[...].

A Iust INVECTIVE against those of the ARMY, And their ABETTORS, who murthered King Charles I. On the 30 of Jan. 1648. WITH Some other Poetick pieces in Latin, referring to these Tragick times, never before published.

Written Feb. 10. 1648. By Dr. Gauden then Dean of Bocking in Essex, now Lord Bishop of Exeter.

1 Sam. 24. 6. 9. Who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords anointed and be guiltless?
2 Chron. 35. 25. And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah, and all the Singers spake of Josiah in their lamentations, and made them an Ordinance in Israel.
Prosperimae improbitati nunquam deest terror, nec spes afflictae virtuti.

LONDON, Printed by T. L. for James Davies, and are to be sold by Phil. Stephens at the Kings Arms over against the Middle Temple Gate in Fleetstreet, 1662.

The Authour to the Reader.

I Wrote this Piece ( flagrante dolore) in the just paroxisms of extreme grief and horrour, im­mediately upon the Murther of the late Excellent King, 1648. as soon as the astonishment of sorrow gave leave to regular thoughts and words to vent themselves; I sent it ( incognito) in its sackcloath and ashes to London, where I ho­ped it might finde way to publick view. My aim was, not onely to gratifie my Own and the Nations vehement passion, by expressing a just indignation against that prodigious Villany, but to represent in true colours that horrid sin and shame of killing the King, whereof some men then were so impudent as to glory. And since I could not divert them from that flagitious Fact by such Loyal and Religious Re­monstrances as I sent them, I thought it high justice to take this vengeance on them, either to bring the Authours and Abettors (if possible) to repentance, or to preserve others from partaking of their sins and plagues, by any after comprobation of their then prospe­rous impiety, so as to make it the sin and shame of the Nation.

But my Papers found no hand so adventurous in those Tyrannous times as to Print them; although conveyed to a person who had hazarded and suffered much in that way of loyal-service and danger: So that having no Copy left of it, I did not see it, or hear of it for many years, supposing it had perished in the common ship­wrack of those dayes, until this Feb. 1661. occasionally meeting with Mr. Dugart (to whom I first sent it) and enquiring what be­came of such a Piece, he told me it was Printed, and brought me the Book with a new Title (Tragical enough) put to it (viz. Crom­wels bloody Slaughter-house discovered, &c.) whereas I had in­scribed it after the example of Gregory Nazianzen, when he wrote his two sharp invectives against Julian the Apostate [...]) the Steliteutick of that Army, justly araigning and condemning them that were guilty of that bloody and barbarous Fact, which I hereby exposed, as upon a publick Pillar, to the view and execration of all men.

When I had thus recovered this Piece beyond all expectation, I well remembred upon review, its pristine lineaments; and found it signally marked with the sad drops of my passionate heart & pen; up­on [Page] such an occasion in which no Ink could be black enough, or have too much Salt, Vinegar, Gall, or Aquafortis in it. Upon a calmer view of it (after thirteen years absence) finding it to have some­thing in it of a confused rapture, not misbecoming so intensive a grief, and so pious impatience, with an unfegined abhorrence wor­thy of so abominable a Fact, and monstrous a scandal to our Na­tion and Religion, I have been perswaded by the Printer to own it as a legitimate Issue of mine, with some-other pieces born in the same storm, though in another style and language, in order to make him some compensation for his first (but not so beneficial) Loyal printing of it, while yet it appeared an Orphane or fatherless, because nameless: I am now content my name be called upon it, that the world may see in this unflattering glass, with what thoughts they ought for ever to reflect upon so enormous a wickedness, which no time can bury in oblivion, no colour can palliate or excuse, scarce any repentance can expiate; being then the Nations infinite horrour, and so must be an abhorrence to all posterity: Nor may the present serenity of the times (which miraculous mercies have restored) ever make us forget the blackness of darkness, which lyes upon that day, beyond Jobs birth-day for that facinorous Fact committed in it.

For whosoever shall think of that crying Regicide, without just de­testation, will contract the posthumous guilt of the Murther, and as a dog lick up the blood of the King which was so cruelly and unjustly shed. And whosoever shall remember it with approbation perpe­trates the paricide afresh, and is a mental murtherer of his So­vereign. O how great then was, and is their sin, who were the first malicious contrivers and cruel actors in it? What repentance will be sufficient for them? What contrition, detestation, confess on, satisfaction can be proportionate to the enormity of the crimes committed with so high a hand, followed with so many tragedies and confusions, yet ushered in with so many pretensions of Religion, Re­formation, sancity and devotion, yea special Revelations and Miracles, the strong delusions and stratagems of Satan, that grand Impostor, a lyar, and murtherer from the beginning, who affected the fairest vizards of an Angel of light, when he was to act the foulest part of a Devil: so expresly against the word of God, and diame­trally contrary to the examples of all true Saint, no less than the Sa­viour and sanctifier of them?

