New Presbyterian Light springing out of Independent Darkness. or VI. important new queries proposed to the ARMY, And their Friends and Party of the Houses; concerning the late Ordinance for Repeal of the New Militia of London, settled by an Ordinance of both Houses, when full and free, for an whole year, (not yet one Quarter expired;) and other late Repeals of Ordinances and Votes; and the high Declaration against the intended Petition and Engagement of the Londoners and others, For the speedy settlement of the kingdom's Peace: occasioned by the Debates thereof in the Common council in the Guildhall on Saturday last, the 24 of this instant July.  
Discovering the dangerous consequences of repealing Ordinances and Votes, and the Independents, Sectaries, and Armies PLOTS, to blast the Honour, Justice, and reputation of this Parliament, thereby to dissolve it and all others in in their false pretences of Peace, when they intend nought less; and their strange Injustice and malice against Presbyterians, which will end in their own dishonour and downfall.  
LONDON, Printed in the Year 164●   

NEW PRESBYTERIAN LIGHT springing out of INDEPENDENT darkness OR Six important new Queries, proposed to the Army and their friends and Humble servants of the Houses; concerning the late Ordinance for Repeal of the New Militia of London, settled by an Ordinance of both Houses, when full and free, for an whole year (not yet one quarter expired) and other late Repeals of Ordinances and Votes; and the high Declaration against the intended Petition and engagement of the Londoners and others; for the speedy settlement of the kingdom's Peace, &c.  
IT is a common Observation, that New Laws ever beget new doubts and Questions: so have some New Ordinances and Declarations concerning the Militia, Petition and Engagement of London, in the common-council an Saturday last; reducible to the ensuing six Queries.  
1. Whether Ordinances and Votes of both Houses, passed with mature deliberation in a full and free Parliament, overawed by no armed power, may or can in point of honour, Law, or Justice, be retracted or repealed on a sudden, upon the request or demand of a mutinous Army, by any contrary Ordinances or Votes, made upon less debate or consideration; when the Houses were neither so ful nor free as befo●e, and divided in the later, but not in the former Ordinances and votes, and that in the same session of Parliament? And whether the Armics and Independents end in putting the Houses now upon such repealing Ordinances and Votes, (for which they have sufficiently jeered and abused them in print, and manifested the dishonour and prejudice of it, in their Humble Remonstrance of June 23. P. 8. 9) is not to render Parliaments vile and odious to the people; and thereupon to abolish them, and change the whole frame of Government of this Kingdom, into a council of war, and Agitators for the present, and a popular Anarchy for the future? But we trust all well-affected intelligent people will be so discreet, as to turn the blame and odium only upon the chief plotters, and drivers on of this design; and never grow weary of Parliaments, but of that factious Army & their confederates, who thus pervert and abuse them, and deserve exemplary punishment for it.  
2. Whether such a manner of revoking Ordinances, and eating or repealing former Votes, will not render all Ordinances and Votes contemptible, ridiculous, and of little or no validity; and shake all the Ordinances and Votes of both Houses, either for the soldiers and others indemnity, in acting for the Parliament, upon any Ordinances; or for the security of moneys advanced for the public service, upon the Excise, goldsmith's Hall, Sale of Bishops Lands &c. and make all such security invalid, since revokable at pleasure, if the Army or Independents shall but propound it? And then in what sad condition are the poor Presbyterians, who have engaged all their Estates upon the faith of such Ordinances and Votes, to raise, maintain, and gratify Independent forces, Officers, Members (who have contributed least of any, and received most) who may dash and null all their securities in a moment, if they comply not with them? And whether the city, common-council, and all others who have advanced moneys, or acted upon any Ordinances, have not just cause to question the validity of such repealing Ordinances and Votes, which may endanger their very lives, Liberties and Estates, and expose them to all kind of extremities; notwithstanding their oft promised protection and indemnity?  
3. Whether the sudden repeal of the Ordinance of Parliament, of the 4 of May 1647, for the Militia of London, settled by unanimous consent of the common-council▪ and both Houses when full and free, to continue for a full year (at least) upon a bare motion from the Army (whom it no ways concerned, and who never motioned it to the City or their Commissioners, in any of their Letters or Treaties with their Commissioners, for aught appears) only to the Commons House, without any grounds or satisfactory reasons alleged for this sudden change, or once hearing or conferring with the City or Militia (as they have usually done upon all other occasions of far less consequence than this) by an Ordinance of 23. July 1647. (before three months of the time expired) which renders no reason at all of the alteration; be not a Jesuitical device of some swaying Sectaries and Independents; partly for to alienate and divide the City from the Parliament (who cannot but resent it as an high discourtesy and affront, and a very ill requital of all their former services and fidelity to the Parliament, which hath been so oft supplied by their bounty, and preserved by their valour, when few or none else stood by them to the effusion of their blood, & advanced no less than 80000. l▪ at once for the new-modeling & raising of this very ungratful Army, which now thus unworthily puts such an insufferable disgrace upon them.) but principally to gain the Tower of London and Magazines in it, into the Independents and Armies custody, to enslave and Command the City at their pleasure; they having formerly plotted to surprise it by stratagem, which would have rendered them very odious; and this being a far more plausible way to gain its possession, by colour of an Ordinance of both Houses, who must bear all the blame, and envy, whiles the Contrivers of it go Scot-free.  
