A sudden Essay or subitaneous Conceit, occasioned by the last Clause in the second Quaere upon the Armies late Declaration by a lover of Truth, and a constant Friend to the quiet and repose of his native country.  
The Clause of that second is, Whether their refusal to disband, or to remove farther off from London, or obey the Parliaments present just Commands (upon what ever specious printed pretexts) be not a very sad public precedent, likely to conjure up a spirit of universal Disobedience to Parliaments, Magistrates, and superiors of all sorts throughout the kingdom, to its utter ruin, if not timously prevented, disliked, opposed by all wellwishers to the weal and tranquillity of Church and State?  
MEthinks Sir, you should have consulted with your fellow-Advocates for defensive arms; who will Authorize (against the Oxonians) and legitimate such an armed resistance, of all destructive Commands, from any superiors whatsoever; without all fear of overthrowing government or obedience; whom the Author of that seasonable advice to the City of London seemeth to follow; confidently averring, that neither Fathers, Masters, Kings, nor Parliaments, are to be obeyed if they command things unnatural, impious, or unjust: Nay, that they are to be resisted, whensoever they reach towards the ruin or bondage of those who trust them; and that he who assisteth not to their suppression, shall be guilty of siding with the murderous malefactors, &c. If you say, he is a partial Advocate for the army's party, than I must tell you, by the pretty title, in probability, he is and hath been an able proctor, and studious Solicitor to the Parliament. But because in favour of tyranny (as some say) you urge here the inconvenience of subverting all Authority, and hint so heavily upon a sin, which our surly adversaries (the royal Doctors) do so sadly damn from Rom. 13. that they do privately conceit, and publicly proclaim, how that many of the Parliament side, must needs in trouble of spirit, wish that very Text expunged. Therefore for mine own and others' satisfaction, I only crave unto some Quaeres upon that Text, your punctual resolution; the only Antidote to preserve from error, and remove all doubt, as touching the chiefest thing in debate.  
1. WHether it enjoin subjection active and passive, unto all manner of Magistrates, (though entering the office by fraud, treason, or tyrannous usurpation, and exercising the same, by acting arbitrarily, and setting forth Edicts, authorising all injustice) or only unto such, as lawfully enter the office, and rightly exercise the same. If you maintain the former, you avow the arrant flattery of Anaxarchus, (so much abominated by John Bodin.) If the latter, you comply with Thrasimachus in Plato, viz. That a Magistrate cannot err as a Magistrate; for in that he erreth, he digresseth from the rule of his office; in which exorbitancy, neither person nor action, can retain any stamp of Power and Authority. Let us therefore see how you can by any reason divine, or human, regulate, limit, or circumscribe the Authority or Power of the Magistrate, and not by the same rule make him resistible.  
2. How it may appear from any part of Christ's Testament, that ever he intended to have any sort of persons, (especially in a mere Christian society) under any pretext whatsoever, in the exercise of injustice, rapine, murder, or tyranny, to be held sacred and inviolable.  
3. Seeing that all along Paul's time, the chief Magistrates (as Histories manifest) have spared only the base and bad, that they might have upon whom to exercise the burning ardour of Domination; and raged only against the good and worthy, lest there should be any that would or could resist them. In what sense could the Apostle promise, from the Magistrate praise and security to the pious, upon their uprightness and well-doing?  
4. Doth Paul here authorise error, falsehood, vice, and iniquity, (most often possessing the chair of Authority) with power of definitive judgement over laws and persons, and so to try sentence, and punish truth, virtue, and innocency, which are bound to submit without verbal or real opposition, after the apostolical example of such as were enabled thereunto by the Spirit poured out according to promise, Joel 2. And whether the sheepish sufferings of such, as wanting the same Spirit, will yet (from humour or heat of proceeding against the violence of power or impression of danger) imitate those supernatural examples: tend not to the great encouragement of tyrants, whilst their constancy is interpreted folly and obstinacy, and their patience and silence after such extraordnary patterns, is mistaken, for the weakness of an indefensible cause?  
5. Whether the Ordinance of our God (who is goodness itself) can ever tend to the trouble, ruin, or affliction of his own children, when they are most obedient to his will?  
6. Whether the weakness of our condition only, do absolutely require that lawgivers, and Law-rulers, must be held in undoubted admiration; without which advantage no wit of man, can ever secure, order, and government from subversion?  
7. Whether this Text do not enjoin more obedience to the Army in the upright prosecution of just and honest designs, than was ever due to the Caesars in their usurpation; or is now to the Ottoman family in the administration of the Empire; or whether time and custom only, can legitimate violence and tyranny, and canonize the same for an Ordinance of Christ?  
8. Whether you yourself have not known this very Text, of late years to have been irreligiously wrested, rejected, and taken up again by all sorts of time-serving Zealots, with a strange impudence and unheediness. If you please to satisfy my scruple in these particulars, I shall presently pay all humble obedience unto the Parliament, and as freely reprove the Army without fear of their shot and powder.   

Postscript. The Corrector to the Reader.  
THe Author of these Quaeres (as himself said) taking notice of the zealous digladiation now stirring, between some emulous Antagonists; saw them effeminately chiding, and by light skirmishing, daily increasing the difficulty. But never kindly closing, like brave spirits, more covetous of truth, than victory. Therefore as an essaying prabationer made to submit unto common and lawful resolution, he published this subitane apprehension, therein addressing himself, unto the only determining man of England, hoping that for the public satisfaction, he will briefly and rightly represent the sense of the rule, so that we may all submit, and stagger no longer in uncertainty.