A dreafull example indeed of pride and faction, betraying men to hypocrisie and barbarity, by which the just God loudly warns the still discontented spirits, the murmuring tongues, and malicious [Page] hearts of some men, not to venture again on the confines of such sins, by any temptation, never so specious and potent. Sin is seldome solitary or goes along, but is followed with a train or succession, dis­posing, yea exposing from less to greater, and from the greater to the most heynous and truculent sins, if for no other reason, yet for this, to de­fend or cover the lesser: Nor can any man easily forsee, what will be the impudent period of his sin, how modestly soever it begins. Davids idle humour, and an occasional look, betrayed him to wanton thoughts, these to unlawfull lusts, this to Drunkenness and Adultery, these to Murther, and all to the highest both perfidy and ingratitude to God and all valiant loyal subjects. Hazaels bashfulness was at first asha­med to finde himself under the Prophets suspicion of those cruel bar­barities which afterward he committed without remorse, and with greediness.

Tumultuating and traiterous thoughts (much more such words) must be stifled in the cradle by every good Christian; who knows how great a fire a little spark will kindle? Kings must not be cursed, no not in the Bed-chamber; these lesser thieves of schismatical and se­ditious mutinies let in at the window, will open the door to greatest Rebellions and Regicides. Subjects cutting off the lap of their Kings garment, or lesning the Robe of royal Majesty, that is their just re­putation, honour and authority, will imbolden them to venture at their heads and throats, yea to take away their lives and Kingdoms: which David, a man after Gods own heart, so much abhorred, that his heart presently smote him for that cautious essay, as petty Treason, upon Sauls Vesture, which carried with it something of injury and in­dignity to the King the Lords anointed; nor did his justice spare those King-killers, who having slain Saul and Ishbosheth, Davids enemies, thought he had done a meritorious service.

A mans greatest flatterers, enemies and traytors are those in his own breast, where proud discontents, inordinate lusts, and extravagant passions (as the populacy, rabble, and vulgarity of people) are prone daily to conspire and mutiny against that Reason and Religion, which ought to have a constant rule and soveraignty in the soul.

I believe many men never intended in their first Schismatical motions so sinfull a conclusion; many no doubt are now ready to alter their opi­nion at the scene and success of affairs, yea to think those counsels & actions very wicked, which they find are become so unprosperous; but he sees sins too late, who doth it (as Adam, Cain & Judas,) by retrospecti­on only in the glass of punishment. It is best discerned by a forward and direct view in the first access, by that prospect, which the Word of God, and the Laws of the Land give us.

[Page] Had this been done by those blood thirsty and deceitfull men, this Piece might have been spared; now it will serve on the Anniver­sary of Englands Lamentation, Jan. 30. to excite that just passion of a penitent grief, and utter detestation, which are due to the memory of so foul a Fact, and of those sins which brought us under the stroke of so sore a judgement.

The grief and horror of which, did so perfectly possess my soul, when I wrote this Steliteutick, in an extasie of sighs, tears and in­dignation, that the Reader may easily perceive the deluge of sorrow by the streams of it, which run as a torrent with much trouble and unevenness, not with that order and smoothness that becomes a quiet and calm temper, which had been a sin in me at that time, when every soul, not stupid or seared, in England was filled with extreme grief and horror, either for the sin they had done, or for the punish­ment they had deserved, or for the duty they had omitted, or for the desperate estate of the malicious doers of it, whose repentance was scarce to be hoped or prayed for, having spoken and acted so many lyes, perjuries, and sacrileges in hypocrisie, seared their conscien­ces, caused the enemies of God to blaspheme, and prophaned the spot­less sanctity of Christian Religion, and done despight to the Spirit of grace, which they dared to pretend to be the patron of their bloody policy, a promoter and approver of their so execrable and accursed practices. I shall be glad if any faithfull corrasive here may bring any of them yet living, to some sense of their most crying and transcendent sins, that if possible they may repent & be pardoned by the mercies of God, and merits of the Son of God, whose precious blood only can cry louder than that of the Kings; if this end be not attained (of which God knows, as yet there have been very few signs) yet I have great hope to reach the other end, of keeping all good Christians and loyal Subjects for the future from the like degeneration, as much as they would avoid Hell and eternal damnation. Obedience to Superiours in all things lawfull for the Lords sake, is a Christians greatest ho­nour [...] and patience with pr [...]yers and tears under unjust pressures is his surest defence; all other wayes are but the wanton temptations of the devil, and the petulant transports of mens wicked hearts, most unwor­thy of good Christians (as all primitive examples teach us) whose actions flowing from faith, and guided by love must never vary from the paths of piety and loyalty, humility and charity, which are the way to true peace and eternal happiness. And thus I have given thee (O Christian Reader) an account of my first writing, and now publi [...]hing or rather owning this Steliteutick, or pious Satyre, writ against so [...]nstrous a sin, as that was of Murthering the King. Farewel.

