SOME CONSIDERATIONS Tending to the undeceiving those, whose judgements are misinformed by Politic Protestations, Declarations, etc.  
Being a necessary discourse for the present times, concerning the unseasonable difference between the Protestant and the PURITAN.  
THE end of the Parliaments consultations, and actions, is to free the Kingdom (the care whereof is to them by the Kingdom committed) from all those heavy tyrannies and oppressions which for many years, against express Laws, and cautions to the contrary, have surrounded and overwhelmed the Kingdom, all which, if we have not a desire to let them slip our memories, the Parliaments first Remonstrance will fully present unto us. Those men that do oppose the Parliament, are generally such as some way or other have thrived under those pressures, as being made instruments and actors in them, or else being addicted to vice and looseness, found that connivance and indulgence, than which, in times more reform they cannot expect. Those men that do now side with, and assist the Parliament, are such as in those corrupt times were trodden under foot, such as were vexed and impoverished by insulting Courts, and Court-officers, forced against conscience to persuade to the breach of the Sabbath, compelled to fly their Country, or separate from the Church, by inducing vain and empty Ceremonies, which direct our minds from consideration of God's love to us in Christ, and are utterly inconsistent with the true, and spiritual worship of God; and indeed therefore pressed upon us, that thereby their friends might be known from their foes, the easy to be abused from the more difficult, that they might be embraced, and have all encouragements both from the Minister, and men of high places; and these disgraced, prosecuted, and though of never so honest lives, yet if in all things not conformable, scandalled, and made odious: Ceremonies were therefore too pressed upon us, that by them the Church becoming more pompous, and outwardly specious, the Clergy (by whom the Statesmen were especially to do their ill intended work) might win greater esteem, and grow more and more reverenced by the people, who seldom they know dive into the reasons of things, but are usually carried away by outward shows and appearances. The Parliaments other friends are such as have been tormented with the permitted corruption of Lawyers, those devouring Locusts, no less ravening than the Aegyprian one's that overspread that Land; such likewise as had lost the liberty of Trade, for the gaining of which, they served a long and tedious apprenticeship, by unlawful engrossments, and Patents; and all the multitude of good men, who are sensible either by their own, or their nighbours' sufferings, of the injuries of former times, or desirous to prevent and divert our oppression and slavery for the future: Now as it is a notable policy of evil men, though of quite different and opposite conditions to combine and associate together against all that oppose them, bearing with, and passing by any thing for the present, though at other times much distasteful. So how much more does it behoove the honest men of this Kingdom, who are likely to taste equally the sweets of liberty, or the bitter pills of slavery, how ever they may be persuaded otherwise for the present, to unite themselves heart and hand, to join together as one man, against all those whom they shall discern either to oppose the Parliament, or endeavour to raise divisions and differences among themselves. The only way for our enemies to do their work, is not by strength, and force of Arms, for what ever their brags be, and how great soever their boasts by which they would seem to have what they have not, that thereby they may encourage their party, and dishearten their adversaries, yet indeed their forces are but small, their provisions scanty, their means and money only supplied by rapine, which cannot be lasting, having neither Forts, nor Shipping, so that it cannot be that by strong hand they should have any hope to do their work: No certainly, and yet notwithstanding they still dare to hold up the Cudgels, seem as confident as ever, bear up, as if the world were of their side; what should be the reasons hereof; reasons there are, we must persuade ourselves, it is not to be supposed that they are foolhardy, or that the sense of their many mischiefs have made them desperate, because past hope of reconcilement (though they well may) their Counsels are notable, and surely come not short of the most able the world affords, their subtleties exceeds the Foxes, or the Serpents, Rome's or Spain's; whose most damnable glory it is, that from mean beginnings they, by their wits especially, have raised themselves to the most extended tyrannies in the Christian world: and why should our politic enemies than despair? Since their wits are as quick, their consciences as deeply pained and senseless, many of our people as easy to be deluded as ever men were, having the assistance of former contrivances in making men slaves, furnished with Machiavils, and 
