THE REASON OF THE WAR, WITH The Progress and Accidents thereof.  
Written by an English Subject.  
Wherein also the most material Passages of the Two Books printed at Oxford (in which His MAJESTY'S party do undertake to justify their Proceed) are briefly examined;  
VIZ.  
The Declaration, entitled, Tending to Peace; The Relation of The Passages at the meeting at UXBRIDGE.  
Imprimatur  
July 1. 1646. NA: BRENT.  
LONDON: Printed for john Field, and are to be sold by Stationers. 1646.   

READER,  
THere were some parts of this Book published the last year, but passing from the Author in much imperfection and some baste, it is revised and augmented according to the Progress and Occurrences of the War: Many of the Passages therein are his own Collections observed at single hand, the rest produced through the Arguing and Discourse betwixt some opposite in opinion to him, and himself a lover of Learning, although of ordinary and too mean parts to Discourse it as an able Scholar; for he cannot but acknowledge that the subject of this Treatise might have been managed by a more learned and elaborate hand: The greater part thereof was begun about a twelvemonth since in the turbulent and divided times, by way of an Animadversary of the War, of the Occasions and Accidents thereof, and had been printed a good while since, had not an unexpected chance crossed in the very instant of putting it to the Press. Now if in these more quiet and composed times, the Beams of Peace seeming to shine out again, it should give offence, or in the least way interrupt the happy and hoped for Reconcilement, which it doth not in the Author's sense, and to his best understanding, his heart is against the publishing, the Discourse relating rather to what is past, and may serve for future times. It is probable that in these times of Conflict, this Discourse, as mild and plain as it is, may meet with rough harsh answers and unkind censurings, as that the Author is an Ambidexter, Neutral, that he cunningly carries himself betwixt both parts, sometimes and in some things for the King, at other times and in other things for the Parliament: Whereunto he replies, and ingenuously declares himself both for whom and against whom he is, For whom? For the King and Parliament: Against whom? Against the Disturbers of the happy Peace, having long since been the authors, and now the promoters consequently of this horrid War: and that there are and have been such, a woeful and sad Experience doth manifest.  
A  and upright interpretation is all the Reward the Author either looks or wishes for, next unto, That His Majesty and His Subjects may reciprocally enjoy and hold firmly and entirely their several Rights.   

The Reason of the War, with the Progress and Accidents thereof.  
TO describe the Power and Dignity of a King, the quality and several forms of a Parliament, is not the purpose of this discourse: Or what Esteem a Parliament in other Kingdoms carrieth, That is left unto the curious Pen of a more learned Antiquary: In this Kingdom, briefly, In the ancient and usual acception, it is an Assembly of the Nobility and Gentry, chosen by their Country, and solemnly called together by the King his writ to such a place, at such a time; to debate the affairs of the King and Kingdom.  
The manner of being called is by 
* See the form of the Writ in the Crown Office.  Writ, directed to the high Sheriff of every County, as to the chief Magistrate of Burrough Towns, to return Knights and Burgesses for that service, so Habited, viz. with swords girt on their sides, etc.  
Which habit, a Note and Emblem of the valour in them, required the Object to do and go on with Courage and Magnanimity in discharging their trust, which their Country hath reposed in them against all Forces opposing; And no Question if former Kings have deputed none to place of Justice, but menltz valianntzes as King Edw. 3. expresseth them, none but such are to defend and serve their Country in the high Court of Parliament, which controls, and is to give Laws to Justice.  
The end of their Assembling, is to determine, Ordain, and provide for the peace, Justice, and safety (the supremest Law) of the Kingdom; called thereunto by his Majesty, Entrusted by their Country: Whose Counsels and Ordinances become Laws, Or in case of variance in Judgement, that so many as are there met cannot all agree in the same opinion, that passeth for a Law which the major part concludes on; so it fares in every body Politic and Aggregative: And those the Parliament Orders and Ordinances are binding to the Subject, as Orders in Inferior Courts of Chancery, Common Pleas, etc. until decrees and Judgements pass to confirm the same, which decrees and Judgements in those lower Courts hold Analogy with Acts and Laws in the higher Court of Parliament.  
The work and end of the Parliament being consummate, the Laws enacted, the Parliament then determining, the King governs only and supreme, binding himself to observe those Laws by a double Oath, Tacitly, as being a King, and so bound to Rule and govern according to the Laws; Expressly, by his Oath taken at his Coronation.  
To speak in a plain grammatical and obvious way, the Latin Etimon directs the duty of a King: Rex, is so called à Regendo: Government is dispensed in wisdom and justice, 
* From which text the King's Party do contend, that Kings are immediately from God: no more than as follows in the subsequent verse, Nobles do Rule, and judges of, etc.  By me King's rule, saith the wisest of Kings; and Justice exalts a Nation, insomuch as when commands shall prove irregular, either wanting the one, or exceeding the Limits of either of these, they provoke the people (free borne Subjects) to a lose obedience, and the consequence commonly becomes dangerous.  
The Peers and Gentry thus assembled, and the Parliament now in being, the King's power is not so complete and total, having imparted itself to that Assembly; if it be, what then is the Parliaments power? If they have no power, they are assembled to no purpose; if a minced and diminished power, in whom doth it lie to lessen or to greaten it? if in the King, He then may by the same reason rule Arbitrarily, and by his own will as well as overrule a Parliament: so whilst the King imparts the power which he hath, by communicating it to that His Court of Council, He lesseneth it in Himself, or retracts His Grace in assembling them, which were a blemish to His Princely wisdom, unsuitable also to that common presumption [The King cannot do amiss.]  
The King as the Head of His People and Father of His Country, is by the common opinion of all dutiful and sober Subjects to be obeyed simply in all things Lawful and Honest, when there is no Court of Parliament in Being; when there is a Parliament, the Heart of that Body whereof the King is the Head, betwixt whom an unity of Coalition is presumed, the power of both is indivisible, & so intermixed, that when the Court of Parliament (the end of whose Counsels is to establish Justice, Peace) industriously intends the same; when we desert our duty unto them, we are wanting to ourselves, unthankful unto them.  
The Government of England, as in these latter times it stands, since Laws and a settled Form established, since Religion and Laws have met together & flourished (like couples in a building, each supporting other) and God honoured in both, is not simply a Subordinative, but a Co-ordinative and mixed Monarchy: yea the highest supremacy itself is compounded of three estates, , King, Lords and Commons; now it is true, Subordinata non pugnant, but Coordinata invicem supplent: Fundamentals are equal, and all Principals alike, Rex est universis minor; Bracton the great Lawyer saith, Rex habet superiorem sc. Deum Legem per quam factus est Rex, Curiam sc. Comites Barones.  
The agitating this and the like Questions incident hereunto, hath disturbed the minds of men and cost much blood, as which hath the Pre-eminence, which ought to bear the greater sway, the King or the whole number of the people in their collective Body (which the Court of Parliament doth represent?) Another Question is, which is the certain and proper Parliament as the case now stands, that summoned by his Majesties Writ to Westminster, or that by a latter command to Oxford? whither the Principles of the Subjects Peace, Religion, justice, have been of late and before this Quarrel in danger of being born down? And whither the conflict in the Quarrel undertaken by those who have endeavoured to provide against that danger, be Rebellion? The King and His Party (whither in their own defence 
See His Majesty's Declarations and Messages since january, 1641. The Oxford Mercury moves the jealousy, making the King's sincerity questionable; for whilst the Mercury knowing the Diet and full digest of the King's party there, calls the Parliament whensoever he names them, The Rebels at Westminster, notwithstanding the King calls them The Parliament, and words of professing Friendship and Complacency being more uncertain than words of Hatred and Defiance; although His Majesty terms them now a Parliament, a Phrase of Truth and Credit, he m●y reserve unto himself more bitter thoughts of Anger and future Accusation, according to what the Mercury expresseth towards them.  or not, hereafter) have sought against them as being Rebels; The King not always and constantly calling them so as his Party doth, for sometimes he calleth them the Parliament, sometimes Rebels, whether in sincerity or reservedness of heart He varieth the phrase, His own heart can witness.  
It is the note of the wisest of Kings on Earth, that the Heavens for height, the Earth in depth, and the King's heart no man can find out; not that a King is therefore more transcendently wise or perfect above and beyond all other men, nor that his heart is more Divinely inspired, or illuminated from above, more incomprehensible, or His ways like Gods past finding out, the Text bears no such construction, the frailty and uncertainty of all King's Actions do evidence the contrary; although their Flatterers may peradventure vainly infuse such Doctrine into their ears, and from this place of Scripture instruct a King with the necessity and excellency of dissembling the meanest and worst part of wisdom, although resembling it.  
Amidst the many Doubts and Jealousies, the Suggestions and Machinations at home and abroad against the Peace and well-being of the Kingdom, it concerns the Court of Parliament to look unto and prevent in as much as in them lies, the growth of approaching Danger, which are then Dangers only when near and in sight, when they are instant and befallen, they and the opportunity of preventing them is passed, and become above the name of Dangers, Calamity.  
Seeing therefore the Parliament are by God's special providence met together, & entrusted in their Country's welfare, their courage and unanimity is requisite in perfecting that work for which they were assembled, viz. the Maintenance of God's worship, the King's honour, the Subjects Liberty; these two, the King's Honour and the Subjects Liberty propagating each other, when as it is a larger access of dignity to be a King of a free people then of Slaves, unless He shall in the pursuit of this War reckon to purge the Kingdom of the worst and most enslaved of His people, which, as the case now stands, will otherwise fall out, and prove, as in letting blood the natural body, the best, the most free and spirituous to be wasted and spilt as well as that which His Majesty doth in His own sense call the worst.  
Where by the way, Gods immediate hand of Providence manifested to his people in the preservation of his glory, is especially to be taken notice of; that whereas his chiefest End in the creation of Mankind, hath been his own true Worship, and the salvation of his people, of which he hath a peculiar care, seen even in the disposing and ordering of humane affairs, as a second and subservient means to his own Decrees, That at the same time the Subjects Liberty should be invaded, when the Protestant Religion, the subversion of which was probably first and principally aimed at, howbeit in the managery thereof the Enemies to Both (Religion, Liberty) were ill advised, in that the Power and Privilege of Parliament (the Fabric of all Laws) the Subjects Right should be overthrown and fall together with the Protestant Religion: 
Arist: Polit: cited in the like case by Sir Walter Raughleigh in his Dialogue between a Counsellor of state and a justice of Peace.  The Philosopher observes, that Homines minus timent injustum pati à Principe, quem cultorem Dei putant, had they singled out either Religion, the Subjects Liberty, or the Privilege of Parliament to be destroyed apart, many it is like, especially among the common sort of men, might have failed in their zeal to the one, yet have endeavoured the preservation of the other, so the Enemy's Design might have better thrived in the success, if Religion singly, or the Subject's Liberty alone had been left unshaken without a complication of both to fall together at the same time and by the same power.  
The Parliaments next endeavour is to maintain entire and against all opposition the Power, Privilege and Dignity of their Court, no so sure a way, as by their constant accord and unity, which if overthrown by an advers Power, all Parliaments are in danger of languishing in their esteem, and must either comply, or submit to the Arbitrary will of the Prince who conventeth them at His pleasure, and so lose their Freedom. What then follows? a discontinuance of enacting Laws, a dull, careless and obsolete use for want of due execution of such Laws as are in Being, thence an Arbitrary and unlimited way of Government, that Force or the Sword must be the Umpire, besides a certain, although a remoter consequence, a failer of that well-breeding, the Birthright of the English Gentry, a supine and careless Ignorance let in, in stead of the virtuous Emulation which they have always studied.  
Seeing then Peace and Justice are the Blessings which the Subject lives by, both Issues of Religion, when to expect a blessing on a Kingdom, The Kingdom of Heaven must first be sought, God's Worship especially provided for to be built on firm unshaken Pillars, when the care thereof principally resides in those chosen men set apart for Gods and their countries' service; Their endeavour is to be fully ascertained of their Prince's inclination thereunto, that by His Countenance and Authority the love of God's Honour may, like the precious Ointment on his head, run down to the skirts of his lower garments, and so seated in his heart, as all Jealousies to be abandoned, all Evil and appearance thereof to be abstained from, and the Parliament not to leave that in suspense or doubt, which they would have provided to make more sure; for it is not a transitory matter of Arbitrary Event or Chance, to be or not to be performed, but most weighty, of great concernment, and whereon the prosperity and welfare of the Commonwealth depends, whether the Laws shall be kept entire, and God certainly and constantly honoured, or whether the Laws shall be in danger to be broken, his Name to be profaned.  
The main Jealousy grows by reason of an Army under the Conduct of Papists, which no man will imagine is raised for the defence of the Protestant Religion; for howbeit that there may be peradventure Papists in the Parliaments Army, when as the number of them hath been great, their Presumption increasing more and more, the chief and eminent Commanders Papists are in the King's: And (which is to be observed) few of them miscarry in the Quarrel, as not exposing themselves to the danger and hardship of the War, as if they did hope through the effusion of Protestant blood, and lessening their number, under the name of Rebels, to make unto themselves a Province; yet both parties, the Kings, the Parliaments do profess the maintenance of the Protestant Religion: And the Kings recriminatorily chargeth the Parliament with a Design to subvert the same. The reason given, is because Schismatics or other the preciser sort, (relishing not the book of Common-Prayer) are adhering to the Parliament. Answ. That Prayer is but a Form and humane Constitution, although anciently received and of use, directing us to pray, bless, give Thanks, etc. And alterable by Authority, upon devising a better Form; But the difference betwixt Protestant and Papist is in Fundamentals, as in Doctrine and Points of Faith, so opposite, as no man will judge that the parties on the one side will fight to maintain the others Cause.  
Popery and Schism opposite in themselves, agree in this, that they both do undermine and seek the rooting out of the true Protestant Religion; This, participatively, and by secret wiles; That, privatively, and by open Enmity; the one may be an aberration from, the other is Idolatry and opposition to the true Protestant Religion.  
What upon an upright discussion, that is, whether we take it in point of Manners, or of Doctrine, the one enjoined by, and comprehended in the Decalogue, the other set down and fenced in by a modern and learned 
* Mr. Rogers his 39 Articles.  Writer against the force and wiles of Popery and Schism, both parties (the King and Parliament) do contest for, and protest to maintain the Protestant Religion; so whilst there is no equivocation in the word [Protestant Religion] a divers acception may be in the extended sense, the aforenamed Writer hath by his industry composed the difference in determining what it is, and that agreed upon, the contention as to that particular may cease. Truth and Uniformity in Religion, (which cannot be without Accord, without a distinct and certain knowledge what it is) is the foundation and corner stone of Peace.  
If in this Contention the King's Army shall prevail, many Papists engaged and Commanders in it, what is like to be the sequel? Those Papists and their followers will hope and challenge it as a condign Reward, to have an especial interest in His favour, because they say it was their Sword, their Arm, that got the victory; so the King must tread a slippery and narrow path, either to desert His friends who have assisted Him in this War, or disabling Himself to make good His often Protestations for the maintenance of the Protestant Religion.  
And if in this Quarrel Popery shall be let in, when Justice and Law shall fail, when every one given up to his own heart's Lust, the Papists and other the Parliaments Enemies will in an exprobratory way, thank the Parliament as the cause thereof.  
It is true, it may be said so accidentally and very remotely, but neither the Impulsive, Formal, or Efficient cause, rather (if Logic will bear such a member in the division of causes) a deficient cause, as the absence or rather the Eclipse of the Sun, the cause of Darkness, their endeavours having failed of success, being interrupted by a strong and countermanding Power opposing them. In a more fit resemblance, if a Band of Soldiers should be sent out to guard a Town, and a stronger Power than theirs to be employed to oppose and master them, in whom lies the fault, in case the Town be lost? in the watchman's deficiency, or in the stronger Power opposing them? so Popery and Treason the Parliament are guilty of alike, and what other contumelies the wit and restless malice of their Enemies accuse them of.  
And unless to every objection this opposite observation be applied, that in the whole course of this Quarrel there be a distinguishing between what hath been Intentionally and Principally aimed at, and what hath accidentally and through necessity fallen out, there can no clear judgement be given in deciding the Question [How the War began, who have been the Cause and Authors of these Miseries.] It may be as well objected by malicious and cruel Enemies, that His Majesty's Clemency and goodness have been the cause of so much blood already spilt, for that he hath not put those whom His party call Rebels to the sword, or hanged them, to teach others their duty of Submission; such Doctrines are spread abroad to foment the War, when the Doctors themselves are the incendiary and impulsive means, together with those Soldiers now in Arms, which incites the surviving suffering people to make resistance, lest if they submit also (as in many places they have done) they are undone by it.  
No marvel if Subjects be called Traitors and Rebels, if resistance against opposition and violence be Rebellion, the often Robbing and Spoiling used in the King's name, and for the King, which were wont to be conservative and saving terms, tending to peace and security, but now grown destructive (as the Soldiers use them) to the Subject, are able to turn him out of his natural and accustomed Frame: Oppression, saith the wise man, makes wise men mad: violence and oppression practised in the King's name, and by His party, and by degrees wrought to the destruction of the Subject, diverts and altars His wont course, and may make him Rebel as it were against His will, when as He is frighted, driven from, and threatened out of His obedience.  
If on the other side the Parliament shall prevail, those Enemies to Common-Prayer, advers also to what Government the Church shall appoint, may be easily overruled by a Parliamentary Authority.  
The Authors and Fautours of those 
Before this time of War there were no such Schisms or Heresies: Tautum res nobis (saith learned jewel) cum quibusdam satellitibus Pontificiis, etc. and it is requisite that Unity and Peace be settled in the Church as well as in the State, for suppression of these Schisms and Heresies; God delighting, yea and requiring it, to have Order and Truth in his presence chamber [the Church] as in his larger courts [the Commonwealth]. The Authors of the War have been the Authors of these Heresies: [which side?]  Schisms being few and inconsiderable, their Tenants newly sprung up, and apt to vanish both through the insufficiency of their grounds, and multiformity of their Sects, wounding and weakening one another, and in the main, the Common cause: For it is the firm and Orthodox Protestants, which are the Parliaments firm friends whereon to trust, yea and their constant friends also, whilst the Parliament goes on, in an entire, solid, and joint way, and are as the Exigency of their Affairs shall suffer them, constant to themselves, whereby, and by which way alone, they are enabled to defend themselves, to protect their Friends.  
Which side will prevail, God only knows, who can dispose of Victories at his will: If the Parliament shall, the King nevertheless could not but assure Himself, that He should be entirely King; howsoever part of His Estate be by reason of these Wars diminished, and the Parliaments Protestation taken 1641. together with their late Covenant two years after, for the maintenance of His just Power and greatness, were good security, until themselves were reputed Traitors, Rebels, their worth in like manner undervalved, and scorned by His party; for so the Protestation and Covenant both may lose their efficacy and intent, if He for whom they do Protest and Vow, shall by opposing, disable them in the prosecution of their Vow.  
To that Objection, That the Parliament have contrary to such Covenant, Usurped and Entrenched upon His Regal Dignity, and by seeking to hinder His Power, have lessened His Honour, in passing an Ordinance against His Majesty's creating of Lords, etc. in seeking to have their Friends Invested with Honours and Titles answerable to their demerits. To the first it is confessed, an Ordinance is passed against all such Acts as may inure by virtue of the Great Seal, and Barons being made by Patent under the same Seal, which being a necessary Instrument of State, which the Parliament represents, being surreptitiously taken from them contrary to a Trust; they have consequently passed an Ordinance against the Creating of Lords, ut Supra: For the Contention betwixt Him and them being grown extreme, the King striving by all means to lessen their Power and Credit, using all ways to advance His own [their Enemies;] they knowing likewise the Seal to be made use of to their Detriment, as if that the Kings conferring those Honours, were not so much an augmentation of His Dignity, in granting, or in the created Lords, in receiving those Honours, as an intended diminution to the Parliaments Dignity, had reason to provide for the time against all contingent Acts, tending to the lessening their Power. Admit it to be as the Objectors give out, which neither the King's party do prove, nor the Parliaments do grant, as in other Acts done by the Parliament, An Usurping in them; Usurpation may in the strength of policy prove a benefit to the Subject, in that Usurpers do commonly Establish the best Laws to redeem their Credit, lost by the Injury done in their Usurping.  
If the King's party shall prevail, the War being between Him and His People, the Parliament rather an Umpire in the Quarrel, to do right to the wronged part, there will be two things considerable; The means whereby He doth prevail; The end of His prevailing. The first means, not primarily as in the strength or greatness of His party, yet consequently in that His party do undividedly retain and keep up the Ancient and settled Form of Government, without contesting or dissenting in opinion about the Establishing any new: As on the other side, the Parliament hath thrown down the old, without (for a long time) setting up any other Form or Constitution; It was a learned Father's Observation, 
Augustine.  Ipsa mutatio quae utilitate adjuvat etiam novitate perturbat: And it will require a most exact deliberate Wisdom to suppress all Inconveniences which may arise on Novity: Hence it hath been, that the Parliaments Friends have grown less zealous to their side, more troublesome to the Court itself, by requiring and seeking a new and certain Form.  
Which may admit a twofold Answer, that the Parliament interrupted by a powerful Enemy, hath not a full measure of Efficacy to conform and compose every collateral difference, happing either in Church or Commonwealth; when as their Task is hard enough to maintain and keep a work more necessary, [Their own Power.]  
Secondly, In that they have for a time abolished those ancient Forms, and constitutions, finding haply some present reason for so doing: whether they will forthwith establish some other Form, as it is probable they will, having long since promised it, or reassume the Ancient, when time shall serve? (there being no substantial difference betwixt what is now abrogated, and what is to be Ordained) is left to their wisdom; besides, it is presumed in point of Judgement and of Policy, that they will have such respect unto their Predecessors Acts, as not altogether to raze out, to abrogate for ever their ancient Constitutions, least succeeding Parliaments should do the like by theirs, and so the Courts of Parliament, which have been instituted for redress of Mischiefs and Grievances, etc. should become 
See Statute Edw. 3.  the Scene and Seminary of inconvenience and disturbance; by introducing still Novelties, and alterations in the Commonwealth.  
The third is, in that His Majesty keeping His residence in a less Town of Garrison [Oxford] can more easily conform and subdue a few unto His will, than the Parliament can in a more greater place [London▪] The multitude in that City, the supplies and Aid, afforded by the City to the Parliament, can counterpoise such odds.  
The event of His Majesty's prevailing is alike considerable and twofold also: first, in that the Parliament Members, already proscribed and charged with Rebellion, are exposed to contempt and ruin, in them a great part of the Subjects of both Kingdoms, when as the cause, wherein the Public good is so much concerned, is by idle and abject Fellows called already in derision [The Cause.]  
Secondly, In that a foreign Enemy upon a total devastation of this Realm (without which the King cannot probably prevail) will be induced to believe, and accordingly make use of it, that it hath happened, through the soft and tender breeding of the English, their unfitness to endure the hardship of a War, and so invade and by degrees implant this Kingdom; And what a Foreigner implanted here, his Demeanour may prove towards our King, not naturally their liege Lord, every good English Subject will fear the worst: when as especially this Kingdom must be kept as NAPLES, by a 
Sir Walter Raughleigh in his Dialogue betwixt a Councillor of state and a justice of peace.  Garrison of another Nation, so that the King shall be enforced, as former Kings have been, to compound with Rogues and Rebels, yea to pardon them; thereby Himself, the whole Nobility, yea the State of Monarchy to fall together.  
To state the differences of Forces on either part, when the quarrel first began, the Parliament had far the greater 
* The number of the Friends and Adversaries unto either part are calculated, and their several Forts discerned about the middle of this Book, and which part was in probability like to find the greater opposition, the King or the Parliament as matters were then in being, in which it will appear that the Parliament had the more Enemies, or their Enemies the more Friends.  number, the King having but few yet more than the Parliament had Towns of Fort (as his party have Calculated and hyperbolically reported otherwise) most men's hearts being bend to defend their Rights and Liberties, which they thought were of late encroached upon, and indeed the Offspring of this Quarrel, and the Parliaments Friends believing the Justice of that Court, and of their Cause, in a careless way of affording Aid, threw all upon the chance of War, without using the ordinary means concurrent to their defence, not foreseeing what would be the end and mischief of their backwardness and neglect to be repent of, not remedied.  
They were willing enough to have redress for their late-past grievances, to have the work done, and the Parliament speed well at their Neighbour's charge, so themselves be saved harmless, but to lay out money and purchase the name of a Rebel, in case the King's party should prevail, was both a chargeable and double Crime.  
