would be astonished to behold the height of the deluge they are now risen to. They were the misunderstanding between his Majesty and the Parliament touching the perpetuation, and freedom thereof, and about the Protection of reputed delinquents on the one side and on the other. And in the present conjuncture of affairs, I can imagine no possible means of overcoming these three Fundamental and mother points of difference, before the whole Kingdom be overrun with plundering, but by passing three new Acts of Parliament: The first of them may be drawn up two ways, either in the form of a general amnesty from the beginning of the world without any exception of any persons. Or else if this motion shall be rejected on both sides (as it may be it will) then to insert a limitation of time from which the amnesty shall begin, and to which it shall extend, as to certain crimes to be particularly specified, and excepted in the Act, as it useth to be done in general pardons, and the trial of persons that may happen to be charged with them, to be therein also particularly referred to such Judges to whom by Law it doth appertain, which in appearance can be no new, nor moot case. For in the present equality of Forces; I despair of agreement, if any persons shall be excepted by name.  
The second is an act for the securing of the Parliament, and all the Members thereof, as well against all tumultuary Assemblies of the people, as from all attempts by way of force, though under pretence of authority from the King. In which act it must be remembered to be particularly specified, that the person of the King, for the time being is, and ever shall be taken as a part of the Parliament, as indeed it ought to be taken in, whensoever the Parliament is spoken of as an entire body, which must have a head, though as the head and body may be contradistinguished at other times, so may the King and Parliament be also by the same reason.  
The third is an act for the assurance of an Annual Parliament in the same manner that a Triennial is now assured, but with two additions: One for the security of the Members of both Houses to be conducted to the place appointed for the holding of the Parliament, and for their safe remaining there by the Sheriffs of the respective Counties through which they are to pass, and in which the Parliament shall happen to be kept, or by such other Officers as may be thought more fit, which under correction was an omission in the act for the Triennial Parliament. And another, as well for the prevention of the unseasonable dissolution of Parliaments, without the consent of both Houses, as for the assurance of the dissolution of every Parliament within the space of one year, in which there may be two Sessions thereof at such times, and of such length as shall be judged most convenient. I do expect, that this overture should be abominated by some on both sides, and that is an argument to me, that it is the most equitable proposition can be made for the agreeing of this supreme point of difference to the benefit of His Majesty, of the Parliament, and people of this Kingdom, as will be found upon a just calculation of the conveniencies thereof in relation to the inconveniences of present constitutions. For as all the incommodities which the King & Kingdom have felt by the too long intermission, and abrupt breaking up of Parliaments, will be prevented by this order for the frequency, and continuance of them; so the determining of them at a certain time, and the making of two Sessions in each of them, may by God's blessing prove an effectual Antidote against those high distempers, of which the King, and Parliament, and Kingdom do all complain now, whosoever hath been in the fault, or whatsoever hath been the true cause of them. And I cannot conceive why His Majesty's voluntary yielding to this abridgement of the Right of the Crown, in the point of dissolving of Parliaments, for the good of his people, should be esteemed more dishonourable to him, than it was to his most famous Progenitors, to assent to several Laws for the yearly calling of Parliaments, and other Regulating of their power for the same reason.  
After the passing of these three Acts to the purpose aforesaid, I do with all humble submission propound to consideration, Whether His Majesty and the Parliament may not with Honour securely meet to establish the purity of Religion, and of the true Worship of God, and right Government of his Church in such a manner as may be most for his glory, and the peace of his people: To settle the Rights of the Crown, the Privileges of Parliament, the Freedom of Elections thereunto, and of proceeding therein, and all other the Liberties of the Subject in such a manner, that there may never hereafter be any more such mistake about them, as we groan under at present. And at the same time hand in hand to settle such a constant, Royal Revenue upon the Crown, as hath been often promised by this Parliament, and to deliberate, and resolve upon the most easy, ready, and equal way to raise such sums of money upon emergent occasions as may be for the security of all the professors of the Protestant Religion against all Antichristian Power, etc. Which are matters of such difficulty, and length, that if the Armies now on foot shall be maintained till they be all agreed by Treaty, the whole Kingdom is in danger of being ruined before it be concluded.  