* The Author of the Machivilian plot.  Staffords instructions from Florence, with all the assistance Rome's consistory, or Spain's can afford: and what force cannot do, deceit may: a subtle deceitful Declaration may do much more mischief than an Army, the one kills men outright, and so leaves them unserviceable for both sides, but deceitful words, when for want of consideration, unsettledness of judgement, and weak information, they captivate men, they make them not only dead to good men's assistance, and their Country's service, but promoters likewise of their deluders interest, to the insensible ruin and slavery of their brethren, and in conclusion, of themselves. Deceits and delusions are the principal weapons with which the evil Counsellors now fight; by which they subdue and captivate the understandings and affections of men; to scatter these, they hurry about from one County into another, and there at Assizes, and other forced Assemblies practise, in one place they colour and gloze over their own evil actions, with seeming pretences of Law, Religion: in another, they scandalise and traduce the Parliament, for as they cannot want paint to make fowl and unsightly actions seem fair and specious, so neither can they want dirt and mire to disfigure the best form, and most honest erterprises in the world; words are never defective to make evil seem good, and good evil: what villainy was there ever committed, or what injustice, but words and pretences might be found to justify it: Monopolies were once pleaded legal, and very wholesome for the people, we were once persuaded Ship-money was lawful, and now Commission of Array; if unjust things were offered to us, as they are, without disguise and artificial covering, they would appear so odious, as that each man would cry out upon them, and therefore it is a high point of policy to make the worst things show fairest, speak best, when they intent most mischief. In other Counties the people were thanked for their affections and assistance, when they found them wiser than to yield any, and when they were driven by necessity to a place, they would seem to be invited by love, and certainty of compliance, when God knows in many places they found it much otherwise, and would likewise elsewhere too, but that the people were necessitated to their assistance by force, rather than forward, out of any liking. Well, their policies and delusions are most numerous, and every day increasing, and therefore it behoves every wise man to stand upon his guard, to be wary and watchful that he be not apprehended by their fubtilties: in nothing there is required greater care, their invasions being insensible, and having once seized upon a man, he no longer dislikes, but approves of them, they force a man to love what ere whiles he hated, what he but now cried down, to plead for, and not to observe, because his intentions are honest, and he means no ill, that he is even against his knowledge his Country's enemy: He that can give any cautions how to resist their wiles, or show wherein we are already seduced by our cunning adversaries, doth do very good service to his Country, and deserves to be heard; this discourse was written principally for that end, namely, to discover to all good men how they have suffered themselves to be wrought upon by the adversary in a case very considerable, and thereby, though they observe it not, are become friends to their Country's chief foes, and foes to their principal friends. The work of evil Counsellors, as it is to unite and join together their friends, so is it likewise to separate and divide their foes amongst themselves: all such are their foes as truly love their own liberty, and desire to free themselves from their insulting tyranny: it must needs be very advantageous to them, if by any means they can divide these, for being disjoined, they cannot possibly be so powerful against them as otherwise they would be, did they continue at union: now amongst many other ways that they have used to accomplish this end, there is not one hath been more effectual then in raising, and cherishing differences concerning forms and circumstances about Religion, that so setting them together by the ears about shadows, they may in the mean time steal away your substance: there is no difference they full well know is so permanent, as that which any way touches upon Religion, and therefore like cunning pioneers, have lighted upon what is likely to make the greatest breach, which by continual plying the work, the difference daily increasing, it is much to be feared that all the pains the Parliament takes, the assistance of good men, the hazards of our resolute soldiers, or whatever endeavours else are used for the accomplishing of good men's desires, will by this one difference, if continued, be utterly frustrate, and come to naught: for it is almost come to that pass, that the Puritan and Sectaries, as they are called, are more odious to the Protestant, than the Cavalier, Malignant, or Papist: all our discourses are diverted now by the cunning practice of the Politician from our forepast calamities, plots, and conspiracies of lewd men, from thinking what will be the best