Then their unwillingness to be exposed to the hardship of a War, to which they were altogether unaccustomed, believing in the goodness and sufficiency of their Cause, to have it made good in an extraordinary way by Miracles, without laying to their assisting hand; so casting the whole burden upon God and his Omnipotency, did wish well, and pray peradventure for the Parliaments Success.  
For now every short enjoyment of their quiet, every small respite from the Enemy's cruelty, although the next bordering Counties unto them be infested round about with their cruelty, makes these men apprehend that the War is ended, because their Coast is for the present clear, and they feel no instant smart.  
It is true, God's Providence is in all things to be observed; it is as his Omnipotency, Infinite, and Superintendent to every Creature, No one hair falls from a man's head, nor a Sparrow from the house top without his Providence. The same Almighty power which could rescue his three Servants out of the fiery Furnace, and provide strength of the mouths of Infant Babes, is able, but whether he will or not (his works being unsearchable, and his ways past finding out) give success according to the people's wishing, without the ordinary means to be used by Instruments, that is left to his secret and determinate Council.  
There is a time for War, and a time for Peace; the Lord is a man of War, his Name is JEHOVAH; and Fight in a qualified sense, as Praying, is a duty. DAVID blessed God for teaching his hands to War, etc. And Prayer is a Christians, a contrite and good man's Arms. Had we in Unity and Humbleness of Spirit, in the Power, without the Form of Godliness, besought Almighty God to be delivered from Famine, Battle, Murder, and from Sudden death, as the Church directs; These Calamities had not in likelihood come nigh, which threaten now to come upon us like an Armed man.  
Beseeching God by Prayer might peradventure be the People's sacrifice alone, neglecting otherwise their own endeavours, and carelessly trusting (if at all) upon God; his Providence they think sufficient, which is confessed: In which they may alike consider, That if the King's party shall prevail, or the whole Land be consumed and reduced even to a handful; It is all within the compass of God's power; The Lot is cast, but the disposing is of the Lord; And certainly that side which useth the best and most concurrent means to his dispose (the Justice of the Cause is challenged by either party) is likely to have the upper hand.  
Praying and relying on the Almighty goodness, seldom fails the Petitioner, God ever giving what he prayeth for, what suffices, or what is better than he asks; but the means must be added to the prayer, Qui ordinat finem ordinat etiam media tendentia ad finem. Moses at the coming of the Amalakites, besought the Lord by prayer, yet commanded Joshua to choose out men to fight with Amalck. God is in all things the first Mover, by whom we move and have our being; he the Supereminent and first cause, yet working by subservient and second means; we are his People, and Members of his Church Militant, against which the Gates of Hell shall not prevail. In the Creation his own glory was the effect of his chief care, manifested unto us his Creatures; his next affording us all necessaries for our support and good; he looks to be sought unto, and trusted upon in that course of obedience which he hath ordained, in conveying that unto us which we look for at his hands, otherwise he is rather slighted then trusted on.  
Had the people been so liberal in Contributing to to their own Defence; so provident to have foreseen, that within one year after their improvidence they should have been thus oppressed; in the progress of one year more undone, they would questionless have been more liberal, and concurred more cheerfully in Contributing to their own Assistance.  
For within a few Months after the War began, many in the Kingdom fell off from the Parliament, and under fear, and the notion of being reputed Rebels, thought it made against their present safety to wish well to the Parliament (a Court scarce known in the Country, and discontinued in the Kingdom) much more to fight for it: And hearing of divers invective Threats and Menaces to that purpose, as if their Endeavours for the Parliament did make against the King, and so resemble a Rebellion, thought it altogether unsafe to adhere to the Parliament: So the King's strength increasing through the fear and revolt of many formerly engaged to the other part, he gained divers Towns in several parts of the Kingdom.  
On which his Friends and Party fix a Miracle, reckoning it an extraordinary Act of God's Favour shown to him in the sudden increase of his Party, that from an handful as it were, he hath raised Forces to such numbers, when as the Miracle may be retorted, and rather turned the other way, That his Majesty being so Pious, Just and Protestant a Prince (as his party contends, and an 
* See the Oath tendered at Oxford, 1643.  Oath to that purpose hath been tendered to divers of late within his Quarters) there should be notwithstanding such a defection from him in his Subjects, so many thousand also not engaged nor seduced, men of sufficiency and worth mistaken in what is Loyalty.  
Neither is Victory in a Civil War any evident note of the Almighty's favour, when as it is obtained on such hard terms, as the Ruin and Destruction of a flourishing Land; rather in the Event it will prove an angry Judgement of Gods punishing the Authors of this Ruin, in suffering 
* See the Message of both Houses, March 9 1643.  above and beyond all others, a Civil War, consuming and overthrowing the Body Politic, as a pestilent Fever doth the Natural with its distempered heat.  
As for the Towns the King's party gained, whether by His Commander's wit and Stratagem, (allowable in War) or by falsehood in point of parley and of trust (odious and scorned even in Foreign Wars) is hereafter examinable, and to be tried by the Sword alone; yet one word, what that falsehood is, when a Commander or Officer in chief, shall Swear by Solemn Oath and Vow, to perform what he never means, and after a trust committed and an agreement made, break and falsify the same.  
And whether it be Treachery and falsehood, or Stratagem and Policy, doth rest upon this Question [Whether the Parliaments Proceed be Rebellious, unbecoming Subjects, or just and Loyal.] If Rebellious, than it may seem Stratagem and duty to the King, in such Commanders entrusted by the Parliament, to renounce their trust and serve the Enemy. If the Parliament be good and faithful Subjects, as they will rather sacrifice their lives to the Justice of their Cause, then fail to Vindicate their Credit from the stain of Rebellion, than it is Treachery in those Commanders to undertake afterwards to desert such Trust.  
That such foul dealing hath been practised, occasioning the protraction of this War is manifest, on which side most, future Ages or the Sword will manifest.  
If it be answered by way of excuse, as no crimes whatsoever shall want a patron in these divided times, That such dealing is a virtue, practisable in relation to a King's Safety, in danger to be destroyed, and that breach of Faith, of Trust, never so Solemnly made, or any other the like means may be used in Order to His preservation.  
Answer. This Argument may be Fallacy, à petitione Principii, or à non concessis, which manner of disputing can enlarge ad infinitum, and as the Logicians speak, The reply thereto may be unto such an Argument, that there is no such detestable, and desperate design in being, or known or granted.  
Where by the way, and to prevent the mistake 
☞  of our duty, and Allegiance which we should owe to our Sovereign; if any exquisite wits of a more nimble discerning reach then their fellow Subjects, pretending a greater care to His Majesty's welfare, have heretofore found out by privy and dark passages, by any secrecy of contrivance, any such wicked and execrable intendments against the King's Person or Honour, or deeming all others not partaking in their sagacity, Ignorant in State affairs, dull and vulgar spirited; Let them make known unto their fellow Subjects, the time, the means, and manner of that intendment, before the whole Land be totally destroyed, or a full Conquest be obtained, for afterwards all writers will report one way, in favour of the Victor's side; then also the victory, not the Cause, will point out, and set forth the Rebel.  
That two or three Gentlemen (since Members of the House of Commons) together with a Noble Peer in the House of Lords, dwelling in neighbouring Counties each to other, and sojourning about seven or eight years since, with a Gentleman, a neighbour and friend of theirs; did, during the time of their sojourning there, therefore agree to overthrow Monarchial Government, or intent any thing against the Honour or Person of the King: if neither of these appeared by their discourse, Letters, or other Acts in writing, the Arguer shows more his spleen against those Gentlemen, than his Reason in deducing any good Connexion between the Antecedent and Conclusion.  
Observe on the other side, one among many other presumptions of some Design in hand from the advers party, then let the Reader judge on which side is the more weighty and vehement presumption of Acting mischief, of complotting alterations in matter of Government: which the more rational Consequence, that instance which went before, even now recited, or this which follows? namely, the building strong and high walls by a great Peer of this Realm, to his house (no other notice taken until now, save of beautifying and adorning the house for his private use and splendour) the divers Pieces of Ammunition, credibly informed to be carried thither by little and little for these many years last passed; and now one of the strongest Holds the King's party hath in all South-Wales, to infest and oppose the Parliaments party.  
Whilst the truth of such Plot, of overthrowing Monarchial Government, of some mischievous intendment against the King's Majesty (if any such there be suggested) is no more manifested to the World; it may be an Imposture framed and obtruded on the Parliament by some offenders, who to save themselves have contrived this Calumny and Falsehood, on purpose to engage the King to rescue them.  
The Parliament, when this report was first given consisted of above Five hundred Members in both Houses; And whether they having all Protested for the King's Honour, Person and Estate, would against the dictate of their own Conscience, against their natural and sworn Allegiance, infringe this Vow, to commit wilful Perjury and Treason.  
Or that if it be objected, That the Design was the drift only of some few (accused and styled factious persons) soliciting and awing others; then to assign who those few persons were, and rather to blame the Counties and Corporations choosing such: Questionless when first chosen, their choosers suspected no such Crime in them, and whether men known and chosen for their virtue would accumulate such Villainies as those.  
Such a Design must be given out, at least to save the credit of some revolting, who having undertaken the charge and care of their several Counties to them deputed, were at first active in their Muster and Military practices: Soon after, whether wrought by Friends, Allies, or for some other respect, did desist, charging the Parliament or some of them in general terms, with some strange intended Plot against the King, but without declaring what Plot, or the Authors, which had they particularly and manifestly done, and so sufficiently proved the reason of their revolt, it might have spared the effusion of much blood, and more availed the King's Cause then their revolting did.  
They did not doubtless originally and from the first dissemble, as to sit in a joint and unanimous way with the Parliament, and reserve their heart for an advers party to the Parliament; few or none of any sorts of men were good at that close and subtle posture; nor was dissembling then in that mature growth, as these false and desperate seasons will bring in, even amongst all sorts, improving it to that obstruse and exquisite form, as the virtue of wisdom. And the subtlety of dissembling growing to be near the same, most men's carriage will seem inconstant, if not false. Upon deliberation and advice, those men undertook their charge, and what wrought the change in them; such men's instability is made much of, their persons little.  
Now that the Parliament should at this time have the upper hand, the King's party losing more in some places than they gain in other; and that he having gathered Forces these three years or more, and set forth Proclamations to subdue and awe those whom he calls his Enemies, and not to over-match them: 'Tis probable, that howbeit Fear and Inconstancy have brought many to his party, a mightier hand over-awing all, hath provided strength and courage to have his purpose brought to pass beyond the ordinary power of man, and by his mighty Hand, and outstretched Arm, to make his own Glory the more manifest through the infirmity of weak men.  
As to the Proclamations set forth in the King's Name, of small advantage to his Cause; it is a question whether his or not, or published only in his Name, without his assent: The ordinary matter of a Proclamation, ariseth on some emergent Accident of State; binding for the present, anon alterable, of little or no use: These kinds of Proclamations of Condemning, are surviving Acts, and conclude the Subject Proclaimed against.  
Again, Proclamations have been heretofore set forth only as Arbitrary and Temporary Declarations of a Prince's pleasure to grant Indulgence, to prevent or cure some Inconveniences in State-matters, serving for a light and present remedy, until some judicial Act of Law shall apyly a more weighty and certain one.  
If they were to no other end, then that the persons Proclaimed against might by the terror of such an Imperial Act, be brought into obedience, and then to be received to mercy; yet they and most men else held it the safer course, being not guilty, to keep out of their Accusers reach, and not to put it to Arbitrament, whether they should be Condemned or Pardoned, when as also their personal sufferings, in loss of life as Traitors, had not satisfied the thirst of their Accusers: It is the Enthralling, and as it were the Disfranchizing and Embasing a free born Subject, to stand to the Expectance of mercy, when he knows his heart to be free from guilt.  
A Traitor in his Arraignment is admitted to his lawful Trial, demanded what he can say for himself, etc. A Proclamation ties him up from his Answer: Crimes of a lower rank are not construed so [as Felonies] unless the mind concurreth with the Fact (for the * intent doth make the Felony) Treason, 
See the Form of Indictm Felonice.  a Crime of a deeper Dye, staining the blood, ruining the Posterity with the Estate, aught to be tried in a more upright and sober course, by Judges of an entire and impartial virtue: Contention and the Sword are no fit Umpires in the Question of [Who be Traitors.]  
It is a harsh and severe proceeding, for a man to be be charged with Crimes by Proclamation, to which no Answer can be given, and to be debarred from what he can reasonably say for himself: It is as strange, that seeing we are Subjects under the same King and Government, his Proclamations should find such contrary entertainment, so weighty on the one side, as to proscribe and awe, yet so slight unto the other, as not to be obeyed or credited.  
For Example sake, the frequent Proclamations against Papists resorting to his Majesty's Court; others straightly charging in his Majesty's Declararation, as to this present War, 
* In answer to a Declaration of the Lords and Commons for the raising of all Power and Force, as well Trained-Bands as others, in all Counties: printed at Oxford, 1642.  That no Papist should presume to List himself either as an Officer or a Soldier in his Army, having directed how he should be discocovered, if he did presume, and suffer if he were discovered.  
If necessity be pleaded, for the King to make use of them his Subjects for his own defence against those whom he calls Rebels: Or if the like Plea be made in excuse of those his Majesty's Designs of late discovered, as that he hath been necessitated and driven by his Subjects to try all means whatsoever for his reducing them, for the reparation of his own Honour, which he complains they seek to trample on. The examining of the original of this War, directeth who the Authors of it have been, as also how this necessity, so called, hath happened, and whether the King should have had need to have made use of any of his Subjects for his own Defence, or to have expressed his displeasure against other of his People.  
For his own parties not obeying his Proclamations and Edicts, as is observed, Those published in March and June, 1643. the one against Robbing, Spoiling, etc. The other Pardoning all Members of Parliament, some few by name excepted; many of them so pardoned have had their Lands seized on by his Soldiers, their Houses held from them by strong hand: So the Proclamations slighted, the Laws protested to be kept, broken, the Subject and his Right trampled on.  
Many the like Edicts and Declarations of Favour and Liberty granted to his People (to some upon their humble * Petition presented to his Majesty; unto 
See the Petition of the Clothiers in the West, and his Majesty's Answer. 1643.  others from a compassion and sense in his Majesty of their sufferings) seem neither his own Acts, nor scarce seen by him, not able to make good what he commands, or not real, in not intending to make good what he had promised.  
The figurative Dialect, and strong expressions wherein those Declarations and Messages are penned, besides the matter of them, are probably none of his, neither is it possible that any one's heart should have so large a capacity; the King's not leisure enough amongst the oppositions of cross Counsels, amidst the variety of such accidents as hourly happen, to examine, digest, command and declare all matters, subject and suitable to such accidents, the demeanour of his party also quite contrary to his Declarations and Commands.  
The Proclamations in July the same year, forbidding Trade and Traffic unto his chiefest and Imperial City, should not in likelihood be his own, to starve up that place where some of his Royal Issue are: when as the detriment befalls not the City only, 'tis more extensive to all parts of this Kingdom with which the City tradeth: For they being denied an intercourse, cannot vent their wares: So in case the City were guilty of what the Proclamation doth accuse it, the Justice and proceeding is not adequate, where many suffer besides the offenders.  
There be divers other Messages and Declarations printed in his Name, which were want of duty in his Subjects to think them his, or with his assent.  
As to those subordinate Edicts set forth heretofore, when his party had gained some Western Towns, published under some of his chief Commanders hands, and read in Parish Churches, restraining his Soldiers from Robbing, Spoiling, and the like violence; and as in case of Felony, the Country to rise and pursue them, according to the Law in that case provided, as Thiefs and Murderers: Such Messages and Edicts might carry a fair flourish of Justice, and be plausible to the Subject; but when as he is disarmed and disabled every way, and hath no weapon to defend himself, what courage or strength hath he to repulse such violence? A few armed Soldiers dare to Rob on the High ways, yea, and to venture into Towns, and do what they list without resistance: How many have lost their lives of late, striving to rescue and defend their goods?  
When Commanders shall promise to secure the Subject, he notwithstanding rob, when in the King's Name, and under his Authority (as the Subject is made believe) things shall be promised improbable in the act of promising, untrue in the Event, a Subjects duty may make him facile; but if his understanding of what he sees, gives him not sufficient light, but that he will submit against his Reason, and thereby miscarry in being over-credulous, he may thank himself.  
It is not speculation, or matter of doubt or jealousy which disturbs and divides the thoughts of man, making some of one, some of another mind; or any man's affections to the one or the other side, which governs in the apprehension of matters, as now they are, it is matter of Fact; the eyes are more faithful witnesses then the ears, what hath been done, what hath been attempted, what hath been promised not performed, which doth clear the doubt.  
To believe, is required from Subjects, to obey, their Duty; but when to believe and obey against Fact and Reason, on whom lies the fault, if they miscarry in their obedience and belief? which is not therefore written to absolve or release a Subject from his immediate duty to his Prince, who is to be obeyed in all things Lawful and Honest, as before expressed; but the Pests and Vipers about him, as King * James termeth them, are to be oppugned as the 
His Speech in Parliament, 1609.  exactors and commanders of that unlimited and undefined tribute of obedience.  
Whose course and practices have much eclipsed his Majesty's just Power and Greatness, and have embroiled two Kingdoms at the least in an unnatural and destructive War, the Third in danger with the rest; all so wasted, or in an imminent danger to be so wasted, as to become a prey to a Foreign Enemy, the greater part of the Subjects of this Kingdom being fought against as 
* See the Letter from the Assembly at Oxford, implying this to the Earl of Essex, dated january 1643.  Rebels, the King himself several ways disadvantaged and weakened amongst his people, which he may perceive in feeling God's hand of anger against his People, poured upon them in this War, in failing to assist him without being Impressed, and violently forced to serve him, which if it were truly Rebellion, they would cheerfully have assisted him their King, wherein now they fail, as knowing the state of the Quarrel betwixt his party and his Subjects, and that their fellow Subjects, under the name of his Soldiers, committing Murders and Rapines, do render his Name terrible.  
Next in what God is displeased withal, and will certainly avenge in his just jealousy; the presumptuous Impiety of some his Flatterers, ascribing 
In a Book Entitled, The Loyal Subjects belief: penned by one Mr. Simmons, p. 16.  more unto the King, than any man without blasphemy can avow, or the King himself shall like, in making it all one to offend him, as to offend God himself.  
The King of Sweden was angry with the Author who writing the History of his Success against his Enemies, flatters, and attributes that to the King, which was mystically spoken of Christ, Psal. 45. Gird thee with thy Sword upon thy thigh, O thou most mighty, according to thy Honour and Renown. Such flattery in his Subjects was displeasing to his Majesty.  
The Parliament are by their Adversaries, among other Crimes, accused of endeavouring to bring in a Parity into the Church and State: This Preacher hath actually and already framed and set forth the like betwixt the Creator and the Creature: He no way proves his flattering Blasphemy, which had it deserved to have been seen by his Majesty, and should have passed from his Eyes into his Heart, it might have proved Mortal.  
The Doctrine, besides the Blasphemy, is of dangerous consequence, and immencely criminal, if we remember what God says of himself, that he is a jealous God, not suffering any Peer or Rival in his Imensitude of glory.  
This Author is too prodigal of his Conscience and Wit, to any man's Judgement who shall read his Works, if there be no more of his to restore him to the good name of a Minister of God's Word (In whose Lips no Iniquity should be found, as being the Messenger of the Lord of Hosts) Then this here cited, and one of his Sermons preached before the King's party at SHREWSBURY in Lent was two years, where, to delight his Auditory, he breaks a Jest in the Pulpit, and widely misapplies it to a Gentleman of the Parliaments party; which, but that the emptiness and petulancy of the Jest redounds to the Honour of him at whom he Jested; or were his words worth reciting, might have been here omitted. To pass it by only with this note, That there is a more severe censure (in the opinion of the 
* jerem.  Prophet, due to whomsoever shall by such wanton flouting Pollute God's Sanctuary, or put no difference betwixt the Holy and Profane) then the 
* Martial.  Poet doth allow unto Ludit qui stolidâ procacitate non est Sextius ille sed Caballus.  
To leave this Author, and to return to the present subject, the sense and imminence of these miseries, occasioned by this War, hath reached even to most Foreign parts, wherein our Neighbouring and fellow 
* The Scots▪  Nation understand themselves so much concerned, as with a seasonable prudence to foresee, have accordingly framed their purposes to provide for their own Peace, involved now in ours; two ways engaged thereto:  
First, through a necessity of timely endeavouring to prevent their own Thraldom and Subjection, in part already mentioned, which the Privy Seals sent 
April 1644.  not long since in the King's Name do point at, inviting and complying with his Subjects of this Kingdom, to intercept and keep off that Nation from invading this, for so it is termed: Their prudent valour needs no prompter to tell them, Tua res agitur 
Virgil.  paries cum proximus ardet Ucaligon. They have cognizance of two remedies alone in danger [Prevention, Recovery,] Prevention, the right hand, rather the heart of Policy; Recovery the left and after game: They know withal, as solid and expert Soldiers, an Enemy any where to be better met with then at their own doors; he who only looks on the present, is no wise man; he who discerning an Evil afar off, and provides against it, is.  
Secondly, by a mutual and Solemn Covenant and Articles entered into of late, wherein both Nations stand engaged.  
As for them our Brethren, whether invited to assist the English, their fellow Subjects, for which some of the 
* See the Articles of Treason exhibited against the six Members of Parliament, jan. 1641.  English were charged of Treason, as bringing over a Foreign Nation to invade their own; or whether the Scots willing of themselves, as knowing what hath been attempted against their National Laws and Rights: Let the case be rightly stated, if to bring over a Foreigner to invade the Natives of theirs who bring them over, be an offence of so high a nature, the King's party questionless are the greater offenders, having laboured, no ways left unassayed to bring Forces from beyond Sea, to oppose and fight against their own Countrymen under the Name of REBELS.  
What relation the Nations have each to other, is known, the one not Foreign or Stranger unto the other, unless the malice of this War, and a party opposing both, shall make them strangers, and divide them both within themselves: Their mutual Aid and Concurrence, is the end of the mutual Union, to repulse a Foreigner from invading either; and then the one or both may be of use to return courtesies, when received (neither having been ever branded with Ingratitude) or to resent Affronts or Injuries when offered.  
There hath been long since much War, many bloody Battles fought between the two Nations, since which time an Union hath been offered, hath been withstood: There hath been also anciently a League between another 
* The French.  Nation and the Scots, how useful to each others safety, both are sensible.  
Within these latter years an Union and Solemn League hath been had between us and them, no way crossing or impeding any former League between them and any other Nation; neither matters it which Nation ours or theirs did heretofore withstand our Union with the Scots; nor whether we have their first or second Affections, as whether they wish better unto us, under the same Dominion with themselves, or unto the French, their more ancient Colleagues, whilst all three are at Amity within themselves, which by God's blessing as yet they are, and either Nation wise enough to discern and cast out the Bone, likely to be cast in to dissolve the League.  
The Jealousies for that purpose raised, have been many of late, as if the two Nations should deal unjustly, ungratefully, and remissely each with other, and against their Covenant, instancing as against the Scots, for not taking the Town of HEREFORD the last Summer, 
Which business seems to depend upon the Question, whether the county of HEREFORD were not at that time an Enemy's country, and the city situate in the midst thereof, bordering not far from a strong and well man'd Garrison WORCESTER, had not all means, whereof they made use, to resist and repulse strangers besieging them.  (to which their General hath given account, writing the Reason of their desisting from the Siege) A second, which peradventure may be framed by some of the English, demanding what Service the Scots have done by their coming to assist? Which Question is easily satisfied, when as the very Conjunction and League between the two Nations, did at first strike terror into their Enemy, and hath been since one Temporal means of their many successes. A third of a more large concernment, and might seem to carry a more plausible objection against the Scots, of their thirst and aim, to implant themselves in this, as the more rich and fruitful Kingdom: On the other side, there may be Jealousies insinuated to the Scots against the English, of their dealing unjustly and ungratefully with the Scots, by promising, without gratifying them for their Assistance, when as both are able to justify their Wisdom and Integrity of being free from these and the like suggestions insinuated by the Enemy, under colour of being Friends.  