You have the raving thoughts of a simple Countryman wedded to a solitaty life in a desert, which he hath long and often there revolved in his own mind, and at length conferred them with divers wiser men, whose having approved of them upon their second thoughts, more than at the first, hath much confirmed him that he is in the right, and that encouraged him to take the present occasion, humbly to recommend them to the serious, and mature consideration of the Honourable City of London, which hath hitherto ever had the honour to settle the troubles of this Kingdom on that side to which it hath inclined; but he is very jealous it may be in danger to lose now, unless it be reduced to unity in itself. And if peradventure any part of that he hath written should have the happiness to receive such approbation of so wise a Senate, that they should think of conveying it higher, he doth then further humbly propound, Whether the Petitioning for a day of most solemn Fast to be specially designed for the seeking of God's face in the behalf of this Kingdom (which it hath been strange to him we have hitherto been content to do, by the voluntary devotion of private men upon the Monthly Fasts, without any public direction from King, Church or State, as if this Kingdom were an Appendixe of Ireland, and not that of England) and a Declaration that the monthly Fast is also jointly intended to be kept for the purpose any other request may be made for the procuring of a speedy and aforesaid, may not be a fit addition to lasting peace.  
For conclusion, since it is the part of wise men, in every business of great concernment, to fore cast the contrary events may fall out, and the respective issues of them: I shall only humbly beseech my Lord Major, and the sage Court of Aldermen, first to anticipate in their thoughts upon the one hand, that it is not more impossible the King's Forces should ere long obtain the remainder of those advantages towards the several Seas, and upon the several Rivers of this Kingdom, or those other within the Land, which it is apparent they aim at, than it was for them a while since, to prevail in any of those they have already gotten; and then to ask themselves what the consequence is like to be, if the body of the City or Country should grow weary of this war before such a peace be made, as is desired by all good men, and in reason may be attained while the affairs stand yet in balance by their means, who by bearing the greatest purse in this State, may ever have the loudest voice in all Counsels to which they shall be admitted. And then upon the other hand to figure to themselves by strength of imagination, That the Forces of the Parliament have freed the King from the restraint he is supposed to be in now, and to have him so freed in their power, and then to put this question to themselves, What use they can make of this Victory, if his Majesty (who by all that know him, is known to be the most intelligent, and most resolved King this day living in the whole Christian world) should by the power of his own understanding continue as fixed in his resolution, not to make any greater or other alteration in Legibus Angliae, concerning Church or State, than he hath already declared himself willing to do in his several Answers and Declarations set forth before, and since the beginning of these troubles, and particularly in His Majesty's Answer to the Nineteen Propositions, when he was environed with Evil Counsellors, and Cavaliers; And yet more particularly to put these two questions to themselves, How His Majesty imagined to be in the hands of the Parliaments Forces, shall be gotten to London against his will: And whether it be for the good of their City, that His Majesty should for ever make his residence other where, especially if he should do it upon any alienation of his affection from the Inhabitants thereof, or any sort of them. After the debating of which matters within themselves, I shall only take the boldness to exhort them to carry themselves like wise men; which short word is enough to the wise.  
And yet I would not have the Counsellors or Cavaliers grow insolent by running away too fast in their fancies with any of the things I have mentioned. For if the design or hope of any of them be at last to introduce an Arbitrary Government, by dissolving this Parliament by force, without the consent of the Houses, which is Treason by the known Law of the Land, and a Treason infinitely aggravated by the many public, and I doubt not most sincere Protestations of his Majesty made to the contrary, they may read their destiny in the Lord strafford's fortune. Or if there be any of them, who perchance having as much care as another to preserve the temporal Liberties of the Subject entire, may yet have a mischievous machination in his head either to re-introduce a great part of the doctrine and practice of Popery into this Church under the name of the Protestant profession: or but to hinder such a further Reformation as is yet necessary for the setting up of the power of Godliness in the hearts of the people of this Land and of the Kingdom annexed thereunto, which is to undermine his Throne who is King of kings, and Lord of lords: let them remember what King David a truly brave Cavalier sung to his Harp in the first Psalm of his making, He that sitteth in Heaven shall laugh them to scorn, the Lord shall have them in derision! and that which Solomon his son, the wisest Counsellor that ever was on earth, hath left us upon record in his Proverbs, There is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor council against the Lord. The Horse is prepared against the day of battle; but safety is of the Lord.  
My humble advice therefore to them shall be, that while it is yet time they would lay the prudent advice of the wise Gamaliel to heart. And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone. For if this Counsellor this work be of men, in will come to naught; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, least happily ye be found even to fight against God.  
FINIS.