4. Whether this precedent at the army's instance, of repealing the old Ordinance of the Militia by a new; may not prove a dangerous leading case for the Houses suddenly to repeal Sir Thomas 
This Lilburne affirmeth in his Epistles p. 13▪  Fairfax and all his Officers Commissions, which are but durante beneplacito: & quamdiu se bene gesserint; (and therefore all* forfeited by their mutinies and disobedience:) and the late Votes for putting all the forces in pay within the Kingdom under his command, and for the continuance, pay and establishment of the ARMY: with all other late Votes passed in their favour and at their desires, and their very Act of indemnity? And then what will become of their Worships? Have they not then made a rod for their own tails; and a halter for their own necks, in stead of the Cities by this new Ordinance of repeal, made with more haste then good speed?  
5. Whether the House of Lords and Commons have not by their Ordinance for the taking of the Solemn League and Covenant, authorized, obliged, and engaged all well-affected Citizens, Gentlemen, Soldiers, and Subjects of the Kingdom, who have taken it, solemnly to unite their heads, hearts and forces together at this present (and upon all other just occasions) for the preservation of Religion and uniformity in Church-Government against heresy, Error, Blasphemy and Schism; the safety of the King's person and authority; the defence of the just Rights and privileges of Parliament, and of their own Lives, Estates, Liberties; (all now endangered by a Schismatical mutinous party in the Army and their Confederates) the present effectual relief of distressed Ireland, and bringing his Majesty to or near his Parliament, in an honourable and just way, for the speedy settlement of a firm and happy peace, after all our expensive and bloody▪ Wars, so long delayed since the War hath ceased, to their great grief and damage? If not, than they and others are all mistaken in the words and tenor of the League and Covenant, engaging them thereunto in positive terms under pain and censure of detestable perjury, apostasy; neutrality; and that they shall not suffer themselves directly or indirectly by WHATSOEVER COMBINATION persuasion OR TERROR (be it of an whole revolting Army or a Declaration of high Treason either from his Majesty or any Independent Members of either House, or any Sectaries who have either not taken, forgotten, or abjured the Covenant) to be divided or withdrawn from this blessed union and Conjunction, either to make defection to the contrary (Prelatical, Sectarian or Independent) Part, or to give themselves to a detestable indifferency and neutrality in this cause which so much concerns the glory of God, the good and peace of the Kingdoms and honour of the King: But shall ALL THE DAYS OF THEIR LIVES zealously AND CONSTANTLY CONTINVE therein AGAINST ALL OPPOSITION, AND PROMOTE THE SAME, ACCORDING TO THEIR POWER AGAINST ALL LETS AND IMPEDIMENTS; be it from the Army or any other? If yea, as is irrefragable; then with what conscience, face or Justice can such be declared traitors, or guilty of Treason, who shall now re-engage themselves to make good this League and Covenant, and that by those very Houses (perchance not persons) who formerly enjoined and earnestly pressed them to take it, and proclaimed them treacherous and perjured if they broke it? Was ever such a strange contradiction as this, heard of in the world before? The King proclaimed those traitors heretofore, who should adventure to take it by the Houses command; and the Independents in the Houses must now declare those, who have taken it by their order, traitors, because they conscionably keep it against a perfidious army's mind, who have highly violated it in every particular branch. But to requite their kindness, those honest Covenanters will enforce them and make it good at their utmost perils before all the world: That those who wilfully and treacherously break this League and Covenant, are traitors; not those who zealously and constantly continue therein: and if their decried Petition and engagement be Treason; the Armies seditious, mutinous Petitions, Declarations, Demands and Letters, and seizing and detaining of the King from the Parliament against their Votes and Covenant, is much more Treason: And therefore this strange subitane Declaration of their Friends and Party serves only for this good use, implicitly and by way of necessary sequel; to proclaim the Generals, Officers, Agitators and Armies Declarations, Proceedings and Demands High Treason at the least; seeing they resolve and declare (by what Law is questionable) the very signing of this new harmless engagement, (warranted by the Solemn League and Covenant) to be such; which they had neither justice nor courage to do before in direct and positive terms, as they ought and should have done: which Declaration is as justly revocable no doubt as that, and may be more reasonably excepted against, then that against the Armies 
See Lilburns Letters to Cromwell, and the army's solemn Engagement.  seditious Petition, & Engagement, the* seminary and groundwork of all their undutiful and treasonable proceedings since, against the King, Parliament, and poor dying Ireland.  