It cannot be imagined, that it is the purpose of the English to neglect or discard, now they have served their turn on their Friends the Scots, without making satisfaction for their Assistance (as the Boote-feaves and Incendiaries, the common Enemies to both Nations, do give out) nor the purpose of the Scots to demand more, or to expect a present payment of so much as hath been promised, the vast unexpected Sums which the continuation of this War hath cost, being taken into consideration, the Articles and Covenant entered into by both Nations, are security for their reciprocal and more just Affections: Who knows whether these finely contrived Accusations spring not from a Malignant heart, driving the common Enemy's Interest (
* In animis hominum multe sunt latebre & recessus. Cicer.  the hearts of men are full of wiles and by-paths, desperately evil, who can know them?) to set the Nation at a variance, by depraving and accusing each to other, on purpose to dissolve and loosen the League and Union, that as by disagreement they may scatter and decrease, so that the Common Enemy may prevail at last.  
If there be any such unjust dealing, such endeavouring in either Nation to outvie the other in Art and Subtilty; as for the one to demand above what is promised, or the other to deny what is justly due, on purpose to beget a Quarrel contrary to the Articles and Covenant, had and made betwixt both Nations, Cursed be they in the Town, cursed in the Field, 
See the Articles and Treaties, dated 1641. 1645.  cursed in the fruit of their Body, and of their Land; Cursed be they in their coming in, cursed in their going out, cursed in their Store, who shall willingly and wilfully violate the same, being made and entered into on so necessary and important grounds, as the sure foundation of Securiry and Prosperity to both Nations: And as the Articles were accurately and punctually made by the Commissioners entrusted on either part, in like manner for their Honour, for the blessings sake expected on their success, to be inviolably observed free from mistake, forced construction, or false meaning.  
The mischief and misery indeed which inevitably must befall, in case they shall unhappily disagree, will prove more fatal to the Subjects of both Kingdoms, than the present War betwixt the King and Parliament. The League betwixt them, the more strict and Solemn, the more irreconcilable the discord when it happens, and nothing to compose the Quarrel when once began, besides the Sword: Nothing to prevent the beginning of the Quarrel, save only the forbearing and bearing each with other: The selfdenying quality, so much assumed and protested, is then exercised, and best proved in so prudent a patience, as is practised by a continued entire Union betwixt them both, and neither of them to arrogate wholly unto themselves, the success of so much Conquest as hath been obtained: But if the 
* The English.  one shall think that their opulency and wealth shall wear and drive out the other, notwithstanding their approved valour; or that the 
* The Scots.  other shall hope that their valour shall suppress and conquer the English men's (not inferior to theirs) These unhappy thoughts and attempts, if any such upon destructive hopes must turn into misery unto their Friends, Reproach and Obloquy to themselves, a pleasure and fulfilling their Enemies expected hopes, who will be ready to upbraid them with the common and old Proverb (as in the like case the contesting between the Presbyterial and Independent, to let in Episcopal again) [When Robbers fall out, true men come by their goods] meaning that a party of English and Scots having complotted to divest the King of his Sovereignty, and to take away his Regal Dignities, and now by variance within themselves, his Majesty hath regained his former Being.  
If any insinuate means of dividing the two Nations privily, and with excellency of Art, carried on by their seeming Friends, shall unhappily inure closely and insensibly to work this Mischief, as for one Nation to upbraid and cast Aspersions on the other, of Inconstancy, Ingratitude, Falsehood, and the like: What a new intestine War may happen hence, when either Nation shall have partakers at home, and abroad in Foreign parts? The English shall have Friends to credit what they say against the Scots, and they reciprocally against the English, and no time or season amidst these Commotions (the Enemy being vigilant and active to foment the Quarrel) to Examine or Dispute the Truth, to set right the Misapprehensions of the particulars of such Aspersions, when the very fear entertained of late of a disagreeing between the two Nations, hath appalled the hearts of their common Friends, and more set back and retarded the hopes of Success and Peace, than the News of Victories can forward them.  
As for other Differences which might arise betwixt the Nations, touching some Punctilios of Pre-eminence, or the like; King James therefore, of happy Memory, in his Star-Chamber Speech in 
See the speech.  the sixteenth year of his Reign, hath wisely and peaceably composed and settled, deducing his Reasons from the Policy of his most wise 
* Henry 7.  Ancestor.  
But to the Known Objections now in being, and published by the Common 
* Incendiaries and Fomentors of this War.  Enemy, as of an Invasion made of the Scots, as of Rebellion in the English, when both Nations have been sufferers, the Rights and Liberties of both violated, are strange Objections in the judgement of standers by; and to determine the truth of those Objections, or on which side the Offensive, on which the Defensive is; there is not like to be any Umpire in the Question.  
To expect a Foreigner to interecede or moderate (most of whom admit a sensible and compassionate affection in them towards these our Nations) their own and their nearer Friends Engagements, are enough to take up their own thoughts; besides a wise, considerate and Politic State doth evidence their wisdom, in not intermeddling with the Affairs of others; rather when Troubles and Commotions are abroad, to look the more closely to their own, especially in a Case of so nice a difference, as betwixt a King and a Parliament (the Representative Body of the whole Kingdom) and each of them contending to make good the Justice of their Quarrel. Nor is it probable, that any Prince of another Kingdom, will, in relation to himself (as making this difference betwixt the King and his Subjects here his own case) send over his Forces hither to assist a Vanquished party: All Kingdoms have their several Forms of Government peculiar to every Nation, some of a more absolute and free, some of a more mixed kind: The People know their Boundaries of Obedience, the Princes theirs of Power; and because Rebellion is charged on the Subjects here, those Princes of other Countries, some think, will take part with the King of this, lest it should prove a leading case to animate their Subjects also to Rebel. 'Tis two ways answered, The several Forms of Government in this and other Countries, do diversify the case. Secondly, This is denied, and no ways proved to be Rebellion.  
An exact and serene Judgement is hardly to be given by strangers, not Natives, who dive not into the depth and state of this present Quarrel, withal, the Conflict is seldom so equally carried, but that one side hath the better of it; than it is against the Rule of common Policy, to 
* Noli in Caducum parietem inclinare. Lip. Polit.  incline to the falling and weaker part, lest the stronger by their inclining be provoked to become their Enemies.  
Briefly, than the extreme terms, and contesting parties in this War, are a Delinquent party on the one, and a Parliament (a Court of Judicature) on the other side; the first being conscious to themselves of several offences against the Commonwealth, and welfare of the Subject, contrive a course how to evade the hand of Justice, as by sheltering themselves under a strong and supreme Power [The King] suggesting ill offices betwixt him and that Court of Judicature, gaining thereby the better credit with the Adversaries thereof: then by advising him the most likely ways of encountering it, namely, in betaking himself to some remoter place of strength, which Advice was accordingly followed, and thereby his Majesty better enabled to command the parts next adjacent to his residence, as at YORK the Northern: Then to require and Summon in such other countries' near unto him, as complied not at the present with him in such design as he purposed, as also to be displeased with other of his Subjects who took any averse course to his proceed, next to set up his Royal Standard at NOTTINGHAM, that whosoever dwelled near, and came not in to his party, were in danger of his displeasure.  
By this means his Forces might soon increase, whether Love or Fear the Motive; for when a Prince shall tell his Subjects near him of a Rebellion (nothing then more noised by his party then Rebellion, Disloyalty) and preparations by him made to subdue the Rebels, if he shall then require their Aid, who dare refuse? These were the first parties in the Quarrel; by these means the King's strength might increase, the Parliaments abate: Hence grows the name of a Rebel, of a Traitor, the King's party calling him a Rebel, who disobeying the King's Commands, resists: The Parliament calling them Traitors, Vipers and Pests to their King and Country, who persuade and assist him in exceeding the limits of the Laws; It is King Jame's 
In the same Speech in Parliament, 1609.  definition; and who these be, Peace only and a settled time for Judicature can try.  
The King's party accuse the Parliament of Dissembling and Hypocrisy, and with that earnest Calumny, as if they did exceed all others in that sin: How easy a thing it is for either part to rail or scoff, to call the advers part Rebel, Hypocrite? How easy also to slain the best and most honest Intentions with the nickname of Dissembler, Hypocrite? Envy and ill-will can revile and accuse the best purposes; and Goodness when it is quarrelled with must be mistermed, otherwise the quarrel would blush to oppose or wrong it: Nay, a bare censuring serves not, it must be aggravated to higher terms, as never so notable and artificial a piece of Dissembling, to contrive and compose Treason, to palliate a Rebellion; which is granted, and as much confessed, if a Rebellion, if a Treason: Malice and Contumely are of an ambient and large Circumference and Interpretation; it is within the compass of their liberty to give out in Speeches, That the Parliament is the certain and only cause of these Distempers; that every one well-wishing to that Court, is a Rebel to the King; that he who fights not in a present and impetuous way for the King, is a Neutral; that he who soberly discoursing what he knows or hath observed concerning these Distractions, if it hath not made altogether for the King, against the Parliament, is a Malignant, an Incendiary, or hath any way assisted the Parliament, or his Country to defend it, is liable to the censure of a Traitor: In which Crime there being no Accessaries, he is a Principal.  
Doubtless very few have demeaned themselves so warily, but shall find an Enemy to accuse him, were it but for hopes to purchase redemption to himself, the Accuser as guilty as the Accused.  
Some neighbouring Counties fearing that the like Calamity might fall on them as on other parts of the Kingdom, agreed like firm Friends and Servants to their Country, in a joint and mutual League to defend it against all formidable Force which might infest them: To this mutual defence divers Gentlemen and Freeholders' subscribed their Hands, in nature of Associating, the better to maintain their strength: Others refused to subscribe, as being discouraged from subscribing by the more able sort of Gentlemen of the Neighbourhood, engaged for the King, at which time the King had an Army abroad; wherefore, whosoever offered to resist and repulse that Army, might come within the compass of the Statute of the 25. Edw. 3. An ordinary and competent foresight might have prevented many and imminent Mischiefs, when as if other adjoining Counties had in like manner mutually agreed, as it was proposed unto them, they had not been so harrassed and spoiled as now they are.  
But as the case now stands, what is to be done? The Associations are entered into, the hands of the Subscribers to be seen, or inquisition to be made for all who did Subscribe, whether hopes of Pardon to be procured by Price or Friends, or to stand to the innocency of their own hearts? If by Price, who then the gainer? Informers, Promoters: Witnesses shall get more by Pardons, Fines and Forfeitures than the Exchequer, or other his Majesty's Courts of Revenue can: If by Friendship, the extremity of these false and desperate times will break through such Obligations of Friendship, Truth, or Consanguinity, that few either can or will assist each other (the Enmity having been for the most part between those of the same blood) and every kindness prove mercenary, if not counterfeit: when as to Truth the manners of most will, through the Falsehood and Licentiousness occasioned by this War, grow so corrupt, as every man will be apt to learn the close and subtle posture, thence be indeed thought politic of carrying, as the Proverb is, Two faces under one Hood, that is, of complying outwardly with that side unto which he is most advers.  
As to Friendship, each man's carriage to his friends, like Caius Cotta's, whom the Orator describing a cunning Craftsman in Ambition, observes him polliceri omnibus praestare ijs tantum apud quos optime 
Cicer. Orat.  poni arbitraretur beneficia, that he gave good words to all men (translated rather into all men's humble Servant) good turns only to those from whom he might expect the most profitable return of such his Benefits.  
But to look back to the present subject of this Quarrel, and the several charges wherewith the contesting parties stand accused: The substance of the charge wherein the Parliament are called Traitors by the King's party, is their opposing his Crown and Dignity; yea some go farther, their purpose to destroy his Person, wherefore, as guilty of such Treason, to be opposed and fought against.  
The Argument, it is hoped and prayed for, is from flalsly suggested premises, unknown, ungranted; which Arguings are Fallacies, and may be invented to divide the King and the Parliament, for the Reasons before expressed, so to engage the People to take part with the Accusers; yet no question the Quarrel is grown so full of bitterness and Malice, as if the PARLIAMENT be born down, there will not want Witnesses to prove such Treason.  
The OXFORD Mercury indeed makes himself and his Readers merry with this Calumny; he Jests and says, They discharged and leveled their greatest Canon at the King to preserve his Honour and Person; The PARLIAMENTS sad thoughts take no notice of his scoffing humour, they leave him to make himself and his Friends merry by his Jesting.  
'Tis true, the King hath in his Person shown himself in several Battles much against the supplication and importunity of his Subjects: If two Armies do pitch a field, the one earnestly dissuading the approach of some eminent person in the other for fear of danger to that person, if notwithstanding he shall unnecessarily expose himself to hazard, and look that the advers Army shall forbear to defend themselves in respect to that persons safety, so to lie themselves at the mercy of the Enemy, or not to fight at all, no man in this case will think they intent to fight against that person.  
From such reproachful Observations as that Mercury suggests, and the Enemies to the Parliament may invent, the Court must deeply suffer censure, if born down under some ignominious attribute even to posterity, as that Parliament in Henry the fourth's time, branded with Indoctum, another with Insanum, as an 
* In a Book of an unknown Author, printed at Oxford, 16. 4. called The true Informer, who by a Prosopopeia makes himself a Traveller, and not to return until the King shall have recovered His Sceptre, and the People their Senses.  Author already styles the People, and will no question that Power (the Parliament) which governs them: This will suffer some such like infamy by their accusers, either of Hypocriticum, Indoctum, Sacrilegum, or Unjustum (and their Enemies are framing Indictments to all four) Hypocriticum, as pretending good, but intending ill to the King and State (an ordinary charge cast on them by his party) yea of Counterfeiting also, in that they do connive at Truths suppressed, and Falsehoods printed in their quarters, of the several Chances of the War, etc. The permitting which, were indeed blame-worthy, were it a matter of much moment, or competent to their leisure from weightier Affairs, to cure forth with all Faults in matter of Fact; the rather, whereas they are sure that no ill success either of losing Forts, of having the worst of it sometimes in skirmishes, or the like accidents incident to War, can deter their firm and constant Friends, resolving to resemble the Soldiers of 
* Paul. Emil. in vitam Car. 7  Charles the seventh, so far from shrinking at the terror of an ill Omen, that they resolved to encounter all hard chances in Battle with increase of Courage.  
Indoctum, as for opposing the Bishops (the highest Order in the Clergy,) and other Scholars; The Parliament seems invective in their Accusers eye against all learning.  
Sacrilegum, as some of their Enemies have from a far fetched Metaphor termed them, because of taking away the plurality of Churchliving.  
Injustum, in that they have condemned Malefactors, whereof their Enemies have given a pledge already, 
See their Declaration printed 1643.  in that the Assembly at OXFORD, in their writings of offering Peace, hath charged the Parliaments friends with imprisoning two 
* Earl of Chesterfield and Lord Montague  Lords Northward, for their loyalty to the King.  
Such, and the like calumnies are like to be their fate in case they are vanquished. But to return and view the charge whereof the King and his party are suspected, which before it be treated on; The duty required from the people, by the two contesting parts (the King, the Parliament) is examinable; seeing a War is waged, and such a one as dissolves all laws, and the quarrel so bitterly pursued betwixt the King and the Parliament, both requiring Subjection and obedience: which is to be obeyed, the King a supreme but single person, or the Parliament the representative body of the Kingdom, in number many? which to be obeyed in point of safety and conscience?  
But first to make the Question the more clear, take these 
* The people's Plea.  collections, from a learned Divine, That the King hath His Power from the Kingdom, therefore His Authority; which Terms, though commonly confounded if distinguished, makes clear the matter: For Authority is a Right and Lawfulness to command Obedience, such as all Governors and Magistrates have more or less; But Power is a lawful Ability to force obedience, where upon command it is denied; one may have a just and lawful right to command, that wants compulsive means for Coercion; others may have strength to force (commonly called Power) that wants Authority to command; and Power is that which in all Government bears the sway: Wherefore in the Scripture Rom. 13. and elsewhere, it is taken concretively for the Governors and Magistrates themselves, which have power at command, to force Obedience to their Commands.  
Now there is no doubt but the King hath full Authority to command according unto Law, all such as are subject to Him by Law; but if upon His command obedience be denied, whence hath he lawful power to enforce obedience, whence hath He His Power to make good His Authority but from the people? He cannot have it from Himself being but one man: To keep a strong guard of some of His people, to impugn and force the rest, must needs produce Commotions, Insurrections, and a Civil-War; If of strangers, the Philosopher and others who writ of Policy, 
Aristot.  will tell you it is Tyranny: nor is such ability Potestas, but vis, violence, not power, because unlawful: when vis and Potestas, or vis and jus do clash and skirmish, the consequence is dangerous: To keep an Army on foot continually, under other pretences, thereby to affright and force the Subjects, is little better; therefore the King's power must needs come from His own people's hands and strength, and from the same people must come His Authority. If any other should give him Authority, that were not able to make it good by power, it were given Him in vain, nor were the people bound to make that good which themselves gave not: whence He hath His power then, from thence He must needs receive His Authority, even from the Kingdom.  
To Safety, a Commonwealth is best provided for by Council, Council confists of number, in which is safety; That foresees, contrives, concludes, not that they are void of Error, King and Parliament both may err, whilst humane, jointly and dividedly; but which most prone to Error, the Head without the consent of the Heart being one, or the faculties of the Heart without the help of the Head (if possibly to be severed) being many?  
'Tis resolved, Securius expediuntur negotia commissa pluribus, & oculi plus vident quam oculus, which is not construed of the quantity of degree, as which is highest, which greatest? but of the quantity of number, which most probable to provide for the common good, one or many?  
If it be objected, That the King hath a Council, viz. his Privy Council to assist and consult with. Ans. This is by the King in his Person chosen, always or for the most part attending on his Court and Person; That of Parliament by the free suffrages of the whole Kingdom, and how fitly, when the condition and affairs thereof are subject only to the capacity and knowledge of the Parliament, the Members thereof dwelling in all or most parts of the Kingdom, whereby to have cognisance of what concerns the whole.  
Yea, let this be taken for granted, as advantage to his Majesty's party, whether so or not, That the Major part of the Peers and Gentry are now with the King, in some other place then where he first Summoned them: Admit it be true, yet that they were called by his Writ to attend the service at a certain place and time, and both place and time named in that Writ, where the Attendance is according to that Summons, and they having all there met accordingly, the place and time do define and limit the Action, denominating those the Parliament which there reside: For howbeit a great number be come away from the place whereto they were first Summoned, whether solicited, awed, or otherwise engaged, the residing part to that number which now sit there make a full Parliament.  
'Tis no marvel if their number shall decrease, their courage fail them, when so proclaimed against and threatened, as might terrify men of much resolution and constancy, when their Posterities and Estates are exposed to Ruin, all possible means of Art and might, nothing left unattempted to awe and conquer them; and which they judge most hard, that Proclamations forbidding all Traffic unto the place of their sitting; that other Messages, some requiring Obedience, others threatening, and sent them where they sit, to be debarred the publishing their Reason and Answer of not obeying, which they cannot communicate, thereby to satisfy the Kingdom, in that all commerce and intercourse betwixt the King and them is inhibited by those his Proclamations.  
Fear of a Prince's displeasure is a note of a People's subjection, no lessening their just courage, the Parliament have manifested both Submission, Courage: Courage, in not yielding when they were weakest; Submission, in not refusing to Treat when strongest: Former Princes have been best pleased to own such Subjects, men of Valour and Constancy, not terming those virtue's Rebellion, Treason, when as Rebellion rightly understood, may be against a State as against a King (it may want a proper appellation) otherwise, King James, as wise and discerning a Prince as the latter times have afforded throughout the Christian Empire, erred much in delivering his judgement: How he sets forth the Enemies to a State, and the unhappiness of that King who admits such; his above recited Speech in Parliament 1609. hath mentioned in several passages thereof.  
Misdemeanours intended and committed against a State are done with an high & insolent hand, and deserve an answerable punishment as well as against a King; the State being a firm and well built frame of Government, wherein the King and Kingdom is conerned. [The King, although a Supreme Person, yet a Subject to Infirmity.]  
The several threaten published, and violence offered, the Houses of Parliament may well grow thin, when those of the King's party contend to make his Power absolute and unlimited, thence in him to Punish, Pardon and Reward at pleasure: In him also, or in themselves, to Judge alone, the consideration whereof might invite many to his party, who at first deliberatively, upon advice and best judgement, promised their duty and affections to the Parliament, since finding their strength decreased by the departure of many their fellow Members, might think it unsafe to stay themselves.  
They could not but foresee that the King offering to remove the Houses of Parliament to some other place, the City of LONDON would be quarrelled with as harboring those whom his Majesty calls his Enemies, and from whence he was driven away (as he and his party do complain) by seditious Tumults: Whether those Tumults were the true or suggested cause of his removing thence, or the Letter written to dissuade him from any compliant way with the Parliament, but rather to betake himself to some remoter place elsewhere, etc.  
'Tis true, there was at that time which his Majesty speaks of, a great concourse of people about Westminster and Whitehall, and the Londoners languishing long, as many Subjects elsewhere did, under the heavy pressures of Injustice, implored his Majesty and the Houses of Parliament for redress, every one being earnest to have Justice done with the first opportunity of the Parliaments sitting.  
They might peradventure press too near and rudely to his presence; but whether his Actions after such removing suited with the Instructions of that Letter then sent when the Jealousies did first begin, let all men judge.  
The Orator's opinion was, Nothing so elegant or 
Cicer. Offie.  good but words may slain, yea and wrest it too to an ill sense: The people's numerous and importunate desire of Justice, their pressing near to his Majesty, is by the power of Oratory, Seditious Tumults: On the other side, some taking part with the Parliament give out, That the Book of Common Prayer is altogether Idolatrous, the Church-Government by Bishops Antichristian.  
There may be an Error and corruptive use in this or any Form, yet not to be marked by such Attributes, Nothing also (as the same Orator observes) so harsh or horrid, but the eloquence of words can mitigate and excuse: The impetuous coming of great numbers of Armed men with Swords and Pistols following the King when he came to the House of Parliament, to demand the six Impeached Members, is by virtue of mild language the 
* In the Kings Answer to the Declaration from the Lords and Commons 1642.  single casual mistake of the King, the indiscretion of some few rash Gentlemen.  
Which by the way, the disaffection born by his Majesty to the City, the place of the Parliaments sitting, presaged all possible means to be devised of dividing the place and the Parliament met there, which could not be better managed, then by excepting against that, and adjourning to some other place.  
To speak it plainly, it was the City's Assistance and Affection to the Parliament which caused the Anger (for, be it spoken to their perpetual Glory) the happy correspondence betwixt the City (the place of security for that Court) and that Courts consulting for the Cities and the Public good, hath hitherto, next under God's Protection, delivered Both, the City and the Parliament.  
It follows next in point of Conscience, which is to be obeyed, the King divided from the Parliament, or the Parliament? as the King is the Head and eminent part of the Parliament, the Parliament the Heart of the King; although the Head may be forceably or otherwise turned then the Heart directs, the Heart is nevertheless the same, nor to be thought divided from the Head; Wherefore the Parliament residing there where it was first Summoned, and the King there virtually, 
* The Commissions cannot otherwise work then to a Parliament; wherefore if his Majesty's personal presence be a necessary part of Parliament, without which there can be no Parliament, the Commissions can be of no force, his absence making it no Parliament. The granting which lets in other inconveniences upon dispute, touching the locality of his presence, as where, whether in his Throne within the walls of the House, or in his Court adjoining. The King and his Majesty are as it were inseparable; Majesty is proper to him alone, & only his Attribute, sometimes we say the [King] sometimes [His Majesty] neither is any man's person any more than a corporeal substance. It is the Mind, the Soul, the Dignity and qualifications thereof, which do (as the Philosopher speaks) inform and give being unto man: Neither can it be thought, that a personal contiguity is to be required of the King to be within the Parliament walls, no more than the Body of the Sun to descend and touch the Earth, when as it sufficeth that by its power and influence it gives heat and nourisheth.  a Commission for passing Bills in his absence, and a Law in force for transacting matters when he is absent by Commission to convey his Royal Assent, 33. Hen. 8.  
Obedience is due to the Parliament, so considered, viz. his Majesty in his lustre, power and virtue, being there incorporate with those his Faculties, and whosoever resists that Court resists the King as Head.  
Herewith suits the 
* Rom. 13.  Apostles exhortatory command of subjection to the higher Powers: Powers they are (without doubt) high also and eminent, otherwise the countries' made an ill choice out of eminent persons to elect inferior and mean men to enact Laws.  
The Apostles text forecited, intendeth not a King simply in His person only, but all powers of governing, nor them, as governors in whatsoever they do, but for the reason there subjoined; Their just demeanours, as being the Ministers of God for the Subjects good, to take vengeance of evil doers; otherwise Saint Peter his peremptory text [It is better to obey God then man] were of less value, and might seem to contradict Saint Paul's exhortatory [Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers.]  