ways to speed and advantage our undertake for our liberty, to raylings against the Puritan, to cross and oppose the Puritan, to provoke him by many insolences, and affronts to disorders, and then to inveigh with all bitterness against his disorders: if at such times as these, when so great a work is in hand, as the freeing of us from slavery, we can be so drowzily fottish as to neglect that, for the satisfying our giddy and domineering humour, what can be said of us, but that our fancy is dearer to us then our liberty, that we care not what goes to rack, though it be our substantial Religion, Laws, and Liberties, so wedoe but please ourselves in crying down our Brethren, because they are either more zealous, or else more scrupulous than ourselves: These things my friends, (for all good men are such) do show that you are not considerate, nor do not sufficiently bear in mind what was told you in the Parliaments first Remonstrance, that it was (and still is) one of the principal works of our common enemy, to sow division between the Protestant and Puritan, you have been too easy, and quickly wrought upon by him for the accomplishing that work: I would to God you would lay it to heart; the Puritan intends no mischief to any, you may assure yourselves he does not: if you inquire you shall find that they had no hand in our former oppressions, they were no maintainers of any unjust courses, or Courts, unless by those many fines which were extorted from them, for that they of all men had the courage to withstand their injuries: we hear of daily plunderings, rapes, and murders of the Cavaliers, women with child run through, and many other butcheries, and yet we pass by these, as if by no interest they concerned us, and let fly our speeches only against the Puritan for plucking a rail down, or a pair of Organs, a Surplice, Crucifix, or painted window, which are indeed no way conducible to the substantial worship of God, and yet retained by the ill disposed Clergy, as fuel to yield matter to that discord they would continue amongst you: See how much too blame we are, see how exceedingly the politician has deluded us, that we should do thus, and yet see not that we do unwisely. If thy brother be weak and thou strong, bear with his weakness, or if the Puritan esteerne thee weak, and himself strong, it will be a good lesson to him; if we be strong we should bear with them that are weak; if we are weak we should not judge them that are strong, it will be no shame for any one to take the Apostles advice; let not slight and indifferent things divide our affections; let them not especially when substantial things lie at the stake; it is all one as if our enemy being in the field with full purpose and speed to destroy us, we should turn aside to exclaim against a man that fling dirt upon us or laughed at us: and wholly neglect altogether to defend ourselves: what a shame will it be unto us, when hereafter it is said that the English might have freed themselves from oppression and slavery, but that in the doing of it they neglected their common enemy, and fell at variance among themselves for trifles. Ceremonies and other things that occasion difference, are stickled for by the Protestant, not for that they think them necessary, for surely unless it be for some indirect end they cannot be urged to be so, but for that they are not yet taken down by authority: The Puritan they would have them taken away for that they conceive them vain, unwarrantable by God's Word, relics of the Romish Religion not throughly purged away, and therefore they desire they should be left off by us, which are the principal cause of their separation from us: In all differences to be unwilling to reconcile, shows not a spirit of love, which Christians should ever be possessed withal, but of pride and contention, the Protestant hath not the engagements of conscience upon him, as the Puritan has, and therefore may the easier bear with the Puritans infirmities, if meat offend my weak brother I will eat no meat as long as I live, what an excellent thing were it if we could have that hold fast over ourselves that the Apostle had to refrain from any thing how pleasant and dear soever unto us, rather than give any offence, or occasion any difference between ourselves and weak brethren: let every man think of the answering this question to himself: whether if lewd men do get the better over the Parliament and honest men of the Kingdom, either Protestant or Puritan are likely to be any other but slaves: Certainly if any of them do persuade themselves otherwise, they are like the stiffnecked and unwieldy Hebrews, that wished they were slaves in Egypt again, where the much loved Flesh pots were, for that it was troublesome and dangerous passing through the Wilderness into Canaan, a land of plenty and lasting liberty. Be not deceived with deluding thoughts of former times, when plenty covered our oppressions, and because of peace we could not see our slavery: it was a time when such as Buckingham, Strafford, domineering Bishops, corrupt and lawless Judges, grew rich and potent: when Courts Minions for no services