JOH. EXON.

[...]: A just INVECTIVE Against the MVRTHERERS OF King Charls the First.

HAve you killed our King, and also taken posses­sion of his Goods, Lands, and Kingdoms? O ye blood-thirsty and deceitful men! Is this your Sion, that must be built with Royal blood, and your Jerusalem, that must be rai­sed with such detestable iniquiry? O ye pain­ted Sepulchers, will no bones serve to fill you, but those of your King?

You ravening Wolves, (whom God hath suffered to uncase your selves of your Sheeps Cloathing) can nothing satiate your cruel Appetites and Hydropick Thirst, but only the flesh and blood of our King? whom with merciless hands and hearts, in an impudent Triumph, you have murdered before the Face of God and his Subjects; whose Royal Posterities, and peoples Lives and Estates, you now hope to devour, without any opposi­tion or gainsaying. So cruelly heavy and barbarous is that Iron Scepter, with which you think to rule this Nation; nor allow­ing any fair and legal plea, for either Kings or Peoples Lives, Liberties, Estates, or Religion: but beyond all Papal and Ma­humetane [Page 2] Tyranny, you usurp over our Souls, no less than our Bodies; and seek (now) by slavish fears, and sinful Agree­ments, A Knack of State, called the Agree­ment of the Peo­ple. to make, to make us all as much the Children of the Devil as your selves, whose Consciences (no doubt) like Cain's tell you, your desperate and damnable Estate, having sinned against the light of God, and his holy Spirit, (some of you) so impudent­ly and maliciously, as justly excludes all hope of pity or pardon from God and Man; having first treacherously betraied, then barbarously murthered, both your and our King.

Go on you Apollyons, you Abaddons, in the Spirit of Anti­christ, to fill up the measure of your Abominations, till you are drunk with blood, and stumble and fall together: O you Locusts, the blackest smoak, and noisomest vapour that ever the breath of the bottomless pit exhaled, or sent forth into the Chri­stian world; your Maiden faces, in your first seemingly modest and fair pretensions to the King and Kingdom, have now brought on the poisonous Scorpions of you Tails, after many cunning windings of flattery, perjury, and hypocrisie.

Behold the fruits of your Oaths, Prayers, Fastings, your Illu­minations, Raptures, and the Sacred madnesses of your Prophets; are they not as the Grapes of Sodom, sour, and unsavoury, set­ing on edge the teeth of all men that have any taste or relish of true piety?

Are these the practices of Saints of spiritual and seraphick minds, of men living in God and in Christ by the Spirit? We call Heaven and Earth, and your selves (who are to us as Hell and Devils) to witness against you; What can the most carnal, loose, and prophane Atheists do more abominable, than you have done? What have the falsest Jews, the fiercest Turks, the most bruitish Heathens, the Renegado Christians, the subtilest Jesuites, or the most Phanatique Anabaptists, and Schismaticks, or any other, that are wholly without God in this world▪ ever done comparable to your immense Villanies? Yea, what could Devils do more, if they had their wills, but by such Instruments as you are, extend their malice to the utmost latitude of their pow­er?

Have you not by Treachery and Tyranny usurped upon all just power, and exalted your selves (such despicable worms) above all that is called God? Neither King nor Parliament, nor Laws, nor your own Engagements to all, nor your many Proposals, [Page 3] Promises, and Declaratioins have any reverence with you, or weight upon you; but like riotous and enraged Beasts, you have overborn, and trampled under your feet all that is either Sacred or Civil, in the Laws of God, Nature, Nations, or this Kingdom, of which you are Members, though the most ul­cerous and pestilent that ever the Earth can bring forth, or bear.

Hapily your stupid pride, and brutish insolency, will not suffer you to consider how odious, abominable, and accursed you now are to all men, but such as are Cockatrices of the same Egg and Brood with your selves, that is, seared Saints, hardned Hypocrites, and enraged Satans.

We assure you, you are now looked upon by all sober and ho­nest minds, as the heaviest, and filthiest Incubuses that ever op­pressed Church or State; as the Legions of unclean Spirits, which by Diabolical Arts and Magick of Hypocrisie, have got posses­sion of this Church and Kingdom, till Christ by his power cast you out of, and suffer you like the Demoniack Swine, through the just judgement of God, to be hurried headlong by your own terrours, and despairs, into the Lake that burns with fire and brimstone.

You are like cursed Cams, not mockers only, but murtherers of the Father of your Country; impudent Ravishers both of Church and State, to satisfie your most abominable lusts of Ty­ranny; Cove [...]uosness, and all licentious Prophaneness.