But to the difference in the object of obedience, obedience is (in common judgement) most due to that power which is freest from the possibility of Error: A King may sooner err than a Parliament may; no man can simply accuse that Court of permanent Actions of injustice; for whatsoever they do Establish or Ordain, is made just and lawful unto us, in that they do it, whilst we live and are born under laws: They may by some latter Act repeal or moderate the rigour of an ancient or former Law without Error, or injustice doing.  
The managing their course of enforcing, of imposing upon the Subjects Liberty and Right, of requiring him to contribute to the maintenance of this War, may not altogether unfitly be resembled to the course of a skilful Chirurgeon, who when a Patient's leg being broke is ill set, he breaks the leg anew, although with torture to the Patient; his reason of breaking the same again, is to set that right, which by ill setting was displaced: The Parliament finds the Laws broken, justice turned out of its  channel, they in the prosecution of a War necessarily to be maintained for the recovery and restauration of the Laws to their former state, break those Laws again: they enforce the subjects to pay the charge of Soldiers raised therefore, not with an intent to continue such exactions, but only during this time of War, which by the people's free submitting to the Parliaments impositions will the sooner end, the one not laying heavier loads than the Subjects can bear, nor the Subjects repining at what the Parliament shall impose; and all upon a serious and just debate of what may fall out but necessary for a War being to be waged in defence of the Laws, Government and Protestant Religion, which by subtle and secret practices hath been long since oppugned: who is to bear the charges of the War, but they for whose sake and safety it is raised? Qui sentit commodum, sentire etiam debet & onus, money is the sinews of War; War the end of Peace, Peace the Subject's Blessing: if he voluntarily contribute not, and be enforced, it is no impeachment of his Liberty; and whither a War be to be waged, is the result of this Discourse.  
If the Subject, by reason of such Tax and Impositions, be lessened in or brought beneath his ordinary port of living, his hope of enjoying his former Peace and Safety is his relief: a little enjoyed with quiet better contenteth the Subject, than a great deal with travel and contention of Spirit; whereupon the wise man's saying doth reflect, in the comparison, betwixt a dinner of herbs with Peace, than a stalled Ox with contention; better to live on a morsel for the present with Peace and Right to what a man liveth on, then to far plenteously in fear of strife without the Justice of the Law measuring out each man's portion.  
Again, in that some of the 
* To endure for a time only  transient actions of the Parliament may seem harsh and rigid, yea entrenching deeply on the private Estates of men (as matters now are in these lose and confused times, when Law and Justice fail in most parts of the Kingdom) yet relating to the public good and common end of Peace, not altogether unjust in the determinate acts of Justice, no more than when houses in a street on fire, the contiguous house pulled down to save the whole street can be thought a determinate wrong, or any wrong at all, except to the private person whose house it is: The distinction between Injusta facere &  facere is old, this commonly and purposely to do unjustly; that sparingly and accidentally to do things unjust: wherefore the condemning of the Kentish men to die for the late insurrection 
1645.  in that County (instanced in as an act of cruelty) might seem unjust and beyond the letter of the law, in that all Routs and unlawful Assemblies are by the Statute in that case provided, construed as Misdeameanors only, and punishable by Fine and Imprisonment. Ans. The Insurrection there was of a different nature, in a more seditious and turbulent time; the unlawful Assemblies at the time of enacting that Statute were, as of a lighter kind, so to be punished by a lighter penalty: This, when the Subjects Liberty invaded, the supremest Court of Indicature oppugned, and a Kingdom hereby divided within itself; when for the mutual defence of each other, some Counties thereof shall associate, without any farther aim than by their joint strength to repulse an Enemy in case he shall invade: Such an Insurrection as was then made to disturb the Unity of such Association, is more than an ordinary Rout intended by that Statute, and to be tried and punished by the Justice of a Parliament.  
To examine His Majesty's demeanour, suits not not with the tenor of this discourse, whither He be considered in His Absolute quality of Wise, Valiant, Temperate; or in his Relative towards his people, as what His manner of Government hath been since His first coming to the Crown, God and the Kings own heart can best judge and determine: To repeat invectives here, neither becomes the Author, nor avails the Cause; preventives of future evils are a better Antidote than Accusations are a cure for what is past: Many passages now extant and in print from LONDON and OXFORD being fully set forth by the one, excused and answered by the other side, have made known His Government.  
But to what happened since this War was waged, which party the less unjust, which more to be obeyed? That which actually did offer wrong, or that which being necessitated to raise Arms for their own defence, and consequently prove the passive Authors of a Civil War, might offer injury: The Declarations and Remonstrances published of late, with the Answers and Replications thereunto have set forth the matters of Fact, and both parties challenging now, yea enforcing obedience from the people; the Reader is to Judge unto whom it is most due.  
If in His Majesty's demanding ship-money He hath lost any of His Subjects affections, He may thank them who persuaded Him to the Justice and Legality thereof, which whether it were lawful or not, is learnedly argued by His 
* In the case of Ship-money.  Solicitor General.  
The affections of the people are for the most part measured by the deportment of the Prince, so reciprocal is the obligation, so natural the relation betwixt a King and His Subjects; and how desirous His Majesty's Predecessors have been of their Subjects love, is fresh in Memory: They knew, and were protected by it, that Fides magis tuetur, quam satellitium, their Subjects affections to be a surer Bulwark than their own Guard. King James protested 
In the same Speech.  the enjoyment of His Subjects love, and His possession of their hearts, to be His greatest earthly security, next the favour of God, and so to be accounted of by any wise or just King.  
Queen Elizabeth's tender affections and care towards 
Camden's Annals  Her people was expressed, in that she took it ill, that any man should think a Father loved his Children better than she her People: Affections are not to be enforced, when they are, they turn into fear and are not durable: Love hath a univocal generation begetting Issue like itself; as the face in water answereth the face, so the heart of man to man: If Kings love not their Subjects, whom God hath therefore made them Lords of, their Reign is dangerous; and where Subjects return not the like duty, the Obligations being mutual, their guilt of unthankfulness and disloyalty in infamous: where the fault now is, Peace only, and such Laws as follow on it, can resolve the Question.  
But sure it is, that the people's free and unconstrained affections run, for the most part, all one way, their 
* May 1641.  Protestation lately taken binds them to an unity of concurrence, they are sensible of the several parts thereof, tending all to the maintenance of God's Honour, the King's welfare, the Subjects Right and Liberty (no one part crossing or contradicting the other, if it should, it could not be safely taken) and it is strange, that in this great and Civil Discord, the people being free to choose which part to side with, there should be such an averseness and disaffection in them, unless on most vehement causes of suspicion, above ordinary Fears and Jealousies, descending even to whole Families and Countries; for few or no one Country (let men frame and flatter what they please) more Malignant, more Loyal than another, excepting where the King's power hath its residence, the Authority and strength whereof subjugating the people's hearts, the Factors for that power pressing and protesting the Justice of their own party; so seasoning and possessing the Subject's hearts with Calumny and prejudice against the other party; together with some Gentlemen of note deeply engaged, and stickling in their Countries where they have power, to make good that part which they take for their own sake and safety; and those few have some Followers, Tenants, Servants or Mercenaries. Nor one Town more Loyal than another, or more Malignant (taking the Malignancy against which side you will) saving where some obnoxious persons of Eminency or Power hath Pre-eminence above the rest, or where a chief Town in a County since this War began, hath a more stout and expert Commander in it, to Govern and keep the same against all Force opposing it: wherefore what a mistake it is to call this Country or Town, more or less Malignant, more or less Loyal, when as all men in a natural duty do and desire to serve the Country wherein they are born and live.  
The Orator excepting against the ease and quiet 
Cicer.  of many men, did long since direct them in the gratitude which they own unto their Birth and Breeding, distributing their Duty and Endeavours into several portions, Partem Parents, Partem Amici, Partem Patria vendicat, what their Country is, what the Representative Body, is already declared. The King as Head thereof, whilst joined to the Heart and Members, is implicitly meaned. 
* Partem Patria.  One part (the Country) is explicitly set down.  
Which terms of Malignant, Loyal, unquestioned before this War began, hath much distempered the Commonwealth, and set a difference even between the nearest Friends: where Nature and Desert hath put an Unity, Malice and Mistake hath made Dissension, that it falls out in these Kingdoms as in Israel and Judah, two parts of a Nation, we are no longer a Tribe and a Tribe, but we are divided Kindred against Kindred, Family against Family, Son against his Father, a Daughter against her Mother, and a man's Foes to be those of his own House: Nay, it is a more intestine Discord, betwixt a man, as it were, and himself, the Body and the Mind, between the outward Estate and inward Conscience: When a man to save his Estate shall expose his Conscience, having premeditately and on judgement resolved to betake himself to one side; soon after for fear of losing his Estate, or upon the turn of Victory, hath submitted to the other, against the consent of his own heart and conscience.  
The prosecution of which War hath had several rises and beginnings, many passages to increase and add fuel to the Contention; the King's party always crossing and altering, even in matters Arbitrary and Indifferent, what the King and Parliament did on good reason institute.  
Others of more moment, as namely, His 
* See the Articles of the large Treaty, pag. 16. Demand 4. granted by His Majesty, August, 1641.  Majesty's gracing and preferring to His nearest secrecy and trust, a person whom His Majesty and Parliament did accuse and Proclaim guilty of High Treason.  
Divers other matters of debate might happen to inflame the Discord, one more particularly and remarkably concerning the Earl of Strafford, who in the Dispute whether he should suffer or not, had gained the most powerful and eminent Members, as he thought, of both Houses of Parliament on his side, and the King to intercede as far as he might with Justice to acquit the Earl. A sixth part at the most of the Members against the Sentence of his suffering, might be peradventure troubled that their power and suffrages were over-matched, and thinking much that they could not prevail to acquit the Earl, have probably nourished thence an emulous spirit towards their fellow-Members; the Debate whereof could not but add unto the fuel of these Dissensions, and so prove a prosecution of this War.  
Thus the fire of War being kindled, two principal parties have appeared in a martial posture: And which first began, unto whom was violence first offered, in robbing and spoiling and the like, is reported severally according to the affections of the Reporters; a just estimate without varying in matters of considerableness is hardly to be had: The King and His party say he intended no War, the Parliament says, Theirs is defensive only, the Proverb is [The second blow makes the affray] the first it is sure gives the offence: The Kings coming in a Warlike manner, attended with so many armed men to demand the six impeached Members, resembled as much as for that present might be a Warlike act: But a Warlike act and a War differ, not much more than a disposition to a habit and a habit to itself; 'Tis true, there wanted time and preparations to make it a perfect War, and neither WESTMINSTER nor LONDON were a fit scene for War, the preparations were elsewhere made in many parts of the Kingdom, by men who have been active for His party; and large contributors to this War against the Parliament, have evidenced the symptoms of a War, and their assistance whensoever it should be waged.  
To prove the King's assertion, that He in His Person intended no War; divers of His Nobility then attending Him have 
* See their Attestation at York, june 1642.  attested it under their hand writing: which the Court of Parliament urges as too light a proof to discharge their Trust, or to secure three Kingdoms by; a Civil War being then in agitation, the seed already sown.  
Who (may they say) can witness or be security for another man's intentions? for what another man doth purpose in his heart? or who being present with the King dare call in question His sincerity: 'tis all one to tell Him He is false or wicked; a King's anger is as the roaring of a Lion: If two or three begin, what third, fourth or more will refuse to join in the attesting it being present there? His Majesty's heart may be peaceable and sincere, but a Certificate from those Lords is no Medium to prove it so: Those Lords it's like had a cheap esteem of their fellow-Lords and Commons, and might well think fit rather to be quarrelled then joined with: if the Parliament the supremest Court of Judicature and Trust, shall so slighly discharge their Trust, as to place the Peace and security of three Kingdoms on so easy a proof, as a few, though very Honourable Gentlemen, to deliver what their opinion barely was concerning the King's intentions, a discord arising and a Civil War in view, His Majesty exasperated, as it was feared, a party ready to join with Him, some whereof having taken part with Him in His first assault, others of the like condition to assist Him on pretence of Loyalty, the Parliament Members, many of them being accused of high misdemeanours, and few scarce free from the incursion of His Majesty's displeasure, the debate concerning the Earl of strafford's trial being scarce wiped out, were necessitated as well in their own defence, as in the people's involved in theirs, to take up Arms to keep off those storms already acted and attempted; which if they had not done and timously provided (a face of War appearing) against the like assaults, it would have been thought a weakness of spirit, or want of prudence if they had desisted; besides the happiness, as to us, which probably might have accrued by the assembling a Parliament, must have turned unto much unhappiness by the affronting and overthrowing this; as to the Parliament, how incompetent it had been to their judgement, in case the Trust reposed in them, and the important Affairs of the Kingdom (the end of their Assembling) should have miscarried through their credulity; to have made no better return of their wisdom, the people's trust, then for them to have excused the same by saying, [We had not thought it would have so fallen out.]  
As to the Acts of Violence and Injustice, practised by the partakers in this War, as of Robbing, Spoiling, and the like, who first began, the King's party or the Parliaments? They accuse each other of the first breach of Justice; The King's party aver, The Lady Savage's House in ESSEX to be the first which was assaulted and spoilt of much of her Goods and Householdstuff, to an exceeding value: Whether so or not, or the Earl of Stamfords' House in Leicestershire, as the Parliament party urges, the case is of a differing quality: For howbeit there may be Injustice in the one, as in the other act of Pillaging; The Lady Savage being a known and convict Recusant, a Law in force for disarming Papists, and His Majesty's Proclamation of Displeasure, published the year before against Recusants, etc. the people suspecting their strength and opportunity to increase, and supposing her preparations might be therefore made, the better to enable herself against the Law, remembering also His Majesty's Proclamation, did in pursuance of such Law and Proclamation, without any Superior Warrant, assault and Pillage her, as is urged.  
These particular acts could not but foreshow a war, which since hath happened; and setting those aside, the Question is, on which side the offensive is: The extreme terms and parties in this Quarrel, are a Delinquent party on the one, and a Parliament (a Court of Judicature) on the other side; or (if the King will against His Subjects will, and their humble importuning Him, make himself a party) betwixt a King, and the greater part of His Kingdom; the Parliament only the Umpire to judge and moderate the Quarrel.  
A War thus happening, and parties thus engaged, 'tis not now who first intended an Offensive, who a Defensive War; but who first executed a Warlike act, or appeared modo guerrino (which the Laws do forbid to Subjects, and the King the Defender of those Laws) to make the offended party provide for themselves; the King against the Parliament, or the Parliament against the King? The Parliament to bring offenders unto Trial (the end and reason of their Assembling) to sit as a speculative and ignavous Court, or to dissolve, as having nothing within their Power to do, could not in an ordinary and usual course summon and reach offenders: Themselves proscribed and proclaimed against as Traitors, were enforced to take up Arms, as well for their own as the people's safety, which if they did not, and in time provide against their Ruin, they had had no other Reward for the present, but pity from their Friends, and scorn from their Enemies. The future inconveniences might have been as fatal, like a Consumption leisurely to spend the body; or as a Civil War, like a burning Fever, suddenly to kill it.  
They then upon foresight of what they could not avoid, but either to pursue the Justice of their Cause by Arms, or to desist and submit to the mercy of their Enemies, provide and send forth an able, faithful General, proved by his Prowess in rescuing and relieving a besieged 
* GLOUCESTER, stoutly and like an expert Commander relieved without; as vigilantly and valiantly defended by the Governor within.  Town or Fort when the Enemy had well nigh prevailed: Next after him they send forth another, Puissant and Dexterous in his Achievements, with other Officers and Commanders belonging to an Army, hazarding their own persons and Estates, to try whether the Countries which have chosen and sent them on their work, would now defend and assist them in imminence of danger in the Cause of maintaining the Laws, the Subjects Liberty, the Power and Privilege of Parliament.  
In the Interruption of whose Endeavours, a War is waged, a Conflict entered into, two parties opposite engaged, and the Victory hath been therefore doubtful, by reason of the equal strength in the one for the King and Parliament, with the other for the King against the Parliament; both sides equal in degree and worth.  
The odds only, in that those for the King and Parliament contend not peradventure in so temporary, seeming, and immediate a way of Service, as those for the King against the Parliament, in their impetuous and inconsiderate heat, amongst their own party best accepted, as having at first sight a more seeming test of Loyalty, more dreadful to the advers part, as being the more full of cruelty.  
Those for the King would not be thought Adversaries to a Parliament, in a direct and immediate opposition to that Court (for all seem to reverence the Law and the Law makers) but consequently and forseeingly what course the Parliament did take to suppress Abuses and Exorbitances in the Commonwealth, which haply those advers persons might be guilty of.  
The Adversaries to which Court are branched into several sorts; the Verses found at their first fitting, declaring what Members were competent alone for employment in the Parliament, glanced at many of those who were likely to prove advers thereunto: 
No Church-Papist; no Court Atheist.  
No Fen Dreyner; nor Lords Reteiner.  
No man commended from the Lawn Sleeve;  
Nor Ship-money collecting Sheriff.  out of which some chosen, have approved themselves firm Friends and Patriots to their Country.  
Besides, these recited in these Rhymes, are,  
First, Obnoxious and guilty persons, corrupt in place and Office, therefore troubled to be overlooked by a Superior power who might examine their Demeanours: Amongst which numbers, some not from the first, or habitually offending, but for some later and particular act of Inconstancy, having erred, persist therein, in forsaking the trust in them reposed.  
2. Others of ambitious and aspiring thoughts, or of a proud conceit or envy, scorning to partake with others their Equals in opinion, thinking withal that it smells too much of the Yeoman, of a Peasant and vulgar quality, to take part with or serve their Country.  
3. Some through Levity and Humour, of a cross and advers condition, affecting Paradoxes, venting thence the strength of their own wit, and boldly descanting on the Court of Parliament & their actions, as if the more Honourable that Court is, the more fit a Combitant for their great wits to foyn and fence with.  
4. Others from an ill will and disaffection to some person of the Parliaments side, which the disaffected hope may prove Rebellion in such person, have therefore adhered to the King against the Parliament.  
5. Others not much differing from these, who seeing their immediate Ancestor (Father, Brother, or some other unto whom they are next in Remainder, or near in Blood) to have assisted the King and Parliament, therefore in danger to be questioned, and knowing it to be in the King to Punish and Reward, hoping for Reversion of such Estate upon their Ancestors Attainder, have therefore assisted the King against the Parliament.  
6. Others of the like mould, dividing as it were by contract, and suiting their affections, as the father to the one, the son to the other side, so the one is to be a saver by the bargain, let the victory fall out which way it will: This is the easiest and uncertainest way of Policy, if there be any who practice it; if I had said the worst way to, it had been no wrong done to the Contractors, because the War hath been by no means so much protracted as by the Collateral interests; Conscience and Judgement being excluded.  
7. Others who having lived in Foreign Countries of a more free and absolute Government than this mixed Monarchy is, deeming all manner of obedience due in whatsoever a King commands, because it hath been paid to the King where these persons have lived, and seeing That universal obedience denied to our King as matters now stand, have therefore settled their affections to His party, and having so settled, think it now an undervaluing their Judgement to alter their opinion.  
8. Others of an easier Temper, yet as obstinate as any of the rest, from somelight courtesy from the one, or discourtesy from the other side, have taken parts; and taking it on trust, that all manner of obedience is Loyalty, all disobedience Rebellion; have been through such opinion drawn unto His Majesty's party; and retaining still the impression wherewith they were first seasoned, think it now shame to quit the same, unto whom notwithstanding, the terms on which this division grows have been so doubtful, that the very first impression hath alone weighed in guiding their Affections; for the peevish pride and folly of making good their first impression, on no others grounds, then because the first, which they think scorn to alter, hath strongly wrought upon many in this contention.  
If any the Inhabitants in or about LONDON, doubtful at first which side to take, and since the time of the Proclamation set forth against that City, be advers to the Parliament, some through pretext of Duty to the King, many upon the hopes of gaining pardon when He shall have prevailed: others upon other grounds, as having debtors in His Army and Quarters, wish well unto His party in hope to receive their debts: others not so much out of Loyalty to the King, as discontented and displeased with the Parliament for imposing payments towards this War, finding withal a discontinuance of their usual trading, to defray this new and unexpected charge; and ready to believe that His Majesty's distance from White-Hall, and His other adjoining Palaces, together with the people's absence from the Courts of Judicature, are a detriment to their present trading, and that the Parliament is the cause of all. These men are sensible only of a present pressure at the instant, not looking to what is past or future; like impatient and peevish patients, who think no pain comparable to what they at the present feel.  
But how to avoid the charge of the above recited Proclamations, leaving none unpardoned of the city; these men may imagine that they play their game most cunningly, and trusting on pardons underhand, may prove Enemies to their fellow-Citizens, who jointly acting for the City's good, these men, it is to be feared, do countermine and work against the same.  
For admit in a corporation or society opposed by a powerful Enemy, some few of the society shall, upon suspicion had that some of the same fellowship do covertly serve the Enemy's turn, by giunig intelligence, or otherwise assisting him▪ and in so doing provide for their own safety in case the enemy shall prevail; wherefore those upon such suspicion shall conclude to be as wise in providing alike for their own safety also: By such divisions & sinister suspicions, the Unity being disturbed, a way is consequently prepared to the ruin of the whole at last. Others there be more danrous than these, who having some special Friends in the Quarters or Army of the Enemy, are Factors where they live for such their friends, who preferring their private and ambitious ends before the common good of the place wherein they live, do negotiate and privily drive the Enemy's interest, like a viperous brood eating out the bowels of their parent, by whom and under whose protection they live and have their being: The mercy shown to these is Cruelty to the rest, and these men's mercies, in case their party shall prevail, will exceed what is called Cruelty.  
The Concord should be as the Obligation is, general and reciprocal, for the mutual safety of the whole Body Politic: the City hath a long time been as famous as any in EUROPE for their 
* More remarkably manifested in this instant happy and well framed Union and Agreement prudently preventing the mischiefs which might have befallen in case they had not agreed as an entire society, notwithstanding the many and several sorts of divisions occasioned by these Commotions.  wisdom in all things expedient for their state & dignity, in their mutual traffic with all parts of Christendom: and they are unworthy of their protection, or to be entertained within their Limits, who wisheth not their continual flourishing: To divide, thereby to lose so great a stake as the Public good, were a blemish to their Prudence: Wisdom is more prone than folly to Dissension, having in it a particle of Pride, and self-conceit, and naturally busy and curious in projecting, in suspecting; when as folly rests and contents itself with its own privations, it faring commonly amongst the wiser sort of men, as with the learneder of Physicians meeting to consult a Patient's sickness, Nomine eorum idem consente ne videatur 
Pliny.  accessio alterius, until their dissenting in opinion disturbs and overthrows the Patients recovering hopes: The City may differ in opinion about the means, without disagreeing in their affections to the end, the Common good, and their own security involved therein, least by crossing each others Acts and Counsels, they gain that to their Enemy, which he thirsting for beyond and above half the Kingdom else, cannot by his own wit and power.  
As to their latter reason of these men's displeasure against the Parliament, viz. their feeling of heavy payments, or of one man's peradventure more heavy than his Neighbours: It is a blessing, and so it is termed, that they, and other parts of the Kingdom within the Jurisdiction of the Parliament, do enjoy Peace within their Walls, and Plenteousness within their Precincts, as a Reward due for their Association and Accord, although they pay for it; whereas many Towns and Countries elsewhere pay for dearly, even to their undo, yet want that happiness.  
If amongst the rest of the partakers in this Quarrel, Scholars, the Clergy, or a great part of them seem more Loyal, more Affectionate to the King, consequently the opposition being grown to the height, more invective, more advers to the Parliament, upon a mistake had of the reason and end of the Parliaments proceed concerning the Clergy, the mistake is soon set right. The Parliament in their just Estimate of what concerns the Clergy, might have promoted the encouragement of Learning in a more equal distribution of Churchliving then now it is, without taking away the right of presentation from the true Patron; yet by providing against the Lion-like fellowship, as the Proverb is, Some all, some never a whit, or which is as bad, that the more lazy and unlearned may not abound with what the more painful and learned want: No indifferent man will think that there can be such an envy and disproportionate dealing in a prudent Laity, endeavouring to Reform, towards a learned Clergy, the instrumental means of Reformation, as that the one should check, or discourage the growth and study of the other.  