but slavery and luxury were exalted, when offices were not conferred on foreseen venue and honest desert, but were bought and sold; when honours that ought to be the rewards of venue, were by gold purchased, and they only deemed fit Subjects for both, that were easy to be corrupted, such as had stupid consciences, & would suffer their matters to undertak any dishonest employment. He that wishes for former times wishes for such times wherein it had been much better for a man to let go his right or inheritance, though never so apparently his, to any varlet that would have laid but any colourable claim to it, rather than have been worried by Court Mastiffs, & eaten to the bare bones by griping Judges and avaricious Lawyers; wherein a murder in one man was not so much punished as a word in another, wherein a poor man was hanged for stealing food for his necessity, and a luxurious Courtier of whom the world was never like to have any other fruits but oaths and stabs, could be pardoned after the killing the second or third man: wherein in a word, knaves were set upon honest men's shoulders, all looseness was countenanced, and virtue and piety quite out of fashion: In these times, who kept themselves so steady as the Puritan, who opposed against those exorbitant courses, and by that means who smarted more than they: sure I I think their sufferings are yet in each man's memory, who but they, or they especially withstood all Church innovations, and other taxes and impositions, for which both the Bishops and Clergy, as also the corrupt Statesman, and Projector were their professed and open enemies, and even then to make them odious, invented ridiculous names for them, and studied scurrilous tales and jests against them, and ever signed new devices concerning them, to direct our thoughts from our every days oppressions, to sport at the Puritan. The ways of wicked men are like the way of a Ship in the Sea, so quick and speedily covered, that without much observance we cannot trace them: So that we see these endeavours to make the Puritan odious is no new policy, nor yet the reasons why it is endeavoured, and how great a blemish it is unto our judgement, that though this deceit hath been so long in practice, and so apparently mischievous to good, and advantageous to bad men, we should not yet discover it, or being discovered and declared unto us, we should not lay it to heart, and endeavour to avoid it. Sure I think there is no more evident mark of our disaffections to the Parliament, than our invectives against the Puritan, whom the Parliament and all good men ought in all reason to esteem well of, for that they have been so abundant in their contributions, so forward in their services, so neglective of their private, to advance that necessary and most allowable work, both by God and all reasonable men in the world, of freeing us and our posterity from loathsome Tyranny and oppression: whatsoever faults the Puritan hath, this is not a time to cast them in his dish, neither are we certain that they are faults, we have but so digested them to ourselves, what he can say for himself, in his own justification, is not yet heard, nor is there yet a time of hearing: we may assure ourselves that the Parliament will endeavour all that possible they can to give all sorts of men that will not prove obstinate, and unsatisfiable, the best and largest satisfaction: If they should now go about it, or if they should at any time heretofore have enterprised it, they might in the mean time have had their throats cut, it is and hath been the endeavour of the King's evil advisers, to urge them always to the settlement of the Church, a work they know requires much time for the performance of it, and so must of necessity have diverted all considerations and provisions for their safety, when in the mean time those advisers would have been most active and vigilant, losing no jot of time, nor balking no opportunity or advantage to have fortified themselves, made a prey of the Parliament, and in their ruins have buried all that's near & dear unto us: We see, that though the Parliament have only intended one business, the defence and preservation of themselves, and the Kingdom, so great opposition hath yet been made, and so difficult a work have they found it, that there is no man can say they are too forward: and therefore if we will not wilfully make ourselves a prey to our common enemy, let us resolve for the time to come firmly to unite our affections beyond the policy of evill-witted men to dissolve: let those whom the malignant and inconsiderate call Puritan, endeavour all that they can possibly, to give no offence to the Protestant, and let the Protestant be slow in taking any at the Puritan: the Puritan indeed is too blame in his not observing all he can to win by love, gentle behaviour, such as differ from him in opinion, in not endeavouring all he can to bridle his passion, and not suffer his different opinion to cool his love and affection to other men: what? We have all need one of another, and till such time things are throughly canvassed, and examined (how ever each man concludes