A DECLARATION AND VINDICATION OF john Pym Esquire:  
Concerning The divers aspersions which have been cast upon him by sundry base and scandalous Pamphlets, and by divers Malignants, and people illaffected to the good of the Commonwealth.  
Showing His continual fidelity and integrity towards His Majesty, and the High Court of Parliament, for the good of this Kingdom, and other His Majesty's DOMINIONS.  
London, Printed for John Atkinson. March 4. Anno Dom. 1643.   

A Declaration and Vindication of John Pym Esquire.  
IT is not unknown to all the world, especially to the Inhabitants in and about the City of London, with what desperate and fame-wounding aspersions my reputation, and the integrity of my intentions to God, my King, and my Country, hath been invaded by the malice and fury of Malignants, and illaffected persons to the good of the Commonwealth. Some charging me to have been the Promoter and Patronizer of all the innovations, which have been obtruded upon the Ecclesiastical government of the Church of England. Others, of more spiteful and exorbitant spirits, alleging that I only have been the man, who hath begot and fostered all the so lamented distractions, which are now rife in this Kingdom. And though such calumnies are ever more harmful to the authors, than to those whom they strive to wound with them, when they arrive only to the censure of judicious persons, who can distinguish forms, and see the difference betwixt truth and falsehood; yet because the scandals inflicted upon my innocence, have been obvious to people of all conditions, many of which may entertain a belief of those reproachful reports, though in mine own soul I am far above those ignominies, and so was once resolved to have waived them, as unworthy my notice; yet at last, for the assertion of my integrity, I concluded to declare myself in this matter, that all the world, but such as will not be convinced, either by reason or truth, may hear testimony of mine innocence. To pass by therefore the Earl of strafford's business, in which some have been so impudent, as to charge me of too much partiality and malice, I shall declare myself fully concerning the rest of their aspersions: namely, that I have promoted and fomented the differences and schisms now abounding in the English Church.  
How unlikely this is, and improbable, shall to every indifferent man be quickly rendered perspicuous: for that I am, and ever was, and so will die a faithful son of the Protestant Religion, without having the least relation in my belief to those gross errors of Anabaptism, Brownism, and the like, every man that hath any acquaintance with my conversation can bear me righteous witness. These being but aspersions cast upon me by some of the discontented Clergy, and their Fautors and Abettors, because they might perhaps conceive, that I had been a main instrument in extenuating the haughty power and ambitious pride of the Bishops and Prelates; which if I had been (as I only delivered my opinion, as a member of the House of Commons) that attempt or action of mine had been justifiable both to God and a good conscience, and had no way concluded me guilty of revolt from the Orthodox Doctrine of the Church of England, because I sought a reformation of some gross abuses crept into its government, by the cunning and perverseness of the Bishops and their Substitutes. For was it not high time to seek to regulate their power, who in stead of looking to the cure of men's souls (which is their genuine office) they inflicted punishments on men's bodies, banishing them to remote and desolate places; after stigmatising their faces, only for the testimony of a good conscience. When not contented with those insufferable insolences, they sought to bring in unheard of Canons into the Church, Arminian, or Papistical Ceremonies, whether you please to term them, there is not much difference; imposing burdens upon men's consciences, which they were not able to bear, and introducing the old abolished superstition of bowing to the Altar: and if it savoured either of Brownism, or Anabaptism, to endeavour to suppress the growth of those Romish errors, I appeal to any equal minded Protestant, either for my Judge and witness. Nay, had the attemprs of the Bishops desisted here, tolerable they had been, and their power not so much questioned as since it hath been. For which they saw, the Honourable, the High Court of Parliament, begun to look into their enormities and abuses, beholding how they wrested Religion like a waxed nose, to the furtherance of their ambitious purposes: then Troy was taken in, than they began to despair of holding any longer their usurped authority; and therefore as much as in them lay, both by public declamations and private counsels, they laboured to foment the civil differences between his Majesty and his Parliament, abetting the proceed of the Malignants with large supplies of men and money, and stirring up the people to tumults by their seditious Sermons. Surely then no man can account me an ill son of the Commonwealth, if I delivered my opinion, and passed my vote freely for their abolishment, which may by the same equity be put in practice by this Parliament, as the dissolution of Monasteries, and their lazy Inhabitants, Monks and Friars were in Henry the Eighths' time: for without dispute, they carried as much reputation in the Kingdom then, as Bishops have done in it since, and yet a Parliament than had power to put them down; why then should not a Parliament have power to do the like to these, every way guilty of as many offences against the State as the former? For mine own part I attest, God Almighty the knower of all hearts, that neither envy, or any private grudge to all, or any of the Bishops, hath made me adverse to their function; but merely my zeal to Religion and God's cause, which I perceived to be trampled under foot, by the too extended authority of the Prelates, who according to the purity of their institution, should have been men of upright hearts and humble minds, shearing their flocks, and not flaying them, when it is evident they were the quite contrary.  