Monsters of men, putid Apostates, excreable Saints, shame­less Sinners, traytorous Tyrants, what have you to plead for, or palliate with your late horrid outrages, and unparallel'd vil­lanies, by which you have obstructed the Fountain of Justice, altered the Chanel, broken the Cistern, turned the clear and wholesome Waters of our Laws into Blood, Wormwood, and deadly Poyson; while you have with unheard-of tyranny and treachery, set up your private wills, by that publick power (wherewith you were intrusted only for some limited uses) above the Majesty and Lives of our King and his Children; above the Dignity of our Parliaments, the Honour of our Laws, the Reverence of your Country, and the Regard due to your fellow Subjects, and confederate Nations; And all this with­out the least colour of any Call or Authority from God or Man, Reason or Religion; against all Obligations both Sacred and [Page 4] Civil, that might possibly lye on mens Souls to God or Man against many your particular pretensions, and former promises of such due observance as became you, both as Men, Subjects, Souldiers, and Christians?

You, who are not the thousand part of His Majesties Subjects, how durst you knowingly act as in the name of all, and yet in­deed against the Duty, Desires, and Consciences of all, but such Children of Belial as your selves?

You that are for the most part such Sons of the Earth, of so base Extraction, of meaner Education, Strangers to all good Literature, Honour, or Civility; Heirs of beggery and con­tempt; whom most of the Subjects in England might for your rudeness and barbarity justly have disdained to have set with the Dogs of their Flocks: how are you become the Creators of a new Heaven, and a new Earth, who are such Sons of Tohu, and Bohu, of Chaos, Obscurity and Confusion?

You that at best are but Gods Butchers, the unjust Executi­oners of his just vengeance; as the evil and destroying Angels sent among us for a time; (though your exorbitant malice and lusts disdain to be limited by your Military Commission, yet God, we hope, will restrain your fury, who hath manifested your impious folly.) With what forehead could you thus lift up your hand against, and set your selves above all those who are confessed your Betters, Masters, and Superiours: As if in a Gyantly impudence, and Cyclopick cruelty, you could never be famous enough, but by Infamy, nor fierce and wicked enough, unless you fought against Heaven, against the express Word of God, and his Vice-garents on Earth. Thus heaping up Moun­tains of Lyes, Perjuries, Hypocrisies, and Cruelties, upon those vast and enormous Lusts of Rapine, Sacrilege, Covetous­ness, Revenge, and Tyranny in your hearts, which nothing nath ever equalled, or can exceed.

You have indeed finished the Master-piece of your Father the Devil, whom as his first-born, he hath filled with a double por­tion of malice, subtilty, and cruelty beyond any; whose hearts like Elymas the Sorcerer, or Simon Magus, he hath pos­sessed. You have nothing left you but Impenitence and Hell, (which you neither believe, nor fear) by which to make far­ther progress in your most flagitious, and ever accursed Vil­lanies.

[Page 5] What step have you more to advance to the blaspheming of the Majesty of the most high God, both in himself, and his De­puties, lawful Kings, and Soveraign Magistrates? What more can you do, or invent, to the scandal of the Gospel, to the expo­sing the Name of Christ to open shame, to the trampling his Blood under feet, through the hatred and detestation of all Na­tions, that are without the Church? How could you devise more to adorn the Triumphs of Pope and Papists, to whose tayls you are tied, though your faces seem contrary, and whose business you have done, while you pretend to abhorr their Names, as much as Devils do potent Charms?

What Sea could ever wash away from the face of the Chri­stian Reformed Religion, the stain of that blood of our King, which you have (in a Pageant of Justice) most unjustly, in­humanely, and barbarously shed, to colour your Malice, to sa­tiate your Revenge, and to make way for your Tyranny, If we the People of England should by our silence adopt, and by our assistance nourish, those prodigies of Rebellion, Treason, and Confusion, which your libidinous Mars, by the help of your prostitute and officious Venus, (your Un-parliamentary Junto) hath lately brought forth and astonished the world withall? Was it ever so done, since the Name of Christ was planted on the earth, save only by the spawn of those furies, from whom you are descended, who made such havock first in Africa, after in other Western Churches, and lately in Germany? whose princi­ples and practices you have as much surpassed, in Hypocrisie, Anarchy, Cruelty and Blasphemy, as Belzebub (your Prince) may be thought to exceed the lesser fry of damned Spirits.