himself to be in the right (we know we are partial to ourselves) he may be mistaken, and upon better reasons which as yet he sees not may alter his judgement and be convinced; let us unite together as one man to the extirpation of certain and discovered enemies both of our substantial Religion, our laws, and liberties, that so all being quiet, and we assuredly freemen, all stratagems dissolved, and the Sun of peace again appearing, the Church may be so purged and so religiously settled, that the Puritan may have no cause of separation (which cannot be according to his desire but that to which by the instigation of his conscience he is necessitated too) and so may be no longer an eyesore and distasteful to the Protestant, but both may with mutual joy and peace of conscience join together in praises and thanksgivings to that God, who by the free, and alone death of his Son attoned and reconciled us to himself, end in giving us his Son hath together with him given us all things also. But to what purpose will this, or other discourses of this nature be, when there is a sort of people in this kingdom, who make it their study and bend all their endeavours for to increase and enlarge this difference: and yet have full permission, and all opportunity that may be to do their work; neither could the politician have ever made this breach or extended it to that business it is at, but for the certain assistance of the Clergy, who for that end bound them his instruments, by the liberal distribution of honours and preferments, by enlargements of dignity & live by giving them power in Courts, & letting them taste the sweets of domination: by authorising them in their advance of tithes, multiplying their duties, favouring them in their abundant differences, and restless lawsuits; and in all likelihood they must be their servants who pay them such large wages; info much that in all the time of this Kingdom's slavery and wicked men's oppressions of us, who were greater promoters of both than the Clergy; what was the politic subject of their Sermons then, and discourses, but the advance of prerogative, and unlimited sway; the gaining of estimation to themselves not by their doctrines or lives, for what could be more corrupt and scandalous, but by subtle delusions, and delusive sophisms; the fitting of our minds for slavery, the abasing of our courages against injuries in Church or State; by preaching for obedience to all commands good or bad, under deceitful terms of active and passive, by which means injurious men were heartened in enduring mischiefs, and good men moped and stupefied to a patiented sufferance of them, their very tongues tied up and no liberate given so much as to motion against apparent in juries, or to discover to the world the iniquity of them: This use is made of those most admirable gifts we admire the Clergy for, to this good end serves their great learning and excellent parts; and as in former times by these and many other ways they only employed their studies to make us apt and easy to admit our slavery without grudging or gainsaying, so do they still continue the statesmen's hirelings, to further that difference between the Protestant and Puritan, which makes so much for their advantage: And that they may be truly serviceable, 〈◊〉 this end 〈◊〉 are brought up in the Universities fitted for the purpose; no man there countenanced unless he is like to prove a champion against the Puritans, the greater their abilities are that way, their preferments are answerable, insomuch, that generally those Ministers are only good, that trusting only to themselves, and not taking the pleasing course, could expect no encouragement from the Bishop or others in high places, but very contentedly did betake themselves to such places their honest friends and deserts obtained for them, whereas men of that other strain were almost courted into benefices, where the former benefits did not more sway with to justify injustice, and sow division, than the longing expectation after greater and greater preferments; and what though some have refused preferments, and yet are zealous in your work; it is well known yet that they live in abundance, drink the sweet, and eat the fat of the Land, are recompensed with large gifts, and abundant Legacies; who by a cunning refufall of what they need not, and perhaps they think would be too troublesome have taken so deep root in unwatchful men's minds, that there are none so great promoters of this work as they; who likewise being the most subtle of all the tribe, order the business so, that what by their abilities of speech, reverend estimation men have of their persons, of their functions, of their sincerity, they even delude them as they list, and have so fare fomented this fire of dissension that it is to be seared it will very shortly break out into a flame: they have even heightened this hatred to an insurrection, the people rise up one against another, grow into factions and acquaintances by wearing colours, and public meetings, outfacing authority, and slighting the most sovereign power, even of the Parliament itself; nor is this