Theological and Legal Queries 2, Part
¶ Note, That of these Members (whereof two are since dead) there entred only 42. into the House at first; that the rest came in to them by degrees, either to keep their old preferments, gain new, or regain the places they had formerly lost (…specially the Lawyers, who notwithstanding their former complyances, are turned quite out of Office, and dis-Judged;) that 10. or more of them, came in by New Writs issued in the Name of the Keepers of the Liberties of England, after the Kings beh…ading, and were no Members of the long Parliament; That there were never 60. of them together in the House at once whiles they sate: and but 57. on the 11. and 12. of October last upon the great debate between them and the Army Officers: And some that sate formerly with them (as the Lord Fairfax, John …ary, and others) refused to sit with them now, as having not the least colour of Law, to sit or act as a Parliament. Yea, their Speaker Mr. Lenthal, told the Officers of the Army and Members, who came to invite him to sit again, May 6. That he had a Soul to save; and that he was not satisfied in point of Law, conscience or prudence that they could sit again: B…t at last when he considered, he had an estate to …ave (as he told another Friend) that over-ballanced all his former Objections: and made him, and other M…mbers act against their judgements, consciences, and to forg…t our Savio…rs sad Q…aeres, Mat. 16.26. What is a man profited if he should gain the whole world and lose his own Soul? O…, what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? With that of Jer. 5.29.31. Shall I not visit for these things? Shall not my soul be avenged on such a Nation as this? And what will ye do in the end thereof?
To fill up the Vacant Pages of this sheet, I shall propose 7. Quaeres more to this late dissipated Rump, to which I expect their satisfactory Answer, ere they presume to sit again, as many of them endeavour.
1. Whether they could with any colour of Law, truth, reason, justice, co…scien…e heretofore, or can hereafter by virtue of their first Writs and Electio…s, intitle themselves, The Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, & Ireland; when by their Writs, Elections and Indentures, by which they pretended to sit, they were only a small inconsiderable Fragment, of the Parliament of the late King and Realm of England, but never of the Realm of Scotland or Ireland, which have their *Cookes 4. Instit, c. 1.75, 76.distinct Parliaments from England, and no legal Parliament of England, Scotland or Ireland: ever hitherto was or can be held without a King and House of Lords, and a full House of Commons, of which they are not the fift part?
2. Whether those Interloping Members Elected since the Kings beheading, and old Parliaments dissolution by his death, by Writs only in the name of the Gaolers of the Liberties of England, can fit, act, or joyne with the Tayl of the old Commons House, elected only by the beheaded Kings Writs, and so owning his Royal Authority in Deeds, though abjuring it & Kingship, by their Declarations, Votes, Knacks, Ingagements and new-coined Oathes? Whether such a strange model as this, be not a Violation of Deut. 22.9, 10, 11. Thou shalt not sow thy Vineyard with divers seeds, lest the fruit of thy seed and Vineyard be defiled. Thou shalt not plow with an Ox and an Asse together. Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of Wollen and Linnen together? And as great an Absurdity as that in Horace, Humano Capiti cervicem jungere Equinam?
3ly. Whether it will not be the Extremity of folly and frenzy for this twice dissolved Anti-Parliamentary Iuncto to conceit, that Lambert and those Army-Officers, who have twice turned them out of Doors with greatest Infamy, and branded them with so many deserved Marks of Treachery, Injustice, Vsurpation, Rashnesse, Oppression, self-seeking, or the surviving numerous Members of the ou… long Parliament, or the Counties, Cities, Boroughs, Ports for which they served, the old House of Peers, or our three Kingdoms, will ever patiently permit them to sit or Act as a lawfull Parliament of England, Scotland and Ireland; or submit to any of their Anti-Parliamentary Knacks, Taxes, Excises, Imposts, Militia…s, Orders, or Usurped Regal P…rliamental soveraign legislative Authority; without rising up unanimously against them, as the worst, impudentest, sottishest of Trayt…rs, Vsurpers, Enemies to the Peace and settlement, of our 3. Kingdoms, (as their last Knack of Octob. 12. their Plea, and other late publications of their own, proclaim them to all the world) which they have so miserably oppressed, impoverished, rent in pieces by their forementioned Treasons, Innovations, and complying with those ambitious, covetous Army-Officers, and Jesuitical Emissaries, whose designs, and their own self-ends they have only pursued, to the publike desolation of our Kingdoms and Churches? And whether their re-secluding of the Lords House, and their old surviving fellow-Members will not be a justification, and ground for their own third ejec…ment & dissolution, by the Army or others, if they presume to sit and act again without them?