Those impure Catharists exercised (indeed) their Donatisti­cal and Anabaptistical frauds and fucies, chiefly upon the vulgar, to the ruine of many thousands of the Country people and Citi­zens▪ But you like so many Ravilliacks, are not content to have spoil [...]d so many Noble and flourishing Families, to have ex­hausted so many plentifull Estates, to have made so many mourning Widows, and Fatherless Children, to have destroyed the lives, and sucked the blood of so many Christians, your fel­low-Subjects, but you must in one day swallow up the two Houses of Parliament, in another murther the King, in a third cut off the right and inheritance of the Crown from the Un­doubted Heir, and all the Kings Children. At last you con­spire [Page 6] to tempt us all by your simple and foolish Paper falsly cal­led, The Agreement of the People, to joyn with you in the utter overthrowing of our Laws, Liberties, and the whole frame of this antient and renowned Kingdom, whose weight you will find too heavy for such weak Atlases as you will shortly appear, both in Counsel and in Power, who are only wise to doe wickedly, and strong to shed or drink the bloud of your King and Country­men. Your Cruelty hath fulfilled the wish of Caligula, at one blow to cut off the head of three Kingdoms, and with him all Monarchy, to make way for your Polemocracy, a Military Ty­ranny, or Schismatical Anarchy.

Thus have you been profound to deceive, skilfull to destroy; our Souls faint within us, because of such treacherous dealers, such hideous Murtherers, into whose snares the breath of our nostrils is fallen, and in whose deep dissembling pits the An­noynted of the Lord, our meek, patient, and most Christian King is swallowed up; under the shadow of whose just Authority▪ Princely wisdom, and judicious piety we hoped to have been safe.

How doth this sometime famous and flourishing Kingdom, now sit as a Widow, oppressed, desolate, despised; full of un­expressible lamentations? The bitterness and gall of your cruel Hypocrisie hath entred into, filled and overwhelmed our Souls.

How is she that was the Joy, Crown, and Queen of all Nati­ons, the Envy or Emulation of all Christian Churches, now be­come the horror and astonishment of her Neighbours round a­bout, the pity and calamity of all her friends, the scorn, reproach, hissing and triumph of all her Enemies? Nor is there any help­er, comforter, or Deliverer left, till God take the matter into his own hands, and plead the cause of the King and Kingdom a­gainst those proud Goliahs, whose uncircumcised hearts and lips, out of a riot and superfluity of wickedness, have blasphemed our God, destroyed our King, laid waste and exhausted the Kingdom, and turned this Church into a Den of Thieves.

O Lord arise, O Lord consider, O Lord hear the voice of our sighs, tears and prayers; let the cry of the blood of our King and our people come up to Heaven; have mercy on us, for we are brought very low.

Our gracious King, the Husband of the Kingdom, the Fa­ther [Page 7] of his Subjects, the Pr [...]erver of our Laws, the Patron of Religion, the Protector of the Church, you have treacherously and barbarously murthered; the two Houses of Parliament, (whose weakness, perverseness, unevenness, inconstancy and cowardise God hath seen, disliked, judged, and punished) you have forcibly invaded, scattered, and oppressed, notwithstanding all your special Engagements to them both of duty and promise, commission and trust. The loyalty and love of the people, you every where either with terror and cruelty seek to suppress and smother, so that they shall not dare to petition for redress, or complain of those endless calamities which they suffer under your tyranny; or else making lyes your hope and refuge, with for­ged semblances of complyant Petitions, and counterfeit Gratu­lations, you falsly and impudently pretend the concurrent Votes of the Countreys, and the Communities approbation to your most abominated practices: When God knows, and even your selves in your bloody dissimulation cannot be ignorant, that the generality of all men in all places, of all degrees, doe from their Souls utterly abhor, deprecate and detest, your execrable Counsels, and accursed Actions, which have thus brought upon us the abomination of desolation, through the damnable decei­vableness of your unrighteousness: Nor doe we believe that your pride, and tyrannous hypocrisie either finds any comfort in them, or much considers those papers, which seem to own you, or applaud your wicked deeds, further than they may carry on your strong delusions with the vulgar, whom you know to be neither very wary of evil, nor very steady in what is good.

If you had the general Consent of the Vulgar (which you know you have in no sort) yet neither is their judgement any good rule to measure the Morality of your actions; nor their in­constant pleasure any rest of honour, vertue or piety: But indeed you (as well as we) are sadly conscious, that all those clamo­rous Petitions for Justice, by which you would seem (as by O­racles of your own inspiring) to be fatally directed and divinely incouraged in your Cruelties and Treasons, were nothing else but the strokes of the Lions own tayl, the more to enrage him­self; the very froth and scum, which arose only from the zeal­ous activity and boylings of your own bloody Faction; who rest­l [...] Devils, continually go about, seeking whom they may de [...]i [...]e and destroy; we are well assured that your Schismatical [Page 8] crew of Regicides are no more to be compared to the people of England, than the Gleanings may be to the Harvest; or Canters, Thieves, Beggars and Juglers, to the sober and setled Dwellers in this Kingdom.

No, every honest man, who hath any sense of piety, loyalty, modesty, pitty, or humanity left in his Soul, (as you have none) takes up Jacobs words against you, Cursed beyour wrath, for it is fierce, and your anger, for it is cruel: Into the secrets of these men let not our Souls enter; Lord lay not the guilt of the sins of these men to the Charge of the People of this Kingdom.