likely in short time to be entinguisht, though much care be used, and great pains taken for the doing it, so long as a cunning malicious sort of men are suffered without control or just punishment to yield new matter to this destructive flame of contention; to curb the licence, and punish the insolences of those licentious Clergymen may very well be one of the principal works of the Parliaments, whose earnest endeavours and noble undertake do find no greater opposition from any sort of men, no not from the Cavalier himself, or the King's evil Councillors, then from these men of malice and dissension; many of them are Delinquents, and so voted, others likewise would appear to be so, did the people think it a fit time to make their complaints many of them are of scandalous and debauched lives, all of them indeed are bound by the respects they have to their own safety to destroy the Parliament, by whom they know, were they at leisure they should be sifted, and their crimes censured, and to bring in again the former government, wherein they found so great connivance in all sorts of vices whatsoever: And now what more seasonable council can there be to all sorts of men, then to try and examine all that they hear, to entertain nothing for the opinion we have of the man, for the judgement is never so likely to be deluded as when the person is too highly esteemed, to see likewise in how many respects the Clergyman is bound to make the Puritan odious to the Protestant, and how greatly disadvantageous that is to the work, all honest men are bound in conscience to further, and likewise to conclude those Clergy men disaffected that shall hereafter endeavour it, and to let both them and others in authority know it, to be firm in their affections to the Puritan, past all their subtleties to disunite them, that so all honest men being hearty united, the greater may be their force, and the kingdom's enemies the speedier subdued: the Puritan, Sectary, Brownist, and Anabaptists.  
The Ministers under pretence of railing against, do scandalise and defame all the honest men of the Kingdom, yea even of the Parliament themselves: so that if we be not the more cautious we may be so fare deluded, as to disesteem even their actions, not for that to any reasonable discreet man they can appear to be any other then as the actions of the most wise should be, but because they are approved of by the honest Puritan: It is not safe they think to rave against the Parliament point blank, they would then indeed appear so palpably malicious and villainously disaffected, that men would have much ado to tarry their trial by Law without doing present execution on them: & therefore like men full of subtlety, they wound the Parliament through the Puritans sides and therein take so vast a liberty, that almost provokes an honest hearted man beyond his patience; sometimes they speak in a doubtful sense, so as that all who are misled by them can understand them, and yet they think that if they should be questioned, as out of guilt of conscience they cannot be expect if they shall be able to give such an interpretation to their words, that thereby they can delude the holdfast of Law and the censure of justice: thus they provide an excuse before they act their villainy, and proceed as fare as they imagine that will bear them out; what high time it is that these men should be crushed, least in time they sow so many tares in the hearts of men; that no wisdom of man shall be able to pluck up, but that they choke even the seeds of good doctrine, and root out of our minds the very principles of reason: Another villainous work they have in hand, is to take away our courages and dull our resolutions by commending peace unto us, when we are necessitated to take up our Swords; what fools they imagine us to be, as if we did not know what were the sweets of peace, but than it must be accompanied with liberty, the bondman is at peace; there is peace, there is peace in a dungeon, yet I think no man can be hearty in love with such kind of peace, no certainly, if our liberty and our religion be much dearer to us then our lives, as I think they are to every wise man, then sure they must be dearer to us then our rest, our swords are drawn for them, and so long as they are violated, what peace? what peace? so long as the insolences and conspiracies of unjust men, and their usurpations are so many? what peace? so long as those that would free us from former oppressions, and would provide for our future liberties, are in no safety but in continual hazard of their lives? were we not necessitated to it, it were madness to think we could take pleasure in shedding of our own bloods: what shallow men do they imagine us to be, that think, that though their sweet words, and smooth faces, we do not see their fowl and mischievous intentions: yes to their grief of heart and they joy of all good men they behold that, notwithstanding they have in many other things deluded us, in this they have not; the Militia is settled in safe and trusty hands, the Forts and strong holds made good, 〈◊〉 Navy secured and commanded by a faithful and