6. What Reason or justice is there, that Sir Thomas Fairfax, Cromwel's, Cornet Joyce, the Agitators and Armies confederacy 
Of June 8. 14. 20▪ 23.  and* solemn Engagements to seize the King's person; march up to London to enforce the Houses, impeach and demand XI. eminent Members at once, without just cause; subvert the Rights and freedom of Parliaments; propose very high and unreasonable demands, to which they must receive a present answer, or else be enforced to take extraordinary courses; draw all other forces in the Kingdom, and those designed for Ireland to combine with them against the Parliament; their seizing of General Poyntz, and sending him to the Army to be tried by a council of War for his life, only for dissuading his Officers to join with the Agitators and army in these Treasons; should never be declared nor proclaimed Treason by the Houses all this while; and yet the poor faithful Citizens (to whom the Houses owe their lives and preservation more than to the Army) be suddenly declared traitors by them, only for reingaging themselves according to their Covenant, to defend the King, Parliament, and City, against these revolters, and to endeavour a safe & speedy Peace; which the world will believe the Army and their friends in the Houses never cordialy intended, but pretended, only to delude the people; because they declare the Citizens desire and engagement 
Yea high treason, punishable with the forfeiture of life and estate, so are the words of the Declaration.  to effect it, to be no less than* Treason, and a very dangerous design, discovered to the Speaker, in a Letter by Col. Harvey, with the names of the chief Conspirators, from his bishopric of Fulham, the purchase whereof, and something else hath made him lately Independentish: And why was H. M. that chaste and saintlike Independent, (who hath so much honesty as never in two years' space, after divers summons, to give an Account of the state's money he received, and so much piety, as to plead for that most damnable heretic and blasphemer, Best and his Books) employed to draw up this Declaration against the citizen's Petition and Engagement; who pleaded so violently for the revocation of the Declaration against the army's Petition, as an high Breach of the subjects Priviledg● and Birthright, fit to be revoked? Surely it seems it is either because some Independent Grandees of the Houses were privy and consenting to all these traitorous Actions and Proceedings of the Army and so would not declare against them▪ for fear of proclaiming themselves traitors, as well as Joyce and the Army; or because the times are now so metamorphosed, and the Independent party become so strong by the Impeachment and d●iving away of the Presbyterian Members; that High Treason in an Independent and Sectary, is become a commendable virtue, at least an irreprehensible offence, and a Presbyterians mere performance of his Solemn League and Covenant (which this Declaration, it seems, would utterly repeal) become no less than Treason; so much are Presbyterians down the wind, and such is the Independents and Sectaries brotherly affection and Liberty of conscience towards them, even for doing their conscience. What may they expect from them hereafter, who are so injurious and harsh towards them already? The Independent and Sectarian party now are grown so confident, that they think the whole Kingdom and both Houses theirs, and the Presbyterians quite defunct: And thereupon have newly published a Libel with this Title: The last will and Testament of Sir John Presbyter; who died of a new disease, called, The Particular Charge of the ARMY, &c. With his Life, DEATH and burial; also his Epitaph: (discovering their mortal hatred to Presbyterians, and the Armies design to kill and bury them,) which they presume already done by the army's Charge: But, Gentlemen, be not over hasty: Sir John Presbyter, though he hath silently slept a while, is now awaked; and neither dead nor buried, but alive, and alive will be, when King John of Leyden, the Anabaptist, and Saint Ignatius Loyola, the Jesuited Independent may be strangled at Tyburn, or lose their Pates on Towerhil for their sacred Treacheries; the whole series and History whereof, with the names, places of meeting, Debates, Letters and Resolutions of the chief Heads of the Faction from time to time, and those who have Treacherously revolted to them for base private ends, he will speedily publish to the world to their eternal Infamy, to show he is still alive and unburied, and privy to their deepest secrets; which he will not only charge but make good against them, in a more honourable and Parliamentary manner, than the ARMY did, or can make good their Charge against the MEMBERS they impeached; who dare try their Innocency by Battle in the open field (so many to so many and one to boot) against the Gallant General and Lievt. General, and any 9 or ten Officers of the Army more, that are Gentlemen born, to end the Controversy and Wars without more expense of blood, as well as answer them at the Commons Bar; and will prove themselves more faithful to the state, than any of their greatest Accusers, if both sides may come to a free and fair trial. In the mean time he will pray; that the Armies, Sectaries, and Independents private ends, and self-seeking Designs; may never be able to obstruct the speedy settlement of our public Peace in England, or relief of desperate Ireland, now gasping out it's last breath; whose loss and blood must only rest on their score. Whom their great Friend and Patron John Lilburn in his new-printed Epistles to Cromwell thus paints out in their saintlike colours; p. 9, 10. You have robbed by your unjust subtlety and shifting tricks the honest and gallant Agitators of a●l their power and authority, and solely placed it in a thing called a council of War or rather a Cabinet Juncto of 7 or 8 proud self-ended fellows, that so you may without control make up your own ends: The chiefest of them are as base as base may be; and will sell Christ, their Country, Friends, Relations, and a good Conscience for a little money or worldly riches. And are such Saints to be trusted by Parliament or King?  