No, let the blood of our pious, patient and most Christian King, be upon you, and your Abettors for ever; who, as with­out any sense of Loyalty, Pity or Charity, so without any shadow as well as▪ substance of Justice, having neither Law, Rule, nor any due Authority, first by Fraud and unheard of Insolency seized upon his Majesties person, afterward by Flatteries, Lies, and Ter­rours sought to deceive him; At last, by meer Force and beast­like Crueltie, have massacred, and as so many horrid Assassinates, utterly destroyed him.

And all this after many fawnings, and shews of loyal and tender regard toward his Majesty, and his Royal Family, as both your first Proposals, and your after Agitations, (honestly and very providentially discovered by Major Huntington) do declare: In which all men now plainly see, that you did but make way by the Fox, to let in the Wolf, and by your Dalilah to bring the Philistims upon our Sampson: Yea, after his Majestie was not only entred into and advanced in a Treaty with the two Houses, agreeable to their Votes, and the general desires of all his Sub­jects; under the most solemn National security and Publick Faith, which could be given, or pass between a King and his Subjects, or indeed any honest men: But even when his Maje­sties great wisdom and goodness had so far brought all things to a fair closure and happy Agreement, that the two Houses were satisfied, and resolved to proceed upon his Majesties Concessions, as a firm ground of Peace to the Kingdom.

Yet after all these publique, Civil and Sacred Obligations, which lay upon the two Houses and the Kingdom, on your selves as well as any, and all of us; for you to seize again upon his Majesties person, without any pretended Authority, and with your Iron hands, and Adamantine hearts, to ravish and pull him [Page 9] out of the arms and embraces of his Subjects, violently to hale and tear him from the reviving love and loyalty of the two Houses and his People; thence to hurry and toss him to and fro, to what inhospitable places, and desolate Prisons you listed, there to deprive him, not only of all things proportionable to his qua­lity as a King, but even of those civil accommodations which ought to be allowed to any Gentleman, though an Enemy and a Captive of War, which the King never was, not being taken by force, but rendring himself to the professed love and sworn loy­alty of his Subjects. After this, with a sacrilegious mockery of Justice, in the highest affronting of God, the King, the Parlia­ment, and the three Kingdoms, by an unheard of and most hor­rid Outrage, and riorous force to oppress and utterly destroy the remaining honour,, freedom and power of the two houses; and in despite of them to erect a new Court of Justice (as you most unjustly term it (for which you have no colour of Law from God or Man, no precedent in this or any other Christian Kingdom, no ground or pretence of Parliamentary consent or Authority of either Houses, (whose Members, three parts of four at least, you forcibly detained and deterred from fitting in the House of Commons, the Lords being unanimously against you; by all which methods of cunning and violence you seek like Absalom (the contradiction between whose name and actions, very well fits your affected but undeserved title of Saints) to intrude your selves into a Judicative as well as a Military power, (as if Hang­men and Executioners should usurp the sears of Judges, who are not fit to be of a Jury; since their interest and advantage (like yours) lying in the destruction of others, will easily tempt them to condemn any man.)

At length you make a shift to pack, not a high Court of Justice, as you shamelessely style it, but the basest Conventicle of Injustice that ever was in the World; In which all Cards of honour be­ing shuffled out, you turn up such Knaves only for Trumps as will best play your game: A very Medly and Rapsody of the most ignorant, shallow, cowardly, cruel, weak, debauch'd and insolent Fools, or Athiests, Hypocrites, Traytors, and Ty­rants, that ever usurped power over any honest and innocent man. Your President Bradshaw, and your Solicitor Cook, are commonly known, and branded to be men of as corrupt Souls as any lived in their profession; Their most trayterous, and co­vetous [Page 10] villanies, not allowing the least pretence of ignorance [...]n the Laws, which are in no Case more clearly, expresly, and se­verely contrary, than in this, of taking away the Kings life, wherein they, against all Law, Duty, and Conscience, were as Judas's chiefly employed.

At last upon the wicked, most unjust, and cruel Sentence of these Mercenary, Un-authorized, and Tyrannous Sycophants, and Hucksters of Justice, (who must needs have their Com­mission from him that is the Father of Lyes, the false Accuser, the Old Murtherer, the deceiving Serpent, the Roaring Lyon, the Red Dragon, the Dead Sea of Cruelty, and the sink of all Confusion, the Damned and Damning Devil; and not from God (the Fountain of Justice, the Father of Mercy, the Institutor of Order, the Author of Peace, and the Commander of subjection to lawfull Kings) in any notion imaginable; further than the Divel may have Commission from God, permitting and limiting the activity, but not approving the iniquity of his rage and malice) to compell such a King, so Great a Monarch of three Kingdoms, their Undoubted Soveraign Lord, to submit to their arraign­ment, Accusations, and Sentence (who were most of them his declared and desperate Enemies) without allowing him the li­berty of protesting against their confessed Usurpation and Non-authority, or of pleading for his own both Innocency, and well known Privilege, Soveraignty, and unquestionable Immunity, according to the Laws of God and of this Kingdom; which are expresly against their trayterous and tyrannous proceedings▪ as well as the nulli [...]y of their Authority.