courageous 〈◊〉 of his country, that a strong and a welfurnished Army is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the terror of wicked men and we hope to the suppression: they are quite frustrate of their ends, all their cunning discourses and subtle motions for peace, though delivered with never so much pretended piety, and seeming love to our safeties, come short of their purpose, they have not thereby lulled us asleep, and 〈◊〉 us to secure, no, we have the courages of men, of valiant provoked men upon us, provoked by an insight into all our injuries, which are now fresh in our memories, provoked by discovery of their delusions, and animated by the amiable sight of liberty which we may now if we will ourselves obtain, of which for many years we have been deprived: and therefore it is not good nor honest that they continue their invitations to peace, so long as the Parliament see it needful to provide for war This it is when they will be overwise and pass the bounds of their office, nor are they more mistaken in this, then in other matters, especially when they plead the King's cause, their engagements and flatteries here make them stark blind, and let them not see how under stickling for the King's prerogative they comprehend under that such things, the obtaining whereof if duly considered would make his Majesty's office the most hazardous, and fraught with least content of any one in the Kingdom. A negative voice they much stand for, a power of calling and likewise of disolving Parliaments; these things because they carry power with them, and see me to add much greatness and high prerogative to the King, they stickling for them, and see not that if the King should have them, he would be thereby ever liable to the blame, and censures of the people; for if any thing should be consulted of by the Parliament, and by them concluded to be safe and necessary for the Kingdom, and that the King by that power they claim for him, should cross it if the people should in the time to come by necessity for the want of what the Parliament would have provided for them, and the King would not, whom have they then to blame but the King: and he likewise must of necessity lie under their hard opinions, should the neglect of calling Parliaments bring oppressions upon the people: or the too soon dissolving them without consent of the House before their business were ully dispatched. Both which in their book of Canons and constitutions ecclesiastical, where without once mentioning the Parliament, they take liberty to make the King's Prerogatives what they please, there I say have they peremptorily concluded the power of calling and dissolving all assemblies to be the King's undoubted right, and would likewise have possessed the people so by the quarterly reading of those decrees of theirs in Churches by their own order: It is true indeed these commons are most justly damned by the Parliament, but by the remembrance hereof we may palpably observe, what a power they then usurped to themselves, and how notoriously they abused that power to the prejudice of the King, his perpetual hazard and disquiet: The King past all question saw all this when he so willingly assented to those two acts for the constant calling of Parliament, and not dissolution of this, both which the Clergy had no other means to disannul and make of no effect, then by infusing into his Majesty's ears, and insinuating to the people, that the King hath a negative voice by which all that the Parliament shall do comes to nothing, unless it pleases the King to assent, which is not like to be but when those that are so powerful (his evil counsellors) over him shall give way to; by which means alone those evil men have a power of crossing and making void all the debates and conclusions of the Parliament, and though this be in effect to make the safety and freedom of the people to depend upon one man's will & understanding, an absurdity in government; a man would think these men could not have the impudence to plead for, much less that the people should be so unadvised as to admit it to enter their thoughts as a thing just and reasonable, yet indeed so impudent are those as to plead for it, and so ignoran, are the people, as to admit it, which is the ground and occasion of all the evils and mischiefs which at this day threaten both his Majesty and the whole people. So that we see the King hath little to thank them for their too hasty forwardness in claiming what is so unsafe for him, and so likely to divide the affections of the people from him: But what care they, the King getting power, they get advancement, credit, honour, and what not? so little respect they what is safe for him or prejudicial to the people, so their own ends be served; there comes no harm from good consideration, the advice than cannot be amiss, to wish every one to consider what they hear, to examine all not timorously, nor prejudicially, but impartially by that uncorrupt rules of reason, and to give no credit to what is spoken for the credit or estimation of the speaker, but because it is the truth, and nothing but the truth.  
FINIS.