In fine, if Parliament Members out of by-ends, or fear of, or compliance with any particular Party whatsoever, will pass any unjust, dishonourable or inconsiderate Votes or Ordinances; it is a just judgement of God upon them, that they should be enforced and induced publicly to retract them with shame and dishonour, even by the meanest of the people: whose late tumultuous proce●dings, though no ways justifiable or excusable, but deserving exemplary Censure, and carefully to be prevented, suppressed on all hands by the Militia and other Officers appointed for that purpose, for the future: yet they must be looked upon by all wise conscientious people, as fruits of the Armies pernicious disobedience and exorbitancies, and permitted, ordered by God's providence to punish & correct, if not reform, the obliquity and iniquity of such timorous▪ self-seeking, or time-serving warping Members, who out of fear, self-interests, or to please a prevailing party or Army, care not what they pass or Vote, to the Parliaments dishonour, and the public prejudice, or hurt of those who side not with them; the late sad effects and dangerous consequences whereof, may (through God's blessing) convince them of their former Errors in this kind, and engage them to vote and act with more sincerity and public generous spirits for the future; aiming only at the Common good, Peace and speedy settlement of our distracted and almost ruined Kingdoms.   

A postscript.  
JOhn Lilburn, the army's Champion, chief Advocate, and councillor in his Letters to Leivt. General Cromwell; p. 13. hath this notable passage, which proclaims them a mere unlawful rout of Rebellious mutineers, acting without a Commission from the King or Houses, whose orders and Commands they positively disobey and protest against: and therefore all wellwillers to the Parliament are bound by their Covenant to withstand and protest against them and their proceedings, and endeavour their present disbanding, for the people's ease, and settlement of the kingdom's Peace.  
The Army under Sir Thomas Fairfax, IS NOT NOW AN ARMY ACTING BY A COMMISSION from the King, OR THE TWO houses; for although they were raised by an Ordinance of the Lords and Commons assembled at Westminster, for the defence of the King and Parliament, the true Protestant Religion (not the Scotch, Jewish, Antichristian, enslaving Presbytery) and the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom (not the Arbitrary wills of the Houses▪ as appears by the Ordinance, 15. Feb. 1644. 2. part, book, declare. fol. 599. which positively Commands Sir Thomas Fairfax, from time to time, to submit to, and obey all such Orders and Directions as he shall receive from both Houses of Parliament, or from the Committee of both Kingdoms. Yet now he and his Army apprehending and believing, that the wicked and swaying faction in both Houses, would destroy them, and enslave the whole Kingdom, DO NOT ONLY dispute THE TWO houses ORDERS and COMMANDS, but ALSO positively DISOBEY THEM, AS unjust, TYRANNICAL, unrighteous: And being now thereby dissolved into the Original Law of Nature, hold their swords in their hands for their own preservation and safety, which both Nature, and the two Houses practices and Declarations teacheth them to do; and justifies them, in and now act according to the principles of safety, flowing from Nature, Reason, and Justice, agreed on by common consent and mutual agreement amongst themselves, in which every individual private soldier, whether Horse or Foot, ought freely to have their Vote, to choose the transactors of their affairs, or else in the sight of God, and all rotional men are discharged from obeying, stooping, or submitting, to what is done by them.  
And p. 4. in his Letter to Cromwell March 25. 1647. he lays down this as a ground, Why the Army should not lay down their Arms upon any conditions in the world, before they see the Laws and universal well-known Liberties of England settled: seeing I will undertake publicly, and hope shortly to prove, the Parliament Tyrannizeth ten times more over us, than ever the King did; and I will maintain that by the Law of this Kingdom, it is ten times easier to prove it lawful for us to take up Arms against them in the ways they now go; then it was for them to take up Arms, when they did, against the King. And I profess I would do it, if I were rationally able to morrow.  
For this good Antiparliamentary Doctrine the Army in their late Demands require the enlargement of this archtraitor, who by his own confession in his printed Letters was the Principal instrument to instigate Cromwell and them to their present Rebellion against the Houses, their Members and proceedings, as arbitrary and Tyrannical, to subvert both King and Parliament. And therefore it is high time for the City and Kingdom to take up Arms to withstand them in defence of the Parliament, King, Kingdom, according to their Covenant.  
FINIS.