4. Whether there be any probability or possibility, (considering all the premises) that any Common Souldiers, Mariners, or other inferior Officers in the Army or Navy, can expect any real payment of their arrears, or future pay, or the People of our 3. Nations any Trade, Peace, Ease, Settlement in the least degree, but inevitable speedy desolation, confusion, destruction, unless they all cordially unite their endeavours, counsels, forces for the speedy convening, and secure un-interrupted fitting of a full, free and Legal English Parliament, according to the Act of 17 Caroli cap. 1. and declaring all such Members of the twice-dis…ipated Juncto, and Army-Grandees Traitors and Enemies to the publike, who shall openly and wilfully oppose this their just and necessary only probable means of their Tranquility, Safety, Prosperity? Which they pretend to aim at in words and Declaration…, but diametrically contradict by their Proc…edings, as experience manifests, past all contradiction.
5. Whether our Protestant King, his Brethren and follow…rs expelled out of their Protestant Realms, and forein Allies Territories, into Popish idolatrous forein Quarters, where they sojourn, to the hazard of their Religion, Souls Bodie…, by the malice of the dissolved Iuncto, Army, Republican Saints; may not now justly use that Speech of …nnocent persecuted, exiled David to King Saul in the like case and condition, 1 Sam. 26.19. If the Lord hath stirred thee up against me, let him accept an offring: but if they be the Children of men, Cursed be they before the Lord, for they have driven me out this day from abiding in th… Inheritanc… of the Lord, saying, On serve other Gods? And whether God by way of requital for this their transcendent impietie, and other premised Crimes, Treasons of all sorts, wherein they impeni…ently persevere, may not justly inflict on the Iunc…o, Army-Grandees … and their posterities, that severe judgement threatned to the Israelites, Jer. 16.13. Deutr. 4.27, 28. c. 28.64, 65, 66. Therefore will I cast you out of this land, into a land that ye know not, neither ye nor your fathers; and the Lord shall scatter you among the Nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the Heathen whither the Lord shall lead you; and there you shall serve Gods day and night, the work of mens hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell; where I will not shew you favour. And amongst these Nations thou shalt find no ease neither shall the sole of thy feet …ave rest, but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and fa…ling of eyes, and sorrow of mind; and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee day and night, and thou shalt have non… As…uranc… of thy life: In the morning thou shalt say, would God it were even; and at even tho… shalt say, would God it were morning, for t…e fear of thine hea…t, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see: And there shall ye be sold unto your En…mies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy you? O tremble at the serious thoughts thereof, and be no more stiff-necked.