After this, without any remorse or pity to their and our King, to force a person of so excellent worth, wisdom, vertue, honour, and Majesty to how down at the feet of so vile persons, and then to Chop off his Head which was Sacred, Crowned and Anoynted, as rightfull King over them and all his Subjects in his Domini­ons. (A Butchery so barberous, that the common Headsmran abhorted to do it; nor may we think those bloody Zealots were willing he should deprive them of the pleasure of cutting the throat of such a Sacrifice, to inaugurate them in their Royal Priesthood; by which their Schismatical fury pretends a title against, or above all Lawfull Kings and Governours.

What Words, what Tears, what Sighs, what oppressive Thoughts, what secret and un-utterable Reflections of most stu­pified [Page 11] and astonished Souls, are sufficient to measure the Immen­sity, to weigh the burden, to express or conceive the horror of this outragioussin, and most flagitious villany.

Poor Prince, after so many delusions, so many lying Addres­ses, made by the chief Engines and movers of the Army; after so much patience, so great demonstrations of excellent wisdom, meekness, calmness and Christian gentleness to his very Enemies and Jaylours; under infinite reproaches, injuries, and indig­nities, even to the very spitting in his face: after all those gra­cious condescendings, by which he had reduced himself almost to the very shadow and bare name of a King (saving that he had gained the highest and most absolute Empire in the renewed love & loy­alty of the most and best of his Subjects) that he might please all, secure and satisfie all, purchase Peace for all at any rate but the price of his Conscience: Yet after all these infinite demon­strations of goodness, capable to have softned even Devils themselves, to be thus butchered by a Souldiery and Schismati­cal cruelty, to be brought to publique execution without any help or redemption from Parliament or people (who generally abominated so horrid, inhumane, unseen, and unheard of a Spe­ctacle; whose Publique Faith, besides their Personal Allegi­ance was engaged for his Majesties honour and safety,) what heart can be large enough to equal the sorrow, what Eyes can be Fountains sufficient to deplore so unmerited a Fate, befalling so excellent a Prince, by the malice, ambition, cruelty, and treason of so base and execrable villanies.

And all this Tragedy of Tragedies carried on to such bloody conclusions, under colour of Safety and Reformation at first; af­terward of Satisfaction and Indempnity to the Army; in both which the good King denied nothing, that men of any modesty, worth, or ingenuity, could expect, or would desire. Yet af­ter infinite delusions, and mutinous insolencies committed a­gainst King, Parliament, and People, some impotent and am­bitious Tyrants, (who have the marks of Blood and Cruelty in their Faces, and on their Foreheads, in the Army, and Com­mons House, bethink themselves of a Scene of Justice, which must speedily be acted by them; least the closure of a Peace with the King, and the two Houses, should render their em­ployment useless, as it hath long been burdensom; And for­cing their Buff Grandees, and proud Officers, to return to their [Page 12] Needles, their Hammers, their Lasts, their Slings, their Carts, and their Flails, should quite defeat those designs of power, estate, and all licentious prophaneness both in Opinions and Practices; which their Chief Officers, and Levelling Sticlers, have all this while designed for themselves, and their false, giddy, cruel, covetous, and unreasonable Faction; through that pow­er and influence, which by their lyes, sorceries, and hypocrisies, they, with the help of that mungrel Minister, that Military Priest, that modern Simon Magus, that disguised Executioner, that bloody Butcher of the King H—P— they have gained upon the Common Souldiery. Upon whose simplicity and va­lour they have presumed tyrannously, and trayterously to advance the meer will and pleasure of some Officers in the Army, and those rotten and ever infamous Members of the Commons, over all the Laws and Liberties, the Lives, Estates, and Inheritan­ces both of King, Prince, and People.

Yet after all these Scenes of various Villanies, they have the impudence to glory, as if they had done God good service, and so extremely pleased God, and the People, that they expect all should agree to their Plandite, as if might and right were well met in the Army.

O you most seared Consciences, you most Rebellious Souls a­gainst God, the King, and your own light; You most accursed Doers, you deaf Adders, whether you will hear, or whether you will forbear, know this, That we the Christian people, and loyal Subjects of England, do in the bitterness of our Souls de­clare (as in the sight of God, to whose just Tribunal [...]e appeal, and summon your stupid and cruel hypocrisie) to all the wor [...]d, our total detestation, and utter abhorring of your Counsels, Acti­ons and future Designs. You glory, as if you were now Masters of our Estates, Liberties and Lives: But we shall by Gods grace keep our Souls unspotted from those great Offences and pre­sumptuous wickedness, wherewith you are infected beyond all cure or recovery.