The wise and pious judgement of King James is yet fresh in memory, which He left as a Legacy to Posterity, of the esteem and reverence due and not to be denied to the Clergy of this Land, speaking in His discourse of the Laws of this Kingdom, of Gods own Laws, which His Majesty did then complain were too much neglected, and Churchmen had too 
His speech in Star-Chamber in the 16. year of his Reign.  much in contempt; for, saith he, great men, Lords, Judges and People of all sorts, from the highest to the lowest, have too much contemned them: And God will not bless us in our own Laws, if we do not reverence his Law, which cannot be, except the Interpreters of it be respected; and it is a sign of the later days drawing on, even the contempt of the Church, and of the Governors and Teachers thereof now in the Church of ENGLAND.  
But of these kind of advers persons last mentioned, there be two sorts, the one an ignorant and proud, which commonly go together, the more ignorant the more proud; The Gale of their empty Tumour were retarded in their aspiring Course, if their Bottoms were Ballassed with the solid part of man, Humility.  
The other a learned and judicious sort, some of whom also may be Enemies, making it a common Cause of engaging all Scholars against that Court, on this surmise even now cleared [That by the Parliaments endeavouring to restrain the Plurality of Churchliving, and the personal corruptions of Bishops, all learning and the Seminaries thereof, the Universities, are discountenanced.]  
If the Universities partake of this adversnesse and disaffection, as conceiving the Parliament would have made a more strict Inquisition into their Demeanour, than the Visitors of Colleges their remiss Indulgency hath of latter times afforded: The corruptions of those Seminaries is not so much of itself, as of the negligent and discontinued oversight in those whose proper charge it is to super-intend their course and manners.  
Their Founders Munificent and Pious care from the first Institution of their benign intendments, did purpose nothing more than an industrious and profitable course of life in the educating youth, and fitting Scholars for the Church and Commonwealth: which if the Founder's purposes be through neglect and corruption of times perverted, and that many the Fellows of Colleges there, degenerating into a lazy and unprofitable life, contrary to the Founder's intent; it were a blemish to the Government of a prudent and wise State, finding out the Malady, to pass it by without enquiring into the Cure.  
Amongst the number of the parties in this Quarrel, all men's Actions or Affections being engaged, there be others advers enough, although warily carrying it, and disaffecting the one side to the height, yet lying at a more subtle and close lock (the Priscilianists, Tu omnes Te nemo) they know all men, no man them, and in their own eye play their game most cunningly, contented to temper and tune their Tongues suitable to the persons with whom they do converse, and to comply for the present with that side which they disaffect, yet reserve an advers heart when opportunity shall serve: These men should not take it ill, if that side, when prevailing, shall deal with them in the like kind, to give them good words, yet know them for their Enemies.  
Divers also of a lukewarm temper, not Moderate, but Neutral, rather Issachar like, couching down betwixt two Burdens, reserving the tribute of their affections for the stronger side (their condition not unlike to Watermens in a rough Tide, Rowing for safety from one Shore to another) yet discerning the difference of the Cause in question, and in their judgements satisfied which is the more just, do weigh withal, whose Actions, the King's parties or the Parliaments are the more Cruel, and for fear of that which is the more cruel, betake themselves to that, presuming upon the Lenity of the more mild and merciful, as not likely to exceed the Limits of Justice in their punishings.  
Others of mixed affections adhering to the King in some of His Tenants, to the Court of Parliament in some of theirs, and none so sure a lover to the Parliament, or Adversary to the King, but will think that the Parliament in some of their transient Acts may deviate and go astray: The King's party may in other things maintain a probable right; yet that doth not distinguish these men's affections, or make them less vehement to the party they affect: For the extreme and adequate terms in this Division, are an actual invading the Subjects Right, settled by an Ancient and Fundamental Law on the one, and an endeavouring to maintain and preserve the same on the other part.  
The other Disputes between the King and Parliament, concerning Church-Government and the manner of Divine Worship, are collateral only, and incident to this contention, and might have been left unquestioned and entire, had not this War touching a more principal object happened, and may soon yet be reconciled, when as little different in themselves.  
And these men mistermed lukewarm or neutral, will approve themselves as affectionate and constant to the Parliament, as any of those who misterm and censure them.  
And of this sort many there are who have wisely and warily carried themselves, with fervour and constancy to that part, although commended in a malevolent envious way, and taken notice of by their enviers, repining at their well-doing, for playing their game so wisely.  
Divers also of the other side (to comprehend them all in a few words) ignorant, peevish and corrupt in manners as in judgement, as Schismatics and Sectaries, snarling at and despising all Government, are seeming to adhere to the Parliament against the King, it is sure against His Government; no friends to the Parliament, but instruments, and glad at these Distempers, whereout they suck no small advantage, and certain Enemies, when time shall discover them, to the peace of the Church and State.  
The Quarrel would end the sooner, if all men who partake therein would deliberately and seriously examine within themselves, on what grounds, and for what respects they have wished best to the one or to the other side, and if they have in a hasty and precipitate way erred in point of judgement, to retract their Errors: the two known premises of [
* second cogitationes sunt sapicutores.  the second thoughts are commonly the wisest] and [no 
* In sapientem non potest cadere injuria. Senec.  injury can befall a wise and resolved spirits] afford one safe conclusion, that it is no injury to the Credit of any man, to change his opinion upon better grounds, and if it were, his wisdom can keep off the injury.  
If Reason, Conscience, Duty, were the rule alone whereby to guide the affairs and minds of men (collateral and sinister ends, as is elsewhere set down, excluded) or the distinction well observed betwenn Time and Eternity, and the difference between the dimension of these and the reward due after the fruition of either, there had been much less blood spilt, and the account lain more lightly on the blood shedders.  
The Series of the War declared, the partakers known, who have been the Authors, what the Cause of this Contention; the Parliament by the event of what hath happened have been traduced and censured, the Authors the occasion.  
The proper cause is Injustice and Oppression, by whom committed follows, if Justice exalts a Nation, by the rule of Contraries, Injustice must overthrow it: 'tis true, this calamity, these pressures, these divisions and Schisms have happened in the time of the Parliaments sitting, yet that Court no more the Cause thereof, then Augustus Caesar's Reign the cause of Christ's birth; He was born in the time of Augustus' Reign; This Calamity befell in the time of the Parliaments sitting: If the Parliament any cause at all, it is a very remote and least principal, not to be reckoned positively a cause.  
No man can reasonably think them to be the cause, that when as Discord doth waste and rend the strength which they have gained by Policy and friends, they will endanger the loss thereof by the weakness of Dissension.  
In a serious and Christian apprehension of these Calamities, the supreme and original cause is our National Iniquities, Pride, Falshood, Luxury, contempt of God's Word and His Laws, and the like, drawing down the Anger of a just God; but that His other attributes of mercy, which is over all His works, His long-suffering, and plenteousness in Goodness, can cancel and supersede that of His justice, if the fault be not supinely ours, when as (if the commemorating of His readiness to forgive be no Doctrine of presumption to embolden sinners) He often spares for His elect, for a few righteous men's sake, the rest.  
In the rank of natural and lower causes, Injustice, as even now spoken of in the subordinate Ministers of justice, which grinds the face, and adds to the number of the poor, hath been the proper and certain cause, although the 
* Mr. Jo: Heywood, on the life of Hen. 4.  Historian stateth it plainly against a King Himself; to private men, saith he, it is sufficient that they do no wrong, but a Prince must provide that none under Him do wrong, for by the winking at the vices of His Officers, He makes them His own.  
One other sin of a latter date may be added to the number of the causes of the continuance of this War, for which God is justly angry and hath severely threatened; the faint and perfunctory keeping of the Protestation and Covenant entered into; rather of not keeping it at all in many of this Kingdom: for whilst in the close of the Protestation we shall vow to endeavour by all honourable and just ways, etc. In which words some measure of Activity at least is requisite.  
When thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord, thou shalt not be slack to pay it: and wherein many have not 
Deuteron. 23.  only deserted this their vow, but endeavoured against the same: Others contemplative only and remiss, as not endeavouring at all, but with cautious reservations and forbearances keep off their endeavourings, believing as the Lazy Soldiers whom the 
* Livy.  Historian noteth to have dreamt their Enemies votis & sedendo debellari posse: Wish and sitting still are no sufficient discharge of the protesters Vow, when as he Voweth he will endeavour, etc.  
The next amongst external causes, is the importunate and restless power of Flatterers, making a Prince believe in the vastness of His Power over and above all Laws, excusing and making less His faults then indeed they are, rendering withal His actions exempt from Sin or Error.  
The seasonable Accident which befell Antigonus King of SYRIA, setting forth the falsehood of His Parasites, made him repent His Error; in the Event, Himself and His Kingdom happy; who Hunting in a Forest, and earnestly pursuing His Chase, being benighted, lost His Followers, and happening into a poor man's house to take His lodging, demanded of His Host, What that Country, who and what manner of Governor the King of that Country was? The poor man answered at large, not knowing Him, nor sparing to tell Him or any of His faults; for which round dealing, the King discovering Himself at His fellow-Hunters ●oming, rewarded well His Host, and afterwards better knew Himself and His flattering Courtiers, using these words in their hearing, Verum de me, nisi hae Nocte audivi nunquam.  
There are two causes of Pride, an 

Inward Ignorance,  
Outward Flattery.    
That no whit appliable, This the more dangerous, as being inevitable, because by surprise it seizes and annoys the person flattered, and by persuading him to what he is not, robs him of the possibility of being what he should.  
Other occasions and incentives have been of this War, the angry manner of Impeaching, the Hostile of demanding the six Members of both Houses, together with the Proclamations since accusing other Members of High 
See what the Assembly at OXFORD acknowledges, The Privilege of Parliament to be so substantial and entire a Right, that the Invasion, of the Liberties of either House is an injury to the other, and to the whole Kingdom, in their Declaration printed there, p. 12.  Treason, hath added to the fuel of this War; On what the Impeachment was first grounded, otherwise then as general Articles, is known to few, unless it were for some supposed ill committed in their activeness to perform what they thought their duty did enjoin.  
In every design and purpose, there will be some more Activity in one, two, or more, then in the rest, otherwise the purpose in hand is likely to stand still: Every completed Act is first the conception of some one individual person, than the consent of the rest: If the first beginners shall for their forwardness (of no advantage to themselves) be therefore accused of Crimes, and in a violent way pursued, it could not but strike at the Root of the Subjects Liberty invaded lately, then in agitation to be maintained, and the sequel prove dangerous, the infringing the Power and Privilege of Parliament, which so many Thousands have protested to maintain.  
The Quarrel was as the Division, great, and 'tis probable there would not have wanted witnesses on the one party, as to prove the Articles, so to have aggravated the guilt of them to the highest against the other.  
The examination of which Articles, whether the six Members were guilty in matter of Fact of what they were accused; or whether the Articles were Treason in case they were guilty, is not proper to this Discourse: The beginning and manner of the first entering into this War being set down, the Reader is left to judge, on which the Offensive, on which the Defensive is.  
If it were as certain that the Parliament did before this War intent any thing against the Honour of the King, as it is certain the Subjects Right and Liberty were encroached upon (to say no more of what is vehemently presumed against the Protestant Religion) no question then but the War must be thought Defensive on the King's part: But when these three endangered, the Incendiaries contriving the subversion of the same, consequently the promoters of this War are judicially required to answer their Misdemeanours, when as they shall by a strong hand be rescued from the hand of Justice, and in stead thereof, Misdemeanours of as high a nature retorted on their Judges (the Court of Parliament) Nothing but a War could decide the Controversy, an impartial understanding discern between the Offensive and Defensive part.  
The Contention grew at first in point of Trust, who should be rather believed for what is promised, the King, rather those about Him whom the Parliament suspected, or the Parliament itself.  
The several Reasons for requiring Trust, are obvious to every man's view who hath observed their several Actions: The Parliament may plead their undertake cannot be made good, nor the Trust committed to them discharged in that free and just way as they would, because themselves opposed: A Court of Judicature confronted, and by an advers and equal power interrupted in their course of Justice, must needs abate in their power and efficacy: They have enough to do to detect and defeat the Fraud and Circumventions hourly practised against their place and person; their condition like to the closely besieged in a Town of Garrison, who to subsist and maintain themselves, do many things against their natural, just and wont course.  
Friends may be sometimes oppressed and injured, Enemies favoured; Justice cannot in perplexed times of danger be dealt with an exact and even poised hand, the Sword hanging ready to fall (like that of Damocles) on each man's head: A cunning Craftsman in dissembling, and secret Enemy to that Court, privily engaged to supplant the same, may in his very demanding Justice, and expecting by reason of the greatness of his place to be harkened unto, pressing withal their sedulous listening to his Complaints, do it on purpose to divert their thoughts from their care of safety; a small matter in equality of strength, and in a doubtful Conflict, helpeth to some Advantage.  
Many are the exceptions against their Actions; This a certain one, the greatest and most inevitable inconvenience in their proceed Martial and Civil, that some injury must be done, the very Act of War presumes as much; and it is not their fault, it may be their unhappiness to be served by ill Instruments.  
Those Instruments will expect also to be winked at, in that they run the hazard of being censured to be Rebels for their sakes who do employ them; if not a little winked at, there is danger in these dividing and doubtful times of turning to the advers part, so the Subject is destined as it were to be oppressed; And marvel not, saith the wise man, if thou seest oppression of the poor, or a violent perverting of Justice in a Province, and it must be that offences come.  
The Miscarriages, Violence and Insolences done by a few or many particular men, are not to be imputed to that Power which Governs them, unless done by the Authority and Commission of that Power.  
One other unfitness may appear in the proceed of the Parliament, as inevitable as the rest, namely, in that they have in a subordinate way deputed men of a lower rank to execute their Commissions and other Acts in several Counties for raising money, etc. or otherwise for discharging some Trust to them committed; when as themselves the more eminent, the more aimed at by the Enemy, and the nearer to danger, cannot appear with safety to execute the same: Let any man suppose it to be his own case, than he will not blame them for absenting themselves, and substituting others in their room.  
Many are the objections in this kind which beget Disputes, many accusations had against either part: What the Parliament finds and complains to be practised in opposition to them by their Enemies, they observe most sensible presumptions for, no one thing in bar to such presumptions, to make up one tittle of compensation in lieu of the dangers which might happen, or to give any the least satisfaction for removing the imminency of the same.  
The vulgar and common salve used by His Majesty's party, of His passing bills since the Parliament began, for the relief and ease of His Subjects, as a pledge of His Princely goodness, and care of His people's welfare: His often and deep Protestations for the maintenance of the Protestant Religion, and the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom; yet as matters now are, these Acts of His not compensatory to those hostile Acts practised by His party against His Parliament and people: Besides, those Acts of Parliament passed by His Majesty, are in His and a new Parliaments power to retract or repeal them at pleasure: For let it be granted that they were Acts of Parliament which His Majesty hath thus passed, in that the Members of both Houses at WESTMINSTER are by His party denied to be a Parliament, yet sometimes called [a Parliament] sometimes [Rebels] there is like to be little stability in what they have enacted, neither is that which is contingent and possible to be altered, to be adjudged compensatory to what is certain and actual.  
The difference of times, that they were reputed a Parliament when those Acts passed, but since reputed Rebels; or the distinction into persons, that some are reserved to be a [Parliament] others [Rebels] will breed a greater confusion, then help to frame an Answer by those of His Majesty's party, who object this favour of His Majesty's passing divers Bills for the welfare of His Subjects, etc. That they may be repealed, altered in part or all, dissolved, or want their vigour in execution, it is probable when the persons who have and are the chief assistants in this War, are the greatest Losers by those Acts recited.  
Next, as touching His Protestations, His frequent Declarations of manifesting His intentions, His late actions of Clemency and Pardon showed to those whom he calls [Rebels] when they were taken prisoners at a late Siege by His Majesty, His releasing and setting them free, when He might have detained and proceeded against them as Traitors and Rebels in the judgement of His party.  
These are to be acknowledged indulgent and merciful Acts becoming a just and Christian Prince; yet they may be two ways understood, First, in relation to the good of His own party, prisoners in the Parliaments power, and in danger to have suffered the like, in case the King should have punished theirs. Secondly, those His Acts of releasing, of His mild using of those His prisoners, it is possible might be construed as present Acts of Clemency, to endure only for a time, and that He may be persuaded afterwards to punish them as Rebels: These are times of wit and jealousy, and the same Reasons which have occsioned this War, even His people's Jealousies, may continue them without abatement; there is no less cause of fears and dangers, His party having tried every way, by traducing the Parliament at home, by attempting to set them at variance with Foreigners abroad, having moved every stone (as the Proverb is) to subdue those whom they term Rebels, no way left untried to take away their power and shadow of power, no means left unassayed, either mild of Inviting, or violent in Affrighting, and those plausible and gracious Acts used, possibly to increase yet the number of his party, may cease from a total pardoning, only remitting for a time, until a full Conquest be obtained: And when the Crown is repossessed, the Conquest fully had, the French Proverb tells us, Que la Coronne unifois prinse host toute sorte de defaults, i. e. that when the King shall be reinvested to His former full Power and Regal Dignity, the Parliament and the power thereof then laid aside and become void; the possessing of the Crown doth as well quit all quarrels and acceptions, and cancels all disputes, as it clears and purifies all manner of defaults, imperfections or exceptions to be made concerning the means, whether fair or foul of gaining the Conquest.  
As Jealousies have been the cause of this Contention, so what the cause of Jealousies? The principal and most certain one hath been in matter of fact, namely, the infringing the Subjects Liberty, soon after the Petition of Right was granted in full Parliament, to be omitted here, because set forth in several Declarations and Remonstrances. One, and more universal, was that in the case of Ship-money, which had it not been withstood by a Gentleman of repute (let his Ghost be railed at) and a Parliament soon after summoned, what had become of the Subjects Liberty? If a Writ comes down directed to a Sheriff of a County, he bond by Oath, or fearful of incurring displeasure, in case he refuse to execute the King's Writ, and having the Posse Comitatus within his Office, what remedy shall the poor Country man have, dwelling one hundred, or two hundred miles from the Court, if he refuse, or hath it not to pay, against Imprisonment, or his Goods taken from him by Distress: Justice hath its boundary, and is circumscribed by Law: Injury and Injustice, like the violent Torrent of an Inundation overflowing the Banks and Metes, overwhelms and drowns; as Decency and Order when bound up by good and wholesome Laws, if disturbed and broken down, falls into Uncertainty, Indiscretion, and becomes Confused: Let men talk of fears and jealousies, and in an Ironical way smile at those whose peculiar care is to prevent and remove the same; no man knows what the Progress of that wrong had been, had it not been withstood.  
The mention whereof seeing so often inculcated in other Writings, can be no pleasing Theme to any Subject; And whereas His Majesty hath confessed and retracted that His Error, being now condemned to an utter abolition, aught to be buried in Oblivion; neither doth it become every ordinary Subject to traduce and accuse His Sovereign of Injustice doing; it comes too near (to what the wise man expressly forbids) of Cursing the King in their thoughts, as of what the Statute Law provides against.  
Only to satisfy one Objection used by some of His Majesty's party in His behalf touching the same, Better (say they) the payment thereof should have continued, then so much blood spilt, such vast Sums of Money spent in the maintenance of this War, and the Subject thus impoverished.  
The Parliament grants as much, that of two evils the lesser is to be chosen, where of necessity one must happen, as in case of inevitable necessity, that Wisdom and Industry cannot prevent; if otherwise Necessitas non excusat quae potuit esse non necessitas, saith a learned 
* Tertullian.  Father of the Church acutely: When the Prince's Treasure and Revenue suffice not for the Common good, as when the Realm is invaded, or any notable Rebellion of the Subjects happeneth, such an Invasion or Rebellion as is not procurata not simulata, but vera gravis & manens, He may then by the common opinion of the Civilians impose new Taxes in requiring Aid, although out of a Parliamentary and common way.  
The like Objection is made by others of His party, Better it were that those six Gentlemen Impeached of High Treason should have suffered, their Estates and Posteries overthrown and ruined, then to have a Kingdom wasted, other of His Majesty's Dominions destroyed, and so many thousands worryed in one another's blood.  
This is surely the rich man's Argument, who by reason of the superfluity and plenty of his Estate, can easily bear the Charge, and is scarce sensible of the Burden, or that he having a Power and Interest in his Neighbours Assessing him, is under-rated, and therefore content to pay the Tax, not sticking at the Illegality of the same, he thinks his Hill so sure that he shall never be removed, or his Power so great, that the Laws enacted for the relief of the poor, the number of which must needs multiply by reason of such oppressions, will scarce concern the rich according to the Proverb of Neque accipitri, nec milvo tenditur rete.  
One and the same Answer serves both Objections: It were better that a man should receive a wound from a stronger than himself, and afterwards to be maimed by him a third or fourth time, after to endure the like or greater Injury; better all this befall him, then to be killed (for so it happens to him, resisting in his own defence) it had been better for him to have endured all those Affronts and wounds, then by repulsing them to lose his life, as the less of the two Evils; but where the one might have been avoided, no necessity of the other to have happened, the Objection is invalid.  
But to the subject of this Contention, multiplying itself into several forms of Difference, the question hath for the most part been about matter of Fact.  
1. What hath been done, what hath been attempted in offence to the Subjects Liberty.  
2. Touching the Object and Latitude of Obedience, what Obedience, and whether all manner of Obedience is due unto the King's Personal Commands, for the Subject to perform whatsoever He requires.  
To the object of Obedience it is a commonly received Position, That the King is to be obeyed in all things Lawful and Honest, as before.  
The Proposition is proved by the duty of Subjection to the higher Powers, in the first Verse of the Chapter, the limitation shadoweth forth by the duty also of those Powers to take vengeance on the Evil-doers; for as Tremelius notes on that place, if unlawful 
See the Gloss.  things be commanded us, we must Answer as Saint Peter doth, It is better to obey God then man.  
Unto which, the question touching the Latitude of Obedience hath a reference; for as for those who exact and contend for a greater degree of Obedience, as to have all manner of Obeying, both Active and Passive due unto the King's personal Commands; doubtless all of them have not always thought it so, but enforce such Doctrine now in these Disputative times, on purpose to make the King's party the stronger by their strength of Arguing: If the King hath power of Life and Death, as to take His Subject's life in case he obeys Him not in whatsoever he Commandeth; then Nature, Necessity and Law (which allow, yea enjoin provisionary Acts for safety, and have endued Mankind with several habiliments for its own defence) seem all to have lost their strength: Besides, whether in such a case as this here recited of the King's power of Life and Death, if he take away a Subjects life, whether he be not guilty of the breach of the sixth Commandment, I leave to an humble and moderate Divine to judge.  
To free the question touching the extent of Universal Obedience, and close it up with this conclusion, The Exactors of this unbounded and immense obedience seem to allow unto Kings a greater Latitude and Privilege of Power, thence, a greater of Obedience from their Subjects unto them, then unto God; Hence is the Inference proved by this Enthymeme.  
That power is greatest which requires the greater extent of Duty; wherefore if God neither can nor will command any thing unjust, and Kings may both (that is, they both can and have commanded unjust things) If notwithstanding they be to be obeyed both Actively and Passively in whatsoever they do or will command, whether just or unjust, there is by consequence a more Universal Obedience due unto them then unto God.  
3. The third question seems to be, whether the Court of Parliament being a Fundamental power, and all Fundamentals equal, all principals alike, having protested the maintenance of the King's Honour, Person and Estate, may in defence of the King, Laws and Government, when imminently endangered, especially when actually invaded, justify to take up Arms, without and against the King's Personal command, if He refuse.  
Whether dangers are imminent, is briefly answered.  
The King's party deny the imminency of danger, they say they are but Phantasms and unnecessary fears etc.  
When mischief is near and threatens, opportunity and power serving withal, it may be termed danger, when 'tis already fallen, 'tis part the name of danger, and becomes Calamity.  
4. The final and casting result of the State's judgement, what those Laws, dangers, and means of preservation are, reside in the two Houses of Parliament.  
5. The two Houses of Parliament, are always a part in the supremacy of power, and in case of the others abserce or refusal, as matters now stand, Both virtually the whole.  
6. In the final resolution of the judgement of the State, the people are to rest, and in obedience thereunto, may in defence of the Laws and Government use and bear Arms.  
Not that the Parliaments Votes and Ordinances are in themselves infallible, but to us inevitable; nor do we Idolise them, or Doctor Fern infers, nor think them omnipotent, as His Majesty or some of His party do hyperbolically and smilingly object: Not to possess the Reader with the Dignity & Privilege of that Court, by transcribing here any ancient or particular passages of contest, which are not valuable to justify the Authority thereof, when as particulars prove not generality in Arguings, such particulars especially as are easily answered; yet whether the Historian notes it as an evidence of the Earls courage, or of the Parliaments power, the passage is short, and not unfitly quoted of the Earl of Warwick his contest with King Hen. 6. who directing his Privy-Seal for discharging the Earl of his Captainship of CALAIS, the Earl refusing continued his office, his reason was, that it was granted him by a Parliament.  
