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whose fidelity, moderation, and courage were sufficiently known. It being in our power by their means to retain our liberty, our state, our common safety, do you think we had not been fools to have lost all by our negligence and folly? They who had had places of command in the king's army, after their party were subdued, had laid down their arms indeed against their wills, but continued enemies to us in their hearts; and they flocked to town, and were here watching all opportunities of renewing the With these men, though they were the greatest enemies they had in the world, and thirsted after their blood, did the Presbyterians, because they were not permitted to exercise a civil, as well as an ecclesiastical jurisdiction over all others, hold secret correspondence, and took measures very unworthy of what they had formerly both said and done; and they came to that spleen at last, that they would rather enthral themselves to the king again, than admit their own brethren to share in their liberty, which they likewise had purchased at the price of their own blood; they chose rather to be lorded over once more by a tyrant, polluted with the blood of so many of his own subjects, and who was enraged, and breathed out nothing but revenge against those of them that were left, than endure their brethren and friends to be upon the square with them. The Independents, as they are called, were the only men, that from first to last kept to their point, and knew what use to make of their victory. They refused (and wisely, in my opinion) to make him king again, being then an enemy; who when he was their king, had made himself their enemy: nor were they ever the less averse to a peace, but they very prudently dreaded a new war, or a perpetual slavery under the name of a peace. To load our army with the more reproaches, you begin a silly confused narrative of

our affairs; in which, though I find many things false, many things frivolous, many things laid to our charge, for which we rather merit; yet I think it will be to no purpose for me to write a true relation, in answer to your false one. For you and I are arguing, not writing histories, and both sides will believe our reasons, but not our narrative; and indeed the nature of the things themselves is such, that they cannot be related as they ought to be, but in a set history; so that I think it better, as Sallust said of Carthage, rather to say nothing at all, than to say but a little of things of this weight and importance. Nay, and I scorn so much as to mention the praises of great men, and of Almighty God himself (who in so wonderful a course of affairs ought to be frequently acknowledged) amongst your slanders and reproaches. I will therefore only pick out such things as seem to have any colour of argument. You say, "the English and Scots promised by a solemn covenant, to preserve the majesty of the king." But you omit upon what terms they promised it; to wit, if it might consist with the safety of their religion and their liberty. To both which, religion and liberty, that king was so averse to his last breath, and watched all opportunities of gaining advantages upon them, that it was evident that his life was dangerous to their religion, and the certain ruin of their liberty. But then you fall upon the king's judges again: "If we consider the thing aright, the conclusion of this abominable action must be imputed to the Independents, yet so as the Presbyterians may justly challenge the glory of its beginning and progress." Hark, ya Presbyterians, what good has it done you? How is your innocence and loyalty the more cleared by your seeming so much to abhor the putting the king to death? You yourselves, in the opinion of this everlasting talkative ad

vocate of the king, your accuser, "went more than halfway towards it; you were seen acting the fourth act and more, in this tragedy; you may justly be charged with the king's death, since you showed the way to it; it was you and only you that laid his head upon the block." Wo be to you in the first place, if ever Charles his posterity recover the crown of England; assure yourselves, you are like to be put in the black list. But pay your vows to God, and love your brethren who have delivered you, who have prevented that calamity from falling upon you, who have saved you from inevitable ruin, though against your wills. You are accused likewise for that "some years ago you endeavoured by sundry petitions to lessen the king's authority, that you published some scandalous expressions of the king himself in the papers you presented him with in the name of the parliament; to wit, in that declaration of the lords and commons of the 26th of May 1642, you declared openly in some mad positions that breathed nothing but rebellion, what your thoughts were of the king's authority: Hotham, by order of parliament,shut the gates of Hull against the king; you had a mind to make a trial by this first act of rebellion how much the king would bear." What could this man say more, if it were his design to reconcile the minds of all Englishmen to one another, and alienate them wholly from the king? for he gives them here to understand, that if ever the king be brought back, they must not only expect to be punished for his father's death, but for the petitions they made long ago, and some acts that past in full parliament, concerning the putting down the common-prayer and bishops, and that of the triennial parliament, and several other things that were enacted with the greatest consent and applause of all the people that could be; all which will be looked upon as the sedi

tions and mad positions of the Presbyterians. But this vain fellow changes his mind all of a sudden; and what but of late," when he considered it aright," he thought was to be imputed wholly to the Presbyterians, now that "he considers the same thing from first to last," he thinks the Independents were the sole actors of it. But even now he told us, "the Presbyterians took up arms against the king, that by them he was beaten, taken captive, and put in prison:" now he says, "this whole doctrine of rebellion is the Independents principle." O! the faithfulness of this man's narrative! how consistent he is with himself! what need is there of a counter-narrative to this of his, that cuts its own threat? But if any man should question whether you are an honest man or a knave, let him read these following lines of yours: "It is time to explain whence and at what time this sect of enemies to kingship first began. Why truly these rare puritans began in queen Elizabeth's time to crawl out of Hell, and disturb not only the church, but the state likewise; for they are no less plagues to the latter than to the former." Now your very speech bewrays you to be a right Balaam; for where you designed to spit out the most bitter poison you could, there unwittingly and against your will you have pronounced a blessing. For it is notoriously known all over England, that if any endeavoured to follow the example of those churches, whether in France or Germany, which they accounted best reformed, and to exercise the public worship of God in a more pure manner, which our bishops had almost universally corrupted with their ceremonies and superstitions; or if any seemed either in point of religion or morality to be better than others, such persons were by the favour of episcopacy termed Puritans. These are they whose principles you say are so opposite

to kingship. Nor are they the only persons, "most of the reformed religion, that have not sucked in the rest of their principles, yet seem to have approved of those that strike at kingly government." So that while you inveigh bitterly against the Independents, and endeavour to separate them from Christ's flock, with the same breath you praise them; and those principles which almost every where you affirm to be peculiar to the Independents, here you confess have been approved of by most of the reformed religion. Nay, you are arrived to that degree of impudence, impiety, and apostacy, that though formerly you maintained bishops ought to be extirpated out of the church root and branch, as so many pests and limbs of antichrist, here you say the king ought to protect them, for the saving of his coronation oath. You cannot show yourself a more infamous villain, than you have done already, but by abjuring the protestant reformed religion, to which you are a scandal. Whereas you tax us with giving a "toleration of all sects and heresies," you ought not to find fault with us for that; since the church bears with such a profligate wretch as you yourself, such a vain fellow, such a liar, such a mercenary slanderer, such an apostate, one who has the impudence to affirm, that the best and most pious of christians, and even most of those who profess the reformed religion, are crept out of Hell, because they differ in opinion from you. I had best pass by the calumnies that fill up the rest of this chapter, and those prodigious tenets that you ascribe to the Independents, to render them odious; for neither do they at all concern the cause you have in hand, and they are such for the most part as deserve to be laughed at and despised, rather than receive a serious answer.

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