And whereas some will allege, it is no good argument to dissolve the function of Bishops, because some Bishops are vicious: to that I answer, Since the vice of those Bishops was derivative from the authority of their function, it is very fitting the function which is the cause thereof be corrected, and its authority devested of its borrowed feathers: otherwise it is impossible, but the same power which made these present Bishops (should the Episcopal and Prelatical Dignity continue in its ancient height and vigour) so proud and arrogant, would infuse the same vices into their Successors.  
But this is but a molehill to that mountain of scandalous reports that have been inflicted on my integrity to his Sacred Majesty: some boldly averring me for the author of the present distractions between His Majesty and his Parliament, when I take God, and all that know my proceed, to be my Vouchers; that I neither directly, nor indirectly, ever had a thought tending to the least disobedience, or disloyalty to His Majesty, whom I acknowledge my lawful king and Sovereign, and would expend my blood as soon in his service, as any Subject he hath. 'Tis true, when I perceived my life aimed at, and heard myself proscribed a Traitor, merely for my entireness of hearrt to the service of my Country, was informed that I, with some other honourable and worthy Members of the Parliament, were against the privileges thereof demanded, even in the Parliament House by His Majesty, attended by a multitude of men at arms, and Malignants; who I verily believe had for some ill ends of their own, persuaded His Majesty to that excess of rigour against us, when for mine own part, (my conscience is to me a thousand witnesses in that behalf) I never harboured a thought, which tended to any dis-service to His Majesty, nor ever had an intention prejudicial to the State: when I say, notwithstanding mine own innocence, I saw myself in such apparent danger, no man will think me blame-worthy, in that I took a care of mine own safety, and fled for refuge to the protection of the Parliament, which making my case their own, not only purged me and the rest, of the guilt of treason; but also secured our lives from the storm that was ready to burst out upon them. And if this hath been the occasion, that hath withdrawn His Majesty from his Parliament, surely the fault can no way be imputed to me, or any proceeding of mine, which never went further, neither since His Majesty, nor before then, so far as they were warranted by the known Laws of the Land and authorized by the indisputable and undeniable power of the Parliament, and so long as I am secure in mine own conscience that this is truth, I account myself above all their calumnies and falsehoods, which shall return upon themselves, and not wound my reputation in good and impartial men's opinions.  
But in that devilish conspiracy of Catiline against the State and Senate of Rome, none among the Senators was so obnoxious to the envy of the Conspirators, or liable to their traducements, as that great Orator and Patriot of his Country, Cicero; because by his counsel and zeal to the Commonwealth, their plot for the ruin thereof was discovered and prevented; though I will not be so arrogant, to parallel myself with that Worthy, yet my case (if we may compare lesser things with great) hath to his a very near resemblance, the cause that I am so much maligned and reproached by illaffected persons being, because I have been forward in advancing the affairs of the Kingdom, and have been taken notice of for that forwardness: they out of their malice, converting that to a vice, which without boast be it spoken, I esteem as my principal virtue, my care to the Public Utility. And since it is for that cause, that I suffer these scandals, I shall endure them with patience, hoping that God in his great mercy will at last reconcile His Majesty to his High Court of Parliament, and then I doubt not but to give His Royal Self, though he be much incensed against me, a sufficient account of my integrity. In the interim, I hope the world will believe, that I am not the first innocent man that hath been injured; and so will suspend their further censures of me.   
FINIS.