Whereto it may be objected, that might be a personal contumacy in the Earl, which proves not the Authority of that Court, therefore not binding other Subjects; yet this objection may be replied unto, that the Earl knew on what ground, and by what judgement his refusing it was granted.  
The Court of Parliament is not hereby so adored or prized, nor are they so fond of their own Acts and Ordinances, as to think them absolutely pure and unchangeably perfect, or to derive the blessing of success on their designs, for the merit of their actions, inuring for the present, either in abrogating ancient or constituting new Acts and Ordinances, which they may retract as occasion shall serve, but to the Justice of their endeavourings, which were they able to make good their proper and total power, they would ere this have terminated and reduced their Acts into established Laws: It is probable that many of those ancient usuages and Constitutions, which they for reasons best known to themselves have for the present altered, will revert and turn them to their former being, without utterly abrogating the same.  
To conclude and settle the doubtful and wavering Judgements had, touching the power and Authority of this Court, the aforecited 
* Sir Ed. Cook.  Oracle of Law, hath delivered at large in his fourth Book of Institutes, who wrote it in a calm and quiet time, when there was no need to defend the Authority thereof.  
Besides the preamble to the Statute concerning Parliaments, sets forth and confirms the Power, 
See the statute.  Authority, and by necessary consequence the Privilege of that Court, as the only and proper cure of Grievances, and remedy of Mischiefs in a Commonwealth.  
The three first Conclusions are evident by what hath been observed before; the latter of the three is Discoursed at large by a learned Author in his Book Entitled, A more full Answer to Doctor Fern.  
But to answer one objection, concerning the taking up of Arms, and that the People take up Arms against their King, which the objectors say, is unlawful under what pretence soever.  
If the Question be rightly weighed and stated, it will evidently appear, that this is no taking up Arms against the King, no more than a Chirurgeon doth offend or wrong his Patient, when to recover and preserve the whole body, he cuts and takes away the proud and putrified flesh, encircling and infecting the more eminent and sounder part: And if in this Quarrel the King shall unnecessarily and with hazard to himself against the advice, supplication and importunity of His Subjects, expose Himself to danger, God's protection (being more immediately seen over his Anointed) is herein crossed, if not tempted; and if it happen otherwise to Him then His Subjects would, His miscarrying is of Himself, or rather from those who persuade Him to it.  
The Question which hath cost this blood, is not now betwixt a King governing according to the strict and precise Rules of Law (the measure of each man's Right) and Subjects rebelliously rising up in arms against their King and those Laws, as some men in their gall of bitterness have given out; but betwixt a King transgressing the known Laws (as Himself confesseth and retracts His Fault) and a Court of Parliament, the Supreme Council of the Kingdom, endeavouring in a just and legal way to punish and repress Offenders as former Parliaments have done, no other power or force to dispute or emulate a King's; and the matter whereon they quarrel, an actual invasion made on the Fundamental Laws, and a party engaged to embrace and abet the same, whither under the notion of Loyalty, or from Humour, Ambition and Levity on the one side, and the Parliament with a party adhering unto them, contending to preserve those Laws, with the Subjects Right and Liberty on the other side: For, the controversy is not immediately and principally in the new-sprung Differences about Church or State-Government, as which the more perfect Form in State, Monarchical, Oligarchical, or Aristocratical; which in Church-Government, an Independent, Presbyterial or Episcopal; which latter two are not much differing in themselves in their Primitive Institution, as anon will be showed in its proper place: (All these Controversies are emergent only, and resulting out of the occasion of this War, which gives occasion and liberty to all dissensions, and makes every one a fierce combatant in maintenance of his own opinion:) But the principal parties are, as before observed, a party who hath actually violated the Laws by which we are governed, and have their partakers; and a party who contend and would preserve the same: The first abetted under the stile of being good Subjects, the latter traduced and inveighed against as Rebels.  
What the Laws of this Kingdom, conveyed unto us in these latter times are, under which we are born and governed, is by an ordinary light of study so figured in all men's knowledge, as no man can but consent unto and confess, That to be the Law which the Court of Parliament doth Enact, (which Court hath power also to Repeal, Dissolve, Altar, or make Perpetual as they please) and that to be a Parliament certainly and definitively, which is the assembling together of the Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdom, lawfully summoned by the King in the prudent and deliberate Counsel of his heart, at such a Time, to such a Place, for Reasons expressed in that His Writ.  
What the Power and Privilege of that Court in general is, is learnedly and industriously set down by the forenamed Author; of what power and stability this is, whither to continue until their work for which they were assembled be finished, or Arbitrarily to be dissolved, the King hath by His own Act defined, in binding Himself not to dissolve without their consent.  
Wherefore if He shall alter such Act made and consented unto by Himself during the Session of that Court, in His 
* Ira inimica Concilio. Cicer.  anger (an Enemy to Counsel, because He may not conform and rule them) call and divide any part of them from the place where they were first summoned, whither those which stay behind in the first named place, or those which come away to the last, without respect had to which is the major part, shall be reputed the true Parliament.  
Object. And whither that dividing be a dissolving without consent or not, 'tis no dissolving, but a local removing, in nature of Adjournment, which is peculiar to a King's power both to Summon and Adjourn.  
Answ. The King, it is confessed, hath power to Summon, and to Adjourn, as former Kings have done, to other places of the Kingdom, as NORTHAMPTON, OXFORD, WINCHESTER, etc. but such Adjournments have been on special and extraordinary occasions of Plague, some other contagious Disease, or such like Reason, those towns otherwise incompetent for such conflux of people as probably may have recourse to the Parliament for their dispatch and redress in their Desires: And whither that Adjournment amounts not to a Dissolving against the Law so consented unto by the King, hereafter.  
Besides, observe the difference of Times and Persons, which satisfies the Question: Former Kings have been willing to call often Parliaments, that the Usage and Necessity of often Summoning grew 
36. Ed. 3.  into a Law, and yet in force, to call one every year; when in this of His Majesty's Reign, how seldom and sparingly He hath called any.  
And when He hath, as He did in the first year of His Reign to begin in June, it continued unto July, and Adjourned until August following, and but few Acts passed before it ended: In these last years, the Parliament, at the importunity and humble Request 
See their Petition, 1639.  of divers the Nobility, and a valuable number of the Gentry, the King summoned in April 1640. how soon He dissolved the same, the beginning of May following.  
Then he called another in November after, in which for their more firm and constant proceed in their Affairs, and to the end that being come and met together from the several parts of the Kingdom, they should not upon every light matter of Debate be dissolved and remitted home, His Majesty was pleased to pass an Act against Dissolving without their own consent; how soon after their sitting and that Act passed, their Privileges were seized, by charging several Members of either House of High Treason.  
Which when that could not take effect, nor their persons seized, the King withdraws Himself (advised thereto) from the Parliament and their place of sitting, thereby to make void their Court, whereof His Majesty one part, yet His personal presence in this case not so requisite, as that His absence should make void the Parliament.  
The Parliament consisting of three Estates, King, Lords and Commons, if the King be a necessary and constitutive part, without which there can be no Parliament, as those of His party contend to have it so, His removing from the other parts amounts to a dissolving, contrary to a Law consented unto by His Majesty; wherefore it were a greater degree of undutifulness in any Subject to think that the King would violate that Law, then that His Power and Virtue being there, His Person should be so requisite, as that the absence of His Person should adnul and make it no Parliament: The person itself being severed from its Office and Virtue is a thing inanimate: The distinction into a voluntary and necessitated absence, or that the King's presence shall make it complete, His absence an incomplete Parliament, abates not the force of that Law, nor serves to make whole the difference, unless there be such a condition or limitation in the 
* See the Act passed in full Parliament.  Act.  
Which the proper and true Parliament is, that summoned and resident at WESTMINSTER, or that removed by a latter summons, as before expressed, to OXFORD; which Question, together with the perverse and proud obstinacy of an engaged and desperate party, though throughly convinced of the truth thereof, hath cost much blood.  
The King and His party at OXFORD do resolve it truly; Again, He or His party's instability of Actions, do seem to renew the doubt, certainly do wound their own Cause: For whilst His Majesty often and of late calls the Assembly at WESTMINSTER [The Parliament] and the Assembly at OXFORD by one and the 
The Assembly at OXFORD acknowledge in their Declaration printed there, March 1643. The Parliament at WESTMINSTER not to be Dissolved, pag. 25.  same stile, and that two Parliaments are inconsistent at one and the same time in this Kingdom, the people unless wilfully and perversely ignorant, are not to seek which is the proper Parliament.  
Here by the way, the OXFORD Mercury seeming to subjoin, in some ways, to the Declaration printed there, with a plausible Frontispiece of A Declaration tending to Peace, rather Refutes that Book, and deals more plainly and ingenuously, upon the matter of a Peace offering from His party there, and moving a strong cause of Jealousy against a truly intended Peace, as is before expressed.  
Now to examine the several Passages and Tracts of that Book, Entitled, A Declaration tending to Peace; whither or no it ministereth matter of Peace, as the title doth insinuate, or further Quarrel: For first, they can say little for themselves to justify their assembling, as to a Parliament, for the enacting and constituting Laws, but what is ordinary and easy to be answered: They lay aspersions on some mis-fezance and Errors in their fellow Members: So great a body could not well be free from failings; they accuse the whole body of Parliament of High Misdemeanours, of High Treason, of disturbing the public Peace of the Kingdom, of promoting and fomenting an horrid War, and who to be judge thereof but themselves, the Accusers?  
The Parliament by an ancient Law in force, is the sole Interpreter in matters of this doubt and consequence: 
36. Ed. 3.  and themselves at OXFORD, do not assume the Title and Power of a Parliament, when as they acknowledge in the same Declaration, their fellow 
Pag. 16.  Members sitting now at WESTMINSTER, to be so material a part of Parliament, that if they themselves at OXFORD might have enjoyed their freedom without being forced, their sitting at WESTMINSTER to have been a full and free Convention and a Parliament.  
The formal part of a Parliament in the Kings summoning them by Writ, at such a time, to such a place, to debate the Affairs of the King and Kingdom: This being granted, and the Parliament at WESTMINSTER thus met, what is wanting then to make it a full and free Parliament?  
As to their want of freedom due to the Members of a Parliament, and forced, as they urge, from those assembled now at OXFORD, when they sat at WESTMINSTER: Forced they could not be, force is a fruit of power, and deparibus in pares non datur potestas, solicited and strongly wrought upon they might be according to their several tempers: They accuse themselves, and abate much of that courage required in Parliament Members, when they complain they were forced: fellow Peers cannot enforce each other, without a previous disposition and compliance in those who are forced, to be forced.  
If any force, and the same not offered by an higher power, it might be in a close and clancular way by Proxies and Solicitors, they know where the power rests of Punishing and Pardoning: Proscriptions and Proclamations are Acts of Power, no strength in equals to work a force.  
Besides, how cometh to pass that those at OXFORD 
Pag. 23.  contending by the enumeration of those lately dead at WESTMINSTER, or else departed from their fellow-Members; thence to make them a few and inconsiderable part, themselves the greater and more valuable number, should be forced by those at WESTMINSTER being the less.  
One other kind of force is urged, of sitting at un-Parliamentory 
Pag. 7.  hours, or else to lose their Vote.  
There must be (to answer the other Member of of this distinction) some Parliamentory hours appointed, which no Laws hath yet assigned, sitting still, or going away relates, commonly to the necessity and exigent of the matter in hand, which haply will not admit delay or a second meeting, but may require their sitting up till ten, eleven, or twelve a clock in the night, and may again their meeting at six, five, or four, or sooner in the morning; If they please to abate so much of their own repose and rest, by their pains and Industry, their Country is so much the more beholding to them; many of the Countries have in their 
* See the Petitions of the several Counties.  Petitions taken notice of, and thanked them for their indefatigable pains.  
The reason of the small number at WESTMINSTER, wherewith the Assembly at OXFORD chargeth them, is obvious to each man's understanding; They make them thin, and then upbraid them with their thinness: 'tis as if Friends and Companions in a Journey shall see their fellow Travellers in danger to be rob, and ride away without assisting them in danger, whose fault is it in case they are rob, the failing of those who might have helped, or the paucity of those who are rob? this in respect of the other is a remote, least principal and accidental cause.  
'tis easy for a Prince to confer Honours upon men, so to fill the House of Peers, divers ways also to increase the number in the House of Commons to His party; but for the one party to make the other thin, and then to undervalue the power of them becoming so, is like one impoverishing another by forsaking him in those duties of friendship which he owes, and then contemning him.  
The next odds observed by the Assembly at OXFORD, between the Parliament at WESTMINSTER and themselves, is the King's presence with them at OXFORD, and a major part of the Lords, therefore outweighing the Dignity of those at WESTMINSTER.  
Which exception, as to the Kings being there, is answered by the Law of not Dissolving, or by His Majesty's being Virtually, although not Personally present.  
In that the greater part of the Nobility are with the King, His party therefore the more Honoured, 'tis answered without Disputing the Dignity or Preeminence of either part, as which the more valuable in Birth or Breeding, those which went away, or those which stayed behind; Comparisons are unseemly, and forbidden what this Discourse doth aim at [Reconcilement, Union.]  
It was not so at the first entrance into this Quarrel, the King withdrawing Himself from the Parliament, many of the Peers thought themselves by duty of their place obliged to attend on His Majesty, and might have power (it is like) to prevail with some other of their fellow-Peers: Besides, the Nobility are to be considered as in the next Class and Attendant on His Majesty, some by their place, others more remotely Interested; wherefore seeing Safety and Preferment are the Stake which most men of all sorts contend for (let the World be made believe it is Conscience, Loyalty) the King the Fountain of Honour, in whom to Reward and Pardon; they who are nearest Him hope first to gain by applying themselves to serve and please Him.  
All men know the Proverb, No fishing to the Sea, nor service to the Court, which was only in those days true, when a just and uninterrupted Peace did flourish, no man but could perceive through the Prospect of this Discord, that Peace, Plenty, and Liberality in Rewarding would all be lost in a Civil Destructive War.  
The Question was at the first much controverted, which the more just or rightful Cause, the Kings, or the Parliaments divided from the King? Many of the Grandees adhering to the Court, and more Loyal in an implicit faith, adhered to the Kings; no more marvel, than that Servants immediately attendant on their Master, should venture their obedience and assent unto him because their Master, without examining the Reason of so assenting, and then engaged, pursue their undertake, or be meanly thought of in case they shall renounce the same, the credit whereof is discerned in the quality of the Cause undertaken, not in the resolvedness of the Servant undertaking it.  
Prince's can and often do reward their Friends and Favourites; the Parliament cannot or seldom doth, it is besides their usual course to give, besides their Friend's expectance to receive other Salary than the redemption of their just Liberties, for which they fight, the maintenance of their ancient Birthright, conveyed unto them by the known Laws, saving in some few particular cases, where the Parliament shall meet with a desperately engaged and restless Enemy of great Power and Estate to fight and foment the Quarrel against; on the other side, some Friends Eminent in Desert, of smaller Fortunes to fight for them; In such a case, to disseise their Enemy, to diminish his power, to invest and gratify their Friend to augment his Fortune, seems not unjust, nor unreasonable. But to return.  
The distinction of Virtual and Personal seems offensive, yea the Declaration calls it Traitorous, which no indifferent man will judge, until Victory (by nature insolent) makes every thing displeasing to the Conqueror, Criminal: As when those on the King's side hoped to have overrun and conquered all, no man wishing well to the Parliament, durst name them jointly; whereas simply and univocally to hold for King and Parliament is the surest and most Loyal tenure: Howbeit nothing can be with more anger and displeasingly received by the more perverse and insolent amongst His Majesty's party, then for them to hear those on the Parliaments side say that [They are for the King and Parliament] So the Quarrel hath several overtures of increasing, the Parliament party taking it indignly at the King's party's hands to be thought Disloyal, False, Dissemblers, as the King's express their anger with the Parliaments, for saying [They are for King and Parliament.]  
To believe or say that the King is seduced by evil Council, is in their heat and anger a wounding His Majesty through His Counsels sides, which exception of theirs must render Him infallible in judgement, or so singular in wisdom, as to be above, or to stand in no need of Council (for if he makes use of Council, and errs by their Advice, the Error is His Counsels) or must presume in Him such transcendency of Goodness, in not inclining to any evil motion, as is not competent to a Creature: An impartial looker on will rather judge the words of His Majesty's being seduced by Evil Council, to be a degree rather of dutifulness than Disloyalty, as freeing Him from Misdoing, and laying the Charge on His Evil Councillors, His Majesty is happier if free from these, styled by another 
* King james in His speech in Parliament 1609. calls them Traitors, vipers, &c▪  name then His Predecessors were: Neither can any man reasonably think that there is so strict an Unity, so near a co-incidency betwixt His Majesty and those His Council whom the Parliament suspects, betwixt His thoughts and inclinations to a Peace to be concluded on fit and just terms, and that His Counsels Desires and Resolutions for such a Peace as may best serve their own and their parties turn; but that His Subjects may most truly, with much Loyalty, and without wounding Him through His Counsels sides, believe and say [The King having been seduced by Evil Council, hath done that which otherwise he would not.]  
2. To assist the Parliament, to resist in a man's own defence, and to adhere to such a power as can protect him, is Rebellion.  
For Neighbouring Towns or Countries to join in a mutual Defence and League against any Force which may infest; howbeit Nature and Necessity do allow defensive and provisionary Acts for safety, 'tis wrested otherwise now, and termed [Disaffectionate, Disloyal, and adjudged offensive.]  
3. To distinguish betwixt the King, His Kingly Office, and His person, Traitorous: A man in Office is distinguished from what he is in person, yet no fault or misterming in the distinguisher: If A. B. High Constable of an Hundred set an Affrayer by the heels, he doth it as High Constable, not as he is A. B. If the Lord Chief Justice E. F. being Judge of Assize and Condemn a Felon, he doth it not in his personal capacity as he is E. F. but as he is Judge of Assize: And although there may seem to be a nearer Unity between a King (who is Natus Rex) His Office and His person, than there is betwixt a Judge (who is Datus, or factus Judex) his Office and his person; yet the distinction may be admitted to the King without being Treason.  
4. Amongst other Misdemeanours to be exhibited against the Subject, the very 
* See the Articles to be presented to the high Constables in the Western Circuit. 1643.  abode in, or repairing to any Town or City, after His Majesty had made known His Displeasure against the same, is reckoned Disaffection; howbeit, many being threatened from their Duty, and driven from their homes by the rudeness and violence of Soldiers, had no other place of succour for their Protection, then in those places excepted against by His Majesty's Proclamations; So the place, and persons resorting to the place, lie under the penalty of Displeasure: In which the chief City of the Kingdom seems in the accuser's eye to be most disloyal; Enjoying yet by God's mercy (to his Glory and their happiness be it spoken) notwithstanding the place populous, the times contagious and miserable elsewhere; a deliverance from the sickness, besides the Blessing of Peace vouchsafed thereto for their Humanity in harboring the stranger and oppressed, in that amidst the Calamities of Plague and War, they are free from the Pestilence that walks in darkness, and from the sickness that destroyeth in the noon day, that a thousand fall beside them, and ten thousand at their right hand, but it comes not nigh them.  
Summarily, if all matters else of Jealousy and Debate were fitted for a Treaty, the very Argument concerning what is Treason, what Disloyalty, were enough to renew the Contention, some so pretendingly fond of the King's Honour, as to make his power swell immencely above the Laws and beyond all other Kings, some amongst the people so advers to the King, as to deny Him the just power and Sovereignty of a Prince.  
There are no question zealous and good desires in many of either party, for the maintenance of Justice and the Laws: Howbeit, the execution of their desires be respited, until the prevailing part have gained power to make good the same, so there may be also a mistaking and a fault in either part.  
In some well wishing to the Parliament, who frame and find out causeless Jealousies, on purpose to divide the King from His friends, as that common and slightest among the rest, of Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice aiming at the Crown of England; When His Majesty hath a numerous Issue of His own, in possibility of more, the two Princes, an elder an Illustrious Brother.  
Others wishing well to the King's party, of the like dividing spirit, contending to have the Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdom think, that the Yeomanry and Commonalty frame hopes to themselves of mateing the Gentry in an equal rank; These sinister contemplations (of some disaffected and discontented persons) are invented on purpose to sever and divide the mutual concurrency of the Gentry with the Commonalty in a proportionable aiding one another; How frivolous it is, all men may guess, when as the Parliament Members of both Houses are Lords and Gentlemen themselves, a Bulwark strong enough to retard and provide against any such encroaching thoughts of Parity: If any such there be (believing these Inventions) there needs no other Argument to evince such sinister suppositions.  
Many the like Jealousies and obstacles to Peace on foot, which the Court of Parliament do seasonably apprehend.  
The Assembly at OXFORD seem the first offerers of an Accommodation for Peace.  
But when they set forth Declarations with the fair frontispiece of Declarations tending to Peace, and in those writings accuse their fellow-Members (with whom they endeavour to possess the world they contend for Peace) of refusing and disturbing 
Page 23.  Peace, of being Traitors and Promoters of this horrid War, and charge them in those writings, or in some of His Majesty's Declarations, with scoffing the King in their Messages sent unto Him, (a Crime, if they be guilty of, most heinous and undutiful) these Accusations of upbraiding their fellow-Members, may be an outward offering, but no inward or real promoteing of a Peace.  
They have deserted their fellow-Members in Parliament, and in that a chief Trust reposed in them, their very departure without Licence from the Parliament was heretofore adjudged 
* 5. Hen. 8. Which Statute they would not all have broken (it is presumed through the worth and Ingenuity of many of them) had they either timely considered of the Statute, or not in a passionate and hasty way departed, or could have foreseen the ill effects of their departure.  penal; to departed, to contrive and wage War against their fellow-Members in Parliament, heightens the offence, as it credits the mercy of their 
* For notwithstanding the unhappy consequences of their deserting, the Parliament refuses not to receive them to compound, upon their undertaking not to do any thing prejudicial to the State.  Forgivers, in not taking a severe and strict account of Inflicting a condign censure on the offenders.  
To correct and sweeten the Malady thereof, something must be published, nothing more acceptable than the name of Peace, but on what terms more than the name of peace in a general word, they do not declare: A condiscending must be had as well as a meeting for peace, & those aught to condescend who are the most certain & first Transgressor's.  
In the Act of offering a Treaty for Peace, to invent new charges of high Treason, of capital Misdemeanours, of Injustice, is no right way to Peace, unless the persons charged are guilty of the same, as namely, they charge the Parliament or their Committees, to have imprisoned two Lords for their Loyalty to the King, as if their Loyalty were the unquestionable and certain cause of their Imprisonment.  
These Lords might happily show themselves active against and disobedient to the Parliaments Authority (for in these unsettled and distracted times, few men do, others will not know their proper duty) and so come within the compass of some fault to deserve Imprisonment.  
The High Treason whereof they accuse their fellow-Members, is their counterfeiting the Great Seal 
Page 22.  against the Statute of 25. Edw. 3. which whether in this case be to be understood High Treason, the Sword must decide the Question.  
The Parliament think themselves not guilty of that Crime by the Verdict of most men, nor every thing made to the Mould by which it is made, is not simply Counterfeiting; the quality of the offence is much discerned in the manner of the offending, and every Law-making commonly relates to some preterite fraud and wickedness: Now whether a King and a Parliament since the first constitution of either, have heretofore made use of the Great Seal to cross one another's Acts, be to be found in any Record whereon to ground a Law, the Reader is to seek.  
Amongst all the capital Misdemeanours amounting to High Treason recited in that Statute, the Parliament making a new Seal, being not done against the knowledge of the King and State, seems not within the compass of that Law, which in that clause doth questionless intent the privy and surreptitious counterfeiting to the private Use and Benefit of the Counterfeiter: And whereas in that Statute there may be divers doubtful cases of Treason determinable, it is then and there accorded, That if any other case supposed Treason, which is not specified in 
See the Statute  that Statute, shall come before any Justices, they shall tarry without giving Judgement of the Treason, until the cause shall be showed and declared before the King and Parliament, whether it ought to be so adjudged or not.  