6. Whether the memorable Example of Gods divine Iustice upon Lockier, an active Agitator and Leveller in the Army, who had a principle hand in seising, & bringing the King to his death, cried out Iustice, Iustice, Iustice openly against him, and spit in the Kings face in Westminster Hall, when going to his Trial, before his condemnation; conducted him to the block; and was within 3. Moneths after condemned in a Council of War by some of the Kings own Iudges, and shot to death as a M…tineer, in London, 27 April 1649… The tragical self-execution of Thomas Hoyle, Alderman and Knight for the City of Yorke, one of the Juncto, and High Court of Iustice, (though he signed not the Kings Sentence) and one who consented to, and subscribed the New Engagement, against a King and House of Lords, agains… his conscience, fo…mer Oaths, Covenant, and Protestation he had taken… the horror whereof so terrified his conscience,Nota. that on the 30. of Ianuary 1649. (the very day… Twelvemoneth of the Kings execution) he hanged himself with a cord in his Chamber at Westminster, about the very time of the day the King was there executed the year before. The Execution of sundry Levellers at Burford that year, with Iohn Lilburnes double Trial for his life soon after by Cromwels own Prosecution: his proceedings against Saxbey, Syndercombe, and other Levellers, though his chief Instruments to bring the King to Justice, to seclude the Majority of the Members, and suppress the whole House of Lords. The sudden and fearfull deaths of Col. Ven, Rigby, and others of the Kings Judges; the cashiering, close Imprisonments, suff…ings of M.G. Harrison, Col. Rich, Col. Overton, Col. Okey, Lord Grey of Grooby, and others of the Kings condemners by Cromwell himself who engaged them therein; The Removal of Iohn Bradshaw, from his Presidentship, and Feudes between Cromwell and him, who secluded him ou… of his f…st Instrumental Parliament, in 1654. and after that threatned to imprison and question him for his life; With the la…e pangs of conscience which Col. William Purefoye sustained before his death in September last, for having a hand in the Kings bloud, which lay heavy on his heart, (as he told some Friends.) To say nothing of Oliver Cromwels own death, Septemb. 3. on which day he shed much Protestant Christian bloud in the battels of Dunbar, and Worcester, against the present King and his Adherents: and his two Sonnes sudden dismounting: May not justly awaken the stupid, seared consciences of all the dissolved Juncto, and Army-Officers now living, who had any hand in the Tragedies and Powde…-plot against the late King and Parliament; to bring them to speedy, sincere, real publike Repentance for them, before they sink down quick into Hell; or fall into like exemplary Terrors, judgments, and self-executions; and likewise deterr all others from treading in their nnwarrantable pathes: (1)1 Cor. 10.6.11.all these thing… hapning to them for their examples, to the intent th…y should not lust after nor act those evil things, which they attempted, accomplished to their own prejudice, as well as the publike desolation: it being (2)Mat. 26, 24better for such men never to have been born, than to become Traytors to their own Christian Kings, Parl. Country, and to be registred to posterity amongst such who were born only for publike mischief, & happier never to have or enjoy the least power or strength, than to abuse it to the publike nusance of others. (3)Seneca de Cleme…ia… l. 1.P…stifera vis est valere ad nocendum. Such a power, force as this, which some in late and present power have exerci…ed, if (4)Enarratio in Psal. 78.St. Augustin mistake not; Non sanitatis est, sed insaniae. Nam & phreneticis nihil fortius, valentiores sunt sanis; sed q…anto majores vires, tanto mors vicinior: Avertat ergo De… ab imitatione nostra fortes istos.
7. Whether if the twice dissolved Rump shall audaciously presume to sit and act again as a Parliament, notwithstanding all out-goings of Gods former signal providences, judgements, and the People, Armie… general indignation against them; we may not justly apply S. Peters sentence concerning Apostates to them, 2 Pet. 2.2, 22. W…iles they promise themselves (and others) Liberty, themselves are servants of corruption (and of the Army too that turned them twice out of doors) for of wh…m a man is overcome, of the same is he brought into BONDAGE: But it is happened unto them according to the old prouerb; The dog is returned to his own vomit again, and she sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire; and the latter …nd … (and will be) worse with them than the beginning. With that parable of our Saviour, Mat. 12.43, 44, 45. Lu. 11.24, 25, 26. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, h… walketh through dry places seeking rest, and findeth none; The… saith he, I will return to my House from whence I came (and was cast) out, and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept and garnished: Then goeth …e and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they … ter in and dwell there: and the l…st state of that man (yea of our Kingdom, Church, Nation through their usurpations, whym…ies, pressures,) is worse than the first: Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation, *Theophylacti Enar. in Mat. C. …. See Opus Imperfectu… in Mat. Hom. 30.Extrema captivitas vestra gravior erit quàm prima; as I told Sir Arthur Haslerigg in Westminster Hall May the 5. 1659. two dayes before their las… Session, when the Commons House was sweeping and garnishing for the Iunctoes return into it; which they and we have found true by experience, and shall do so again if they presume to return in…o i….
FINIS.
…rrata. P… 46. l. 26. James, r. Iohn Nelthrop.
End of the text · William Prynne, Theological and Legal Queries 2 (1660)