In which determination the King and Parliament are presumed jointly to Act; if dividedly, than who to judge, the King seclusively without the Parliament, or the Parliament without the King? which, if divided, most likely to give a clear and dexterous judgement, the King or the Parliament? Those words [The King & Parliament] cannot be understood of the King's Council and the Parliament, it must be of the King himself; in which, as Treason is here objected to the Parliament, the Parliament is excluded from any decisive power of being Judge what is Treason, and pronounced guilty themselves of Treason.  
The marginal Note, if in that as in other places of 
See the marginal Note.  the Statute it sums up the sense of the Statute, disputeth many Questions touching Treason to be first decided in Parliament, leaving out the word [King] or presuming, as is before observed, that He is always there in person or in virtue.  
Take the Accusers (the Assembly at OXFORD) 
Page 24, 25.  their own acknowledgement, That the Parliament is 
His Majesty's Answer to a Declaration from both Houses, May 19 1642.  not Dissolved, that they are far from Dissolving, or attempting to Dissolve it: Take His Majesties own confessing and allowing to the Parliament a power in a particular doubtful case regularly brought before them, to declare what Law, consequently what Treason is; and the making a new Great Seal, the old being contrary to Trust vafrously carried away from them (the Representative Body of the State, which the Seal is always to attend) will not be adjudged a case of High Treason.  
In the controverting this particular case, as of the other Crimes charged on the Parliament, and the Subjects of this Kingdom adhering thereunto, the people may well be to seek, when as the learned Sages and other Students of the 
* The Inns of Court.  Phrontisteries of Law and Justice seem to be divided in opinion, some very active, as being peradventure engaged for the King against the Parliament, contending with all their might to make good the charge of Treason laid upon that Court, and the Friends assisting them: Others (in the Parliaments account, and questionless their Friends) as earnest, although more moderately expressing it, for the King and Parliament, believe it to be no way Treason.  
Which are greater numbers of them on the one side or the other, or which the more able Lawyers is not here determined: But to the Objection (if any such) That a greater number of them are within the Jurisdiction of the Parliament, in LONDON and other places elsewhere, wherefore they may seem rather to side with that power. The Answer is easily had, That their hopes and possibility of being preferred by His Majesty, were not Conscience & Judgement valued by them above Reward or Honour, were a more weighty motive than fear can be of displeasing that side in whose Quarters they are, which cannot always protect, much less gratify them, save only with the testimony of what they deserve, answerable to their Breeding, Knowledge, and liberal Faculty.  
One of the learnedst of that Tribe in those days wherein he lived, and much Honoured for his parts and industry, wrote a whole Tractate for the Dignity and Privilege of that Court in general: How this in particular hath demeaned themselves to forfeit their Credit any other way then in maintenance of their power against oppression, violence, offered to themselves and the Subjects for whom they are entrusted, future Ages can Record. But to proceed.  
In the same Declaration full of suspicion, and fraught with quarrelling, the Assembly at OXFORD except against the words of a Message sent from the Lords and Commons to His Majesty, Dated in the same year, March 1643. viz. That His Majesty would not be the least or last Sufferer; These words they throughly scanned, and presented them to the world as terms of an 
See the Message of the Lords and Commons sent unto His Majesty, upon occasion of a Letter sent from the Earl of Forth to the Earl of Essex.  high Affront, as that Subjects, or Rebels ('tis all one in their Dialect) in arms against their King should dare to send unto Him such a daring and presumptuous Message.  
The words admit a twofold sense, the one, of the Parliaments meaning (as the Assembly at OXFORD seem to construe it) the other more probably of their lamenting and foreseeing in their sadness and grief of heart, the inevitable and universal ruin which must attend this War.  
For that, His Majesty cannot be the least Sufferer, 'tis too probable; whose sufferings can be compared to His? in the destruction of many thousands of His people, as well in the greatest and dearest to Him, as in the meaner sort, in all whom consists His Safety.  
This exception, above the rest, was in these sad and suspicious times, unseasonably moved by His party; for they having conplained of late of extraordinary wrongs and losses befallen His Majesty, His Treasure and Revenues denied unto Him, His Houses and Castles spoilt, His Woods cut down and wasted, etc. It will now be feared, That to repair and make whole those losses, His Subjects Estates and Lands must satisfy, & most men's demeanour questioned when He shall have totally Conquered, His people's faults and negligences set out to the full, to render the owners culpable, or else His Majesty cannot but be the greatest Sufferer.  
Nor to be the last, no man can think His Majesty will survive the loss of all His people; a good Subjects Prayer ought to be, with a small insertion in the Poets address to his Maecenas, Serus in caelum redeat, etc. serus é terra, then in caelum redeat diuque laeto fruatur nomine; And if it were possible, without insolency to wish that many days may be yet added to those of His which God hath numbered, to the end, that He may live to see a new Generation spring up of stout and constant English Hearts to succeed in the room of those whom this unnatural War hath wasted.  
But these exceptions moved by the Assembly at OXFORD, of too curious and suspicious spirit, are preposterous to the pursuit of Peace, their Imputations of Treason and the like Crimes, to render their fellow-Members sitting at WESTMINSTER odious to their fellow Subjects, are no fit preparatives to Peace, nor their calling the Parliaments Intentions, so deeply protested to be real, [Sergeant.]  
Neither is this Contention by the Sword alone, but by the Pen, on which side, whither on the Kings or the Parliaments, the Arguers in print touching the subject of this War since it first began, have wrote the more solidly and rationally concerning it, which have more candidly and succinctly without railing or expatiating terms set down the Arguments, the Reader is to compare the difference and judge.  
For Rhetoric and strength of Wit, or for a sublimate and fine stile of Expression, the Assembly at OXFORD, as having the more youthful, facere and nimble Wits in their party and Quarters, the help and influence of the pregnant conceits, and nimble Fancies in the University there, may seem to have the start: But let the Writings on both sides be examined according to Reason and Judgement, and the Reader will judge the difference: Let it be instanced in three or four the most remarkable Messages in Writing, and the Answers thereunto, no other being so opposite to each other as these here mentioned.  
First, The Letter to the Governor and Counsel of 
See the Letter and the answer  War at BRISTOL from the Lord General of His Majesty's Forces, demanding a forbearing of putting to death the two Citizens there, with the Governors Answer thereunto.  
The Answer is forjudged already, and the Reader saved his pains of judging it, by being termed by the King's party [The Governors 
* In a Book of an unknown Author, called The State's Martyr.  insolent Answer] when as it is adjudged by other more impartial Readers, to be a well weighed, apposite & sober Answer.  
Secondly, That for the Marquis of Argyle and Sir William Armyne, (the Commissioners from both Kingdoms) fully and in few words delivering their 
See their Message and Sir Thomas his answer.  Intentions and Reasons thereof to Sir Thomas Glenham a Commander in chief in His Majesty's Army, with His Answer unto them, full also of words and of suspicion.  
Which in a Treaty sincerely meant should be left out, and the Objections answered with Reason and Judgement; no perverting or wresting of the sense against the Author's meaning, no total and universal dislike had by His Majesty's party to every thing which the Parliament shall declare or do: And it is requisite withal, that the matter of a Treaty to be disputed to and fro should have an equal and free passage and reciprocal intercourse, which the Parliament judgeth to be denied to them sitting at WESTMINSTER, that when Declarations have been published and set forth against them, they are by His Majesty's Proclamation, inhibiting all Trade and Traffic thither, denied their reasonable Answer to be likewise published, so they cannot be heard, nor set forth to the world what they can say in defence of themselves; so the Accusations from the one side (His Majesty's party) are bitter, concluding and offensive, whatsoever the War is, and their Challenges in print not to be answered by their fellow-Members for the reason above recited.  
One other intercourse of Messages between both parties of a latter time, this April, the Summons sent by the Committee of both Kingdoms to the Lord Bellasis Governor of NEWARK, for surrendering that Town and Fort, the Summons expressing persuasive and important Motives to surrender.  

* See His Majesty's Letter, dated Mar 23. and the Secretaries Answer to the Committees summons, Apr 1. 1646.  The Governor his Secretary's Answer full of good Language, Courage, and strength of Wit, wherein mentioning His Majesty's Letter sent the 23 of March last passed unto both Houses of Parliament, he urges the King's most gracious conditions, in that He will disband His Forces; dismantle His Garrisons; The Secretary recites not all the King's proposals, of having His Friends pardoned, the Sequestrations taken from their Estates: Either the Secretary saw not the King's whole Letter, whereof he recites one part only, or else he smiles in his sleeve, thinking by his short Comment on the Letter to satisfy the Committee there, and the whole Kingdom besides.  
His Majesty's Letter is full and genuine in its meaning, to be taken collectively, not apart, as of disbanding, dismantling, etc. without pardoning, etc. and such collective manner of speaking is always conditional, the one to be done on the one, if the rest be performed on the other side; The Secretaries reciting them is short of His Majesty's meaning, and mentions it as the Tempter in the Gospel tells our Saviour, All these will I give thee, which was as much as his eye could behold, but on what condition? If Christ would fall down and worship him: The condition which he annexes to his promise, annihilates the gift; The conditions which the Secretary calls [Gracious] in His Majesty's Letter of disbanding His Forces, etc. if nothing else were to be expected, are in every man's judgement as in the Secretaries, most gracious: But to have His Friends, His party pardoned, the Sequestrations wholly taken off from their Estates, were to put them whom the Parliament accounteth offenders and their Enemies, into a better condition than their own Friends: The Secretary, if knowing His Majesty's whole Letter, and would contract it into parts, reciting that only which serves his turn, the Committee being presumed to be solid and able men will follow their own Judgement without replying to that Answer.  
This sophisticate and defective manner of Arguings abates the merit of their cause, and might make them unless better armed with Reasons, incapable of a solid and sincere Treating with their opposites.  
But in that a not entertaining of a Treaty hath been charged on the Parliament, and therefore they are named The Refusers and Disturbers of Peace, a Reason may be given if they be justly charged, that if they do not at every beck send and employ their fellow-Members, the reason of their forbearing may relate to their small number, whereby the Assembly at OXFORD upbraideth them; For in that there be but a few Peers left to assist their fellow-Peers, they cannot spare a competent number out of a few, those few also it may be feared in danger of being by degrees tempted, either secretly to comply with the party tempting them, if not to be wrought off, yet to make them less zealous and constant to their own party.  
The various ways of tempting are not unknown, and it is much, that neither the fair promisings, nor angry threaten have more generally wrought.  
In this continued course of their Accuse, which they print at OXFORD and set forth to the public view, to possess the world with the Justice of their Cause, the Injustice of their Adversaries, a Treaty notwithstanding is proposed for the composure of these differences, for the settling a firm and happy Peace, Commissioners appointed on either part, and a place named for the dispatch thereof.  
How the Treaty was carried, an OXFORD 
See the Book called A Relation of the Treaty at Uxbridge, printed at Oxford.  Writer hath undertaken to state it truly, which he might more easily, than the Commissioners deputed to the business could carve out even terms whereon to ground a Peace, when as there must be in every Quarrel one offending part, one suffering more or less, yet both seem willing by their meeting to conclude a Peace, each party, the Kings, the Parliaments, could not but discern the War would prove chargeable to the Subject, the payments for maintaining it prove irksome unto all, that many of their Friends would grow weary and fall off upon every light occasion or surmise of their being grieved and taxed with payments, in case the War should last long, they having no other reward of their Assistance, but the uncertain event of a hoped for Peace.  
That other of their Friends, to avoid the miseries of a Civil War in this Kingdom, would transplant themselves, transport their Estates beyond Sea.  
That there may be many Motives to desist from farther contending for the requiring an Accord and Peace, many revolutions and vicissitudes of success in War: Prosperous begets Security, keeps off a farther pursuit of Concurrency and Assistance, as if the victory were already had and the War ended; Advers breeds Discouragement in the common Soldier, especially in a Civil War, where they are inconstant to their own party, and many of them ignorant of what they fight for.  
Besides, in the managing of an Army there be many Contingencies and cross Accidents to impair their strength, Commanders may want Fidelity, common Soldiers pay or victual, few or none an excuse to leave off the Service; the War, the longer it continues, the more implacable and fierce the Enmity, and that Friends do fall by the Sword as well as Enemies.  
Each party might be unwilling to put it to the hazard of a total Conquest by the Sword, the contests about which could not but bring forth a total ruin, and in the pursuit thereof, the more the Conquering party shall prevail, the more subject they are to divide and contend within themselves, Victory being by nature 
* Victoria natura insolens & superba. Cicer.  proud, and by pride Contention cometh, and the more potent and stout the Conquered party hath been, the more prone to pride the Conquering will be.  
That the War would not be always doubtfully carried, but that one side would sometimes have the upper hand, and which side should begin to have the prevailing power, must to continue and maintain that power do many things harsh, Irksome, and detrimental to the Subject, as levying and imposing Taxes, forcing the people even to the provoking & displeasing of those who were not their Enemies, withal that the weaker and more conquered party having lost their strength, whether through God's Judgement upon the injustice of their Cause, or for some humane and more visible reasons, would notwithstanding try all ways, and leave none unassayed to reinforce their strength (the thirsting after Conquest being so extreme and vehement) either in plotting wicked, or contriving feigned and false pretexts, that what honest and good means could not, false and hellish must, according to that desperate resolve of the Wretch in the Poet, Flectere si nequeant superos Acheronta movebunt, not caring though their wicked Machinations and attempts add yet to the filling up the vials of God's Wrath upon this Nation wherein they live.  
These and the like considerations necessarily to have been foreseen, might have moved against the wageing of a War at first, much more against the continuing this War; these and the Arguments above recited might after the effusion of much blood move to treat to prevent the shedding more.  
A Treaty hath been agreed upon, and PROPOSITIONS suited whereon to Treat, the one side real and sincere to conclude a Peace, exposed to the Public view, nothing to be objected against the reality of their meaning: If on the other side there were reservations of fraud, and a pretence only of Peace, set forth to gain advantage by (as there be presumptions to prove the same) the pretenders can answer for themselves: All ways are honest, and fraud and falsehood are virtues in Adversaries to Rebellion, contending to subdue and scatter Rebels: Peace is a pledge of Friendship, and Friendship hath no other terms of intercourse than goodness, as that there cannot be just 
* Amicitia est tantum inter bonos. Arist. Ethic.  friendship had betwixt a good Subject and a Rebel, no more then between an honest & a lewd man.  
These Arguments of excusing this fraud may please and satisfy the party framing them, and whether the Parliament and their Assistants in this War be Rebels, needs no farther Treatise.  
But to the PROPOSITIONS whereon the Treaty was to work, and the Difference between those sent by the King, and those sent by the Parliament.  
Those that His Majesty insists upon are three;  

1. Church-Government by Episcopacy.  
2. Lyturgy and Common-Prayer Book.  
3. The Clergy to enjoy for a time their several Live.   
All which are matters of Form, accidental and private concernment in respect of what the Parliament demands, necessary for the Public good: namely,  
The Protestant Religion.  
The Business concerning IRELAND.  
The Militia, the security of the whole.  
So the Contention, rather the mistake grows about granting or refusing these, betwixt the subject of which two demands, there cannot be so great a difference as betwixt natural humanity to spare from killing, and unnatural cruelty to persist in killing, or so important, as that Peace and War should depend thereupon, which if the demands on either side were granted by the other, might haply have determined into Peace.  
The reason for demanding on the one side, as for refusing on the other are too tedious for this Discourse.  
The OXFORD Relator hath by a large Discourse, taken pains to satisfy the world, of the justice of their own demands, the Parliaments experience and wisdom in the transaction of matters incident to this Quarrel, declares the reason for their demands here to be insisted on.  
To the first, that is to say the Protestant Religion, exercised rather in Manners and Doctrine then in Church discipline, comprehends and secures the second [the business concerning IRELAND] for unless a discreet and saving hand be had in reducing, as of Governing that Kingdom, and managed by a most choice wisdom, the increase of the Papists and Rebels there, will endanger the subversion of the first [the Protestant Religion] so these two first PROPOSITONS demanded on the Parliaments part, having a mutual connexion and depency, seem to attract each other in the maintenance of justice and the Subjects Right, Religion being the ground of justice as justice is of Peace.  
In matter of Church-Discipline or in the forms of 
Hierom. Zanch. in quartum Mandatum quod multiplex genus est Christi Ministrorum, pag. 950. probat Presbyter & Episcop. idem esse Edw. Leigh. Armig. in libro titul. Sacrar. Critic. novi Testam. in nomine Episcop. ubi recenset Plutarch in Numâ vocat custodem Sacrarum Virgin. Episcop. & citat Septuaginta vertere Episcop. in Ezek. & Hosea legit a Watchman, & Paulo post dicit Episcop. esse qui verbo & gubernat pr●erat, puta Doctior. Pastor. Presbyter. pag. 158. Neither is there so great and material a Difference betwixt the two subdivided parts of the Parliament side [The Presbyterian and Independent] as for a quarrel to continue and depend upon: The wisdom of that Court hath taken away the virulency of any quarrel which might happen betwixt them two, by constituting the one, yet with respect had to the tenderness of Conscience in the other; Although the one be fully declared for by the Lords and Commons in the Parliament in their solid and satisfactory Declaration this present April, yet with a due regard had to Tender consciences not differing in Fundamentals of Religion, that they also may be provided for, etc. wherefore it is rather Luxury, Pride of Wit, and contempt of Authority, than any object of a real difference which animates and maintains these quarrels.  Divine Worship, that which His Majesty demands of Episcopal Government, differs little from what the Parliament doth intent of Presbyterial, Bishops and Presbyters in their primitive Institution being all one.  
In the Forms of Divine Worship, the Directory enjoined by the Parliament not really differing in the material parts thereof from the Common-Prayer-Book required by the King, only the one expugning for the present, what the other doth contain; That being more painful to the Minister, not more declaring his Abilities; This the more easy as being dictated unto him: either may be of use, either behooveful to the Auditory, as meeting with all the necessities, and deprecating the contingency of all afflictions incident to mankind, the Common-Prayer-Book compiled by sound and learned Divines, and accordingly ordained by an ancient Law, the Directory framed by the like learned men, and Ordained by a Modern Authority to be made use of for the present season, or so long as Authority shall think good; But that which abates the value of this, is the weakness of the Argument in the defender thereof, preferring it therefore before the Common-Prayer, because the use of the Directory sets forth the gifts and Abilities of the Preacher beyond his reading or exercise of Common-Prayer, which is digested already into a Form, when as that rather denotes the best Abilities and parts of Scholarship in point of Science, Study, Judgement, which is able to perform the hardest work, to dispense God's Mysteries aright, to set them forth in a handsome and polite stile, the power of the spirit is no whit checked or blemished by an eloquent expression, to raise and apply sound Doctrine, winning the Attention and edifying the hearer, is harder than to conceive and utter Prayer.  
One other reason for using the Directory is, that seeing we and the Scots are United by a Solemn League and Brotherhood, and they not using the Lyturgy of our Church, we should therefore abstain from using the same.  
Answ. They and we are born and Governed under different and distinct Laws, their Manners and Customs differ much from ours; The Union betwixt the Nations will serve for support & aid of both, being under one and the same Dominion in case of either infested by an enemy, but for the same numerical Form of Divine Worship, to be performed after the self same kind, this Arguing seems rather an Illustration than a proof.  
God is an uncircumscribed and incomprehensible Spirit, to be Worshipped in truth and spirit, he cares not whether by heart without book, or in a book opened, so he be Worshipped with the heart.  
This only by the way to show as there is no identity of Form betwixt the Directory and Common-Prayer-Book, so no such Discrepancy unless in the persons using them, as to heighten or continue these unnatural differences.  
The reasons given by His Majesty's Commissioners for making a Cessation betwixt Him and the Irish Rebels, and the Parliaments Commissioners contending to have such Cessation void, are of greater moment; the Kings urging it dishonourable on His part to vacate the Cessation, wishing also that it were in 
See the Relation, pag. 131.  His power to do it: But why dishonourable, or how comes it to pass that it is out of His Majesty's Power to suppress the Rebellion there, as his Commissioners urge? unless by employing and making use of his strength against this, he abates and lessens it as against that Kingdom; His Commissioners their reasons given for both are answered in what follows, and the judgement in deciding the Question, to be given according to the late past occurrences which the Declarations and Remonstrances within these few years published have set forth.  
If His Majesty did make the Cessation to the end to save the Remainder of His Protestant Subjects there, it was an Honourable and Pious care in him towards those his Subjects, but if from a more principal and ultimate end of making such Cessation to make use of the contending parties in that Kingdom against his Subjects called Rebels in this, the Parliaments Commissioners had reason to press the vacating of such Cessation; They farther insisting thereon, that if the Cessation had not been made in the time of the Rebels their greatest wants, and the Forces employed then and there against them not drawn off, they might in probability have been subdued, and this War even finished.  
They also urge that if the  going into IRELAND for the supply of the Protestants and Army there, had not been taken away by the King's Soldiers near COVENTRY and within His Quarters, the English and Protestants there had been relieved, etc.  
That the goods and  so taken away, was not without His Majesty's knowledge and direction, unto which the King's Commissioners reply, That those  had not been taken away, if they had had a Conduct to have more safely passed through the Country; and further urge, That those Forces and other Provisions intended for the Relief of His Majesty's Subjects in that Kingdom, were diverted and employed against Him, namely in the Battle at EDGE-HILL.  
For proof whereof they mention three or four witnesses, some of whom engaged for the service of the Parliament, and deserting now the same engagement are advers, and none more extreme Enemies to the Parliament, whither they be competent witnesses in so extreme a Conflict to prove the Accusations.  
If witnesses may be admitted, known to be 
☞  maliciously opposite to that party against which they are witnesses, the inconvenience may prove in these lose and desperate times as generally noxious as the War itself hath been.  
The Answer to such Accusation as the King's Commissioners therein urge, is no where more fully to be had then to the Enquiry into the Original of this War; whereunto all Treaties had to compose this vast difference must have recourse, otherwise a meeting to conclude a Peace, will vanish into Contention and Disputes, for want of a certain Rule or constant Principle to guide the Treaters by.  
The well weighing of the Protestation lately taken, might have confined and settled the doubtful and various thoughts of man, in what the end and aim of the Protestation was, a promise to fulfil in as much as in us lies, the Commandments of the first and second Table of the Law, directing our duty towards God and man, the several parts in the Protestation tending in the sum to the maintenance of God's Honour, the Kings, the Subjects Right and Liberty (no one part thereof if rightly understood and applied crossing another) and therefore how it comes to pass that the Protestation being one and the same, the course of men's affections should be thus divided into partake, or that some should be of opinion, that to maintain the King's Honour, Person and Estate, is to adhere unto Him in this present War in what He shall command: They should withal consider the other parts of the Protestation viz. The Defence of the Protestant Religion, the Power and Privileges of Parliament, the Subjects Right and Liberty; for by the Protesters observing all, the King is best observed and trullest, His Honour and promises being engaged to maintain the latter three▪ when as every one who takes the Protestation, doth thereby endeavour to make Him a Sovereign Lord of a free and flourishing people; The King's Protestations concurring with and tending to that end, so the Protestation taken altogether is best observed and kept.  
To the Protestation for the defence of the Protestant Religion, every one who takes it, is not immediately bound by virtue of his Vow, to extirpate or remove all Papists (that is above the power and liberty of every common person) but if he sees the Protestant Religion in danger of declining, and that the Papist is connived at and countenanced by higher powers (for the question is not about the certain and actual bringing in of Popery, but touching the causes of suspicion) if the Protester adhereth to that party which promiseth to defend the Protestant, and opposeth that which countenanceth the Popish, his Protestation is the truliest kept, a Promise or Vow the more pursued the more fulfilled.  
In like manner to the other part of the same Protestation, viz. The maintenance of the King's Honour, every one who takes the same is not thereby bound to comply, assent unto and obey the King in whatsoever He may command, whether unlawful or unjust, or to think all His attempts and actions Justifiable throughout: This were indeed in the highest degree to Honour Him; but in a more serious and as truly a loyal way of His being honoured by His Subjects, is when they or those who are put in place and authority over them, shall inquire into and provide against all things incident to His Dishonour, when they shall endeavour to chastise and suppress all Affronts and insolences which may be offered to His Honour; This although a more remote and less flattering, yet a more stable and certain discharge of Duty in Honouring Him.  
But to proceed and examine wherefore His Majesty's 
Page 119.  Commissioners press the want of a Conduct for the guard of those Forces and other provisions intended for the relief of His Majesty's Subjects in the Kingdom of IRELAND, etc. it seems strange, when as His giving way to many subscribers and adventurers into that Kingdom, His often and tender expressions of the deplorable and sad Estate of His Subjects there, His offering to go in Person for the better reducing the Rebels there (all or most of these being known to all His Subjects) was safety enough in all likelihood, and above the strength of many Regiments of Soldiers, or above the validity of any Commanders pass, to have secured the transporting of such  and other Provisions intended thither from the violence of His own party.  
The Parliament Commissioners urge farther, That it was Declared from His Majesty, That he did disapprove the subscriptions of the Officers of the Army, by means whereof that course was diverted: That the Commissioners sent by the two Houses of Parliament for the better supplying and encouraging the Army in that Kingdom, were discountenanced and commanded from the Council there, where the prosecution of the War was to be managed, unto which no Answer or Excuse is set down by the Author of the Relation.  
His Majesty's Commissioners derive the good and Justice of the Cessation from the Lords Justices, and Council of that Kingdom, intimating the same by Letters sent from those Lords to His Majesty and the Speaker of the House of Commons, and that had it not been for such Cessation, the Protestants there could not have subsisted.  
The Parliament Commissioners answer, That 
Page 135.  those Letters sent do no way intent the inducing a Cessation, nor that the Copies shown to them do contain any thing tending to, or any the least intention of a Cessation, and that those Letters sent were therefore written to quicken a supply from the Kingdom of ENGLAND.  
They farther averring, That notwithstanding such Cessation, which many and considerable persons of that Kingdom do still oppose, many English and Scotish there do yet subsist.  
The Arguing and Debating which, hindering the Supplies and Assistance which otherwise might have been afforded, hath added much to the Affliction and Calamity of His Protestant Subjects there, and to be imputed wholly to the Authors and Persisters in this War: For whilst both parties in the War do contend to maintain and increase their power in opposition each to other, and consequently forbear to send Aid to the Protestants there, the small number yet remaining of the English and Scotish cannot possibly subsist.  
Who such Authors and Causers of this War have been, is long since manifested and resolved by the joint advice and provision made against them in the Articles of the large Treaty betwixt the Kingdom of ENGLAND and SCOTLAND August, 
Page 16.  1641. in their fourth Demand granted by His Majesty, the Kingdoms then and there agreeing to make such liable to the censure and sentence of the Parliaments respectively, etc. But to proceed.  
If it be dishonourable to His Majesty, as His Commissioners urge, to make void that Cessation out of gratitude and favour to the Papists there affisting Him in this War, His Commissioners, His Friends and His party might have spared to object those Acts passed by His Majesty this Parliament, in favour and case to His Subjects, when as if this Parliament be born down or dissolved, the Acts passed by His Majesty this Parliament are Repealable, Alterable in part or in all by a succeeding Parliament, by which Acts already passed, many of His Friends and party adhering to Him against this Parliament, have suffered in their Estates, as is before expressed.  
For neither the suppressing of Star Chamber or High Commission Court, the granting of a Triennial Parliament (which are instanced in as Acts of Grace, and the Subjects charged with Ingratitude for not valuing such gracious Acts) are no infallible and constant notes of such His Goodness and Favour to His people, when as those Acts are Repealable at pleasure; nor that of the Triennial Parliament, unless a Parliament be of force to maintain their Power and Privileges, which this hath sought to defend for their own, and for succeeding Parliaments.  
As for His Majesty's Commissioners to urge, excusing in their way the King and His party from violating the ancient and Fundamental Laws.  
That the Parliament and their Committees are guilty of breaking the same, and they alone, as if no such thing were done by His Majesty's party, Soldiers and Commissioners employed for raising Arms and Money to prosecute this War.  
Such charge against the Parliament must either be understood of their abolishing for the present some ancient Constitutions, or of their compulsory ways in raising Moneys for the maintenance of this War, the reason, the means of the one and the other is examined.  
If his Commissioners understood it of the particular and late Robberies committed by the Soldiers on poor Countrymen and Travellers on the road, that cannot be charged on the Parliament, because it is done against their will, and to prevent the like, they have according to the Law brought the offenders to condign punishment, wherein also the King's Soldiers are the most offenders, when as the Parliament Soldiers are required for their Assistance to rescue from the Robbery and Spoyling committed by the Kings, besides it hath been observed that many wishing well to the Parliament, Travellers on the ways having met with Soldiers, and doubtful on which side they were, being demanded for whom they were, have counterfeited their tone, and answered For the King, as being assured that if those Soldiers were for't he Parliament, they should find less cruel usage then by the Soldiers for the King.  
This, Experience hath throughly taught, and these and the like actions committed by His party, hath made His Majesty's name the more terrible.  
In that the like hostile and cruel Acts are practised on either part, and that the fear of cruelty working more strongly on the common sort, hath brought many of them to yield and comply with the more cruel part, the inequality of the cruelty hath been observed to be great between the one side, who to gain or save a Town, or for the like advantage sake have burned or pulled down some houses, in a sudden and revengeful heat have killed and Enemy; and the other side, which in cool blood have killed and massacred many hundred of inoffensive Subjects, burned whole Towns, and laid waste the dwelling places of the Poor and Fatherless.  
For if the one side had wasted and spoilt as the other doth, the Countries had been far more miserable than now they are, and the spoiler left destitute of where withal to maintain himself and his Soldiers.  
The King's party give a reason for such a difference had betwixt the Soldiers on either side, alleging that the countries' being Rebellious and Disaffected, deny unto their Soldiers upon their march and in their quarterings a fit provision and supply for horse and man, wherefore the Soldiers of His Majesty's party are enforced to rob and spoil, etc.  
The Answer to this Objection is had from a recourse to what is here delivered, and the Reader to be satisfied in the Question, what Rebellion, Treason truly is, what the ground and original of the countries' Disaffection is?  
If His Majesty's Commissioners understand their charge against the Parliaments violating the Fundamental, because of their abolishing old Laws; 'Tis answered, They have power to Abrogate and Repeal what they find offensive and exorbitant in a Commonwealth.  
The modern and positive Laws were by Parliament established, and quicquid constituitur, eodem modo etiam dissolvitur.  
No one Fundamental Law is by them dissolved, or by their Acts yet violated, unless the Constitution of Bishops be held a Fundamental one; It was their Quarrel, and questionless their Exception, to be found both in their words, and by their or their Friends Writings, That the Parliament have transgressed the Ancient Laws, because they have abolished Bishops; they make the Law which constitutes them to be of equal time and value (belike) with that of Magna Charta, when as most men know who have looked into the Records, that many Session of Parliament have been held, many Acts passed Excluso Clero.  
It was a cunning Argument and Artifice in the Bishops to incense the people against the Parliament, if it were they which give out the Parliament to have violated the Ancient Laws which the people were ready to defend, when as upon a through examination of the matter complained of, there was no other Law violated but what concerned the Bishop's partial in the Cause.  
To conclude the Question touching the transgressing of the Laws, which both sides may seem to be guilty of; the matter is not whether the Ancient or New Laws be kept, whether those long since made, or those of a latter time be broken; a War lets all Laws lose; but had the Law of not Dissolving without the Parliaments consent, been kept entirely and strictly, the other Laws had not in the judgement of most men been broken.  
The Parliament may plead, Their undertake and course of Justice cannot be made good, by reason of their power opposed, themselves confronted.  
The great Law and Charter of the Subjects Freedom, is enlarged into Statute Laws, all conducing to make up one 
* Suprema Lex salus Populi.  Supreme Law [The Subjects Safety.]  
The dividing of the Parliament Members, if amounting to a Dissolving of the Court contrary to a Law consented unto by His Majesty, hath added much to the shaking of the Ancient Laws; and this War occasioned, as is before expressed, hath opened a way to the violating all other Laws.  
The Contention hath since the first beginning thereof devolved to matter of Trust (the third of the PROPOSITIONS in Demand) how the Soldiery and Arms of the Kingdom should be settled, and who to be trusted in the managing thereof; The King, rather those about Him whom the Parliament suspects, or the Parliament and those whom they depute: So the Militia, the Fortress and Author of the Subjects Safety, when well settled, binds up, and as it were doth keep the Peace; it hath the turning power, and casting voice upon all emergent differences which may happen.  
The King's Commissioners propose to have the Power thereof divided into an equal number of Commissioners on both sides, which the Parliament Commissioners judge not reasonable, for that they being named dividedly, will act dividedly on every Debate which happens according to their several Interests, and the Commissioners on either part will have partakers in the Quarrel; so the Militia thus settled, and to keep the Peace, may prove the overture of a renewed Contention.  
Besides, if the Distribution thereof be assigned to forty, whereof twenty to be named by the King, the other half by the Parliament; the King re-invested to His former Dignity, can easily gain upon some one of those which the Parliament shall make choice of; so the King's part being the major, will carry against the Vote and Judgement of the lesser part: Thus, the Account cast up, it would be all one for the King to name the whole number of those for the Militia.  
And whereas His Commissioners take it for granted That the Commissioners for the Parliament do admit the Jealousies on either part to be mutual, therefore the Militia to be mutually and equally managed.  
Their Argument seems reasonable, if true; for if the Causes of Jealousy were mutual or equal in degree or time, the Reason for so dividing the Commissioners were more important.  
But admit the Jealousies to be mutual, Jealousies may be as Injuries, mutual, yet diversified in degree, as some more vehement, more certain than others, some of a longer, some of a shorter date.  
If it were as certain (as is before observed) that the Parliament did intent or attempt any thing against the King, as it is certain the Subjects Right and Liberty were encroached upon, no question then but the fault rests in the Parliament, and the whole War to be judged Defensive on the King's part.  
To the matter of Jealousy; the Parliament suspects the King to be carried away by evil Council, persuading Him and assisting Him against His Supreme Council of the Kingdom.  
The King and His party chargeth them with being Rebels.  
The substance of which Charge is (as already expressed) Their taking up Arms against Him, their purpose to destroy Him, wherefore as guilty of such Treason to be opposed and fought against.  
The Argument is, as before examined, hoped and prayed for, from falsely suggested premises, unknown, ungranted.  
That whereof the King's party is suspected, there is pregnant presumption for, yea, matter of Fact.  
So the Jealousies seem to be presented mutual, although differing in degree of certainty.  
Here then the odds between the Accusations on either side, the Kings and Parliaments; that whereof the Parliament stands Accused, is uncertain, unknown; that whereof the King's party is accused, there is vehement presumption for.  
Now whether we shall weigh in the same Balance the supposititious and unknown, with that which is certain and evident, and Jealousies unequal in themselves whereon to pass a censure, let all men judge.  
The King's Commissioners and His party seem in nothing more to get the start of the Parliaments, then by their often speaking and offering of terms of Peace, as of proposing and accepting Treaties: But it is not who are the first and most frequent offerers, but who the most reasonable and equal in the terms of Treating for a Peace.  
The settling a firm and well-grounded Peace by Treaty, should be upon a sureness and equality of terms, which if it cannot be had, a compliance and condiscending must, which is no loss of credit in the offending part.  
To retract an Error, argues two prime virtues, Wisdom and Humility, and all offenders have not erred as of themselves, or of their want of Judgement, but by the participation of another's Error and Opinion which they have prized too much.  
What in the Narrative and Circumstance of this War, is to be understood of the contrary thereto, Peace, and how to be obtained is to be enquired.  
There is a Diversity and Latitude in the word [Peace] If for one part utterly to cease from Arms, and quietly to sit down (which indeed were one step to Peace) and to expect what then might befall on such a ceasing, were in the pursuit of Peace required; Or whether a Peace in its more proper definition of a Just and Safe Accord, a reciprocal Amity and Tranquillity established in Truth and Equity, not 
* See the matter, means and definition of a Peace, and the contrary thereto, quoted out of several Authors by Mr. Lambard in his Eyrenarch, lib. 1. cap. 2. pag. 9  Union of the minds, that is not for the present to be had, but a restraining of the hands: So Just and Safe are as it were the specifical differences in the definition of Peace: True and Plain might be added too, lest whilst they speak of 
Que nihil habet in sidiarum Cicer.  Peace in their mouths, they have War in their hearts.  
The latter [Safe] employed by what peace itself is sometime taken in a great Lawyer's sense, calling the King's Writs Brevia de pace, so that Safety being 
Bracton lib. 4.  one, Justice ought to be another part of Peace, which the Orator doth mean, where he sets vis and 
Cicer. pro Sestio.  jus one against the other.  
To which also agreeth the same Lawyer's description of vis in these words, vis est quoties quis, quod sibi deberi putat, non per judicem reposcit, etc.  
According whereunto the two old Statutes say, 
Westminst, 1. cap. 1. Rich. 2.  Let the Peace of the Land be maintained in all points, and common Right done to all. In the other, Let Peace be well and surely kept, that the King's Subjects may safely go and come, and abide according to the Law of the Realm, and that Justice and Right be indifferently administered to every Subject.  
In the Texts of Scripture, Grace and Peace, Peace and Truth do go together, Peace and Righteousness like individual friends kiss each other: So safety, to perpetuate and strengthen it, is requisite to Peace, and a restraint might be had of the hands if an Union of the minds, and so on the other side, an Union of minds, if a restraint of hands: The difficulty than rests only how either or both, Unity of the one, or Restraint of the other may be had, whether by a meeting for a Treaty, or by pursuit of Victory by the sword.  
A Treaty hath been had, Commissioners of eminent quality met, and PROPOSITIONS inter-changeably sent.  
What the carriage and event thereof hath been, the Author of the Relation of the passages there hath expressed, but whither impartially set down, the Commissioners are the only witnesses, whither his relation makes for or against his own party, the Reader is to judge.  
The Parliament whither in their proposing or accepting of the Treaty, shown their Inclination to a Peace, gaining nothing by the meeting (for no one PROPOSITION demanded was granted them) save only the credit of their sincerity in really meaning to acecomplish that, for which the end of their meeting was.  
The seeking and ensuing Peace is to be presumed to be the fervour and end of their desires; Neither they nor their friends shall gain by the protraction of the War; It is likewise to be so presumed on His Majesty's party, save some Officers and Commanders in chief in either Army; Foreigners and Outlandish, who empty ours to fill their own purses; And other Instruments appendent on the War, and employed for raising money to defray the charge, may haply be thrivers by the War.  
But for the means of obtaining Peace, standers by may be able to discern, wise to observe and contemplate on the means: Howbeit none are called, none sent, none on whom the power and authority of managing the Peace is devolved, save the Court of Parliament alone, in whom we have entrusted all expedients to our Safety.  
If they shall judge the PROPOSITIONS formerly tendered to His Majecty, to be the only and effectual means; The Subjects are to abide by their Judgement, which PROPOSITIONS may seem in number many, in their strict quality extreme and harsh; especially in the King's friends eye, as seeming to abate His accustomed Regal Dignity.  
Extreme diseases require extreme remedies for their cure, and when Jealousies are a long time breeding, the task will be as difficult in the means of dispelling them: Evils when grown strong, multiplied and closely wrought, need a proportionate instrument to lance and remove to stop the new springing up of the same or the like.  
The PROPOSITIONS are of two sorts, the 
The PROPOSITIONS to be sent suitable to the present exigent in hand, viz. the Preservation of the Honour and just Power of a King displeased, the Parliament and people threatened are not of a tumultuary and easy dispatch, not to be concluded in haste, nor quarrelled with for the delay in sending them, when as many interveening accidents may give occasion for altering them: Nor can every looker on be a fit Dictator or judge in this most weighty Cause and Controversy touching the quality and fitness of what is to be insisted on; the Parliaments most choice, elaborate and well weighed Counsels are no more than needs to deliberate, compute, and a long time to be advising what is once and for ever to be established, that His Majesty may be no more a loser, nor the welfare of His Subjects (which is the foundation of His happiness) endangered for the future: If the PROPOSITIONS be too high. His Majesty may think the Parliament to be His King, and Himself may seem to stoop too low and beneath His Sovereignty to grant and sign them; If they be of too low and short assurance to secure the Subjects peace; The Parliaments forepast Acts and Counsels are wholly frustrate, the labour of their endeavours lost: And what is like to be the sequel, any man may guess.  one a calling Delinquents to account, demanding Justice according to the degree of their offendings.  
The other, of their tendering to the King the Counsels and result of their own experience and maturity of Wisdom, for the Government of His Kingdom, wherein they only prompt and dictate to His Majesty, what they desire Him to assist and join with them in the completing and establishing the same.  
The first, of calling offenders to account, expressly named in the PROPOSITIONS, whither they all shall suffer in their livelihoods accordingly as they are challenged; Or only some few known to be the Principal and long since contrivers of these mischiefs, the subversion of the Protestant Religion and the Laws, is left to the Judgement of the Parliament, which being a Court of mercy (mercy not negative of Justice) can, in case they are able to maintain their own proper Power, make use of what the Heathens Judgement with a Christians spirit hath advised, ut pena ad pa●cos metus ad omnes perveniat, Bis vicit qui pepercit, and honestum ac nobile genus vindictae est ignoscere, to have 
Cicer. Senec.  forgiven, or given a longer time for offenders to come in, shows their Clemency, whether or no the deep lodged envy, and discontented anger of many the offenders throughly convinced of their own offending shall apprehend and make use of the Clemency of their forgivers.  
The quality of the PROPOSITIONS thus examined, and His Majesty altogether refusing to sign any of the same, as judging them unequal and incompetent to His Regal dignity; He propounds His return to LONDON, there to Treat in Person, as an expedient means of Peace; But on what terms to Treat is not proposed.  
For His Majesty with His party, and the Parliament there to meet to recapitulate and argue the Reason, Authors and Accidents of this War, were to revive the heat thereof: His 
* See His Letter, March 1646.  Majesty laying the guilt of shedding all this Christian blood at the Parliaments doors, His professing not to desert His friends, which the Parliament account their Enemies; when the persons with whom He is to Treat, against whom He hath waged War near four years, the place whereunto He is to come, against which he hath denounced His displeasure, are all considered without any retractation of His former anger, without Repealing His bitter Messages expressed against those persons, that place, and the people assisting them, a meeting once had for a Peace made frustrate; When those are any way salved, any Act passed by His Majesty to remove these doubts and dangers, when he shall have changed His inclination to severity denounced against His Subjects, when He shall in His serious and sad regard had to His people and their sufferings have His heart turned within Him, when his repentings shall be rolled together, as God himself by his Prophet disdains not to his people, their hearts will fill with 
Hosea 11.  Acclamation and joy to receive and welcome him, a tender and nursing Father to his Church and people; and the common and easy objection wiped away, that whereas the Parliament and people have petitioned and prayed for His return, they now show their Inconstancy, in refusing that which they have so earnestly desired.  
The motion of Petitioning doth cease when the end whereunto they move (the hopes of a Peace to be had by His Majesty's return) seems frustrated.  
Whosoever shall invite the company, or desire the access of any person, whither it be of a King as supreme, or of any other person of a lower rank, it is to be presumed to be for the mutual and amicable society of those who are desired; if before the time of entertaining, there be a strangeness or averseness of friendship in the invited friends, the desire of the inviter ceaseth, and he abateth his welcome: The Comparison, although it seemeth here betwixt two equal parties (friends of the like degree) therefore not fit to hold, is the more effectual betwixt two parties, the one superior of Power to wrong, the other inferior Subject to be wronged.  
The reason wherefore the Members in the House of Parliament were preferred in their countries' suffrages to be their Judges, was for the opinion of their Wisdom and Integrity above, at least equal to others of the Country: Wisdom consists of Circumspection, Diffidence, foresight; 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Euripid. The French call Mistrust the Mother of Wisdom.  Diffidence especially, as Integrity doth, of distributing and doing all men right.  
In the Parliaments refusing or admitting His Majesty's access, they have a narrow path to tread to please all men (which no man or Counsel yet could do) for if by denying him they prolong the War, impoverish and exhaust the Kingdom (as some men and their adversaries give out) if by admitting they lose and frustrate their preparations and past endeavoring for the Subject's welfare (for it will rest in the King and in His party's Power to annihilate their Acts) their prudence and counsels will be exposed to obloquy and scorn.  
For howbeit His Majesty as a Christian, as a King, may and cannot choose but have a deep sense and compassionate heart against the farther shedding of his Subjects blood, His party which He professeth under the name of friends not to desert, will expect a large interest in His Power; their interest which when they have gained, any man may judge for what use it shall serve.  
In War the prevailing and stronger side relieth upon their Forces, the weaker and more vanquished on their stratagem and cunning: for the Parliament to be overwrought by the cunning Practices of their adversaries, were a lessening of their wisdom.  
The people of CUMA were branded for their too late wisdom, their imprudence was turned into a Proverb, The fisherman once struck always takes heed.  
A parley once betwixt two parties found false, makes the more innocent part the wiser afterwards.  
If neither Peace nor Conquest can be the sooner had, the War continued is like to have a most sad and fatal upshot (the fault of the continuing resting only on some few men's account) betwixt these two extremes, viz. the Dissolute, licentious and Armed man on the one side, and the harmless poor Subject on the other; The oppressor on the one, and the oppressed on the other side; or where it first began, betwixt the Papists styling themselves the King's friends, in His name, and under colour of defending Him on the one side, and the Protestant on the other side, in whose blood the Papists do think to imbrue their hands, naming them Rebels, Traitors to His Majesty: The Prophet sums up the diffeence in a few words, betwixt the ungodly and wicked who have drawn out their sword and bend their bow to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of a right Conversation; But that there is a superintendent Almighty Power, the Lord of Hosts who will be a defence to the oppressed, even a refuge in time of trouble, whereof he hath already given a pledge, and manifested his Power and loving kindness unto His in the more remote parts of Christendom, by giving several successes in signal victories to the Protestant party in those parts, against the more Popish 
Although in those vast Armies there are Papists on either side, yet take them either in degree or number, the Spaniard, Emperor and their confederates, consist only or for the most part of Papists.  accomplices in a confederate League, by open enmity, as by secret & subtle practices to extirpate the Protestant religion.  
The persons on whom the Account of the continuance of this War will lie, are those alone who throughly convinced of the injustice thereof waged by the King's party against his people, knowing withal who have been the first actual Authors and promoters of this War, who since the counterfeiters and pretenders to a Peace, remain yet obstinate, adhering to that party in that desperate and resolute way, as preferring rather the ruin of their own native Country before the failing of that their party.  
The sober, relenting and wise demeanours of these engaged, might have put a period to this War, if they steering their affections all one way to the light of Sense, Conscience, Reason, shall set aside the punctilio of reputation (which no wise man did ever lose) of being thought inconstant; their actions will alike unite and join together against the refusers of Peace, as against a common Enemy, and every good Subject will according to the habiliments whereunto he has been used and bred, act and wish best only to that side which wisheth best undividedly, unreservedly to the King and Kingdom.  
In the dividing which, every one takes it ill to be suspected to be partial, or that his wishes should seem rather to incline to the King then to the Parliament, to the Parliament rather than to the King, they thinking that their wishing well to the King, is to wish well to the King and Kingdom, because the King protesteth the welfare of the Kingdom.  
The perusing this Treaty doth clear the question, and doth settle and confine the doubtful Judgement of whosoever may be mistaken in this conflict.  
The Unity and joint accord in the House of Parliament, may be a leading case to induce a general Unity among all the Subjects of the Kingdom: That as by the singular policy presented in the Harmony betwixt the House of Lords and Commons, and as between the Commons themselves strengthening and crediting their proceed, the like Unity may descend entirely to the inferior Members throughout the Kingdom.  
For howbeit there may be different ways, several disputes by cause of various judgements, all tending to one and the self same end, yet no Argument to divide them from their chief principle, The Subject's Peace; And although emulation always attends great and eminent spirits, keeping off for the most part an accord of minds, God's Power is so much the more visible in their actings and endeavoring for Peace (Himself being the Author of Peace and lover of Concord, in making men to be of one mind in an House.)  
Briefly, to comprise the whole in a few words by way of question, and for the sooner restoring these unhappy Kingdoms to an happy Peace and general Unity, the matter of this Civil and unnatural War betwixt the Prince and people, betwixt the Subjects of three Kingdoms contending each with other, as it had its rise from mistakes and jealousy, doth now, as the possibility and enjoyment of a firm and lasting Peace, rest and determine upon the clearing of these few questions; Wither His Majesty has had evil Councillors & Instruments about Him, who have diverted Him from the course of justice (some of whom styled now His friends?) Wither His declining and forsaking them be ingratitude in Him, or to be accounted a deserting His Friends? Whither there be a lawfully summoned Parliament, and where? Wither the people's taking up of Arms in maintenance of this War, ut supra, be either in the beginning, or in the continued course thereof, Rebellion and Treason.  
FINIS.