No we would have your impenitent hardness, as well as the softer world to know, That we look back with extreme sorrow, shame and repentance, upon our former Delusions and forward­ness to this Unhappy War; wherein though they were most to blame who were the Deceivers and Instigators of us; yet we cannot excuse our selves further than thus, That we did it out [Page 13] of credulous inconsiderateness, and not out of malicious wicked­ness. The God of Heaven, whose mercies exceed our sins and your cruelties, forgive the Errors and great sins of this Nation in this Unnatural War; which have deservedly, as from the Di­vine vengeance, though most perfidiously, as from your multi­plyed Treasons and wilfull Rebellions, brought upon these Kingdoms such a sore plague, and intollerable oppression as you are.

Whose detected hypocrysie hath now made it clearly appear, That both King, Parliament and People were meerly cheated and abused, by the Fraud first, after by the Force of those Fa­ctions, Schismatical, bloody and implacable spirits, your chief Genius's who despaired to carry on their wicked Designs of Am­bition and Tyranny, but by the means of Anarchy, Profane­ness, Disloyalty, and publike ruine of Church and State.

All which Rottenness and Villany, must be masked a while un­der the Names of Reformation, Laws and Liberties, King and Parliament, which we see too evidently (though too late) af­ter infinite miseries, Oppressions, Bloodshed, and Delusions, amount to no more but a slavish Submission to the will and Arbi­trary Tyranny of a few sanguinary Schismaticks, cruel Hypo­crites, and desperate Usurpers over all; who, like deep Ditches; and open Sepulchers, having swallowed up our King, our Parlia­ment, our Estates, our Liberties, and many of our Brethrens Lives, now like impudent Strumpets, in the wantonness and se­curity, to which success have hardned their hearts and fore­heads, wipe their mouths as if they had done no evil; and now lying in-wait for our precious Souls, dress their whorish Faces with the Harlotry, & Temptation of a New-fashioned Representative, and that both silly and ridiculous Bable, called the Agrrement of the People.

Than which never any poyson was presented in a sordeder, and less suspected Cup; Nor foolish Devil never used less inviting baits for his snares; Their gross and brutish unpolitickness offer­ing nothing in that Beggars dish to the miserably abused, and justly discontented Kingdom, but only such general dull and con­fused notions, as might become the soberer sort of Picts or High­landers, or the less savage Indians, when from their Acorns, Nakedness, and Barbarity, they began to form some concep [...]i­ons of casting themselves into more orderly and civil Societies, [Page 14] for their better Government, and Common welfare; So vastly short their motly. Agreement comes of those most tried, wise, noble, rational, just, and indeed Divine Principles, and Foun­dations of True Government, Order, and Polity, on which his famous Monarchy hath for many hundred of years been rai­sed to so stately a Fabrick; having flourished to so perfect a beauty, to so antient and venerable a glory, as became the Wis­dom, Piety, and Gravity of our former Kings, Parliaments and Ancestors, Men of Renown for true Wisdom, and Heroick Greatness; to whom these late Overturners, and Innovators of all Government, would scarce have served for their Dwarfs, Za­nies, and Buffons.

But lest these Cursed Movers of the Antient Boundaries, and Landmarks, should lose both themselves, and us in the Wood and Wilderness of their poor, rude, barbarous, and novel projections they bring forth their Ignes Fatui, lights of private Inspirations, Fanatick Delusions, False and Falsifyed Interpretetions of wrested and corrupted Scriptures, to make some shew to their seduced Proselytes (whom they would re-baptize in the blood of the King with themselves) as if they were the little Stone cut with­out hands, which must become a great Mountain, &c. They the Saints which must bind Kings in Chains, and Nobles in Links of Iron, &c, They the people of the most High, to which the Kingdoms of the Earth must be give, &c. Whereas true Saints, which had the power, not shew only of godliness, would not take all the Kingdoms of the World upon such Devillish Conci­tions, and by such damnable practises, as yours are, most appa­rent, and by your selves confessed to be unwarrantable. Such Scripture paintings upon the face of your Jesabel, would have ser­ved the turn of John of Leyden, Knipperdoling, Muncer, and those other Impostors, your infamous Predecessors, as well as you, and indeed they were by them no less pretended; But with how bless*d success you are loath to own to remember, as presaging your like destinies in Gods due time.

It is a strange and unwonted way of any sound and true Chri­stians, apparently to violate, aud wholly decline from the obedi­ence of clear moral precepts of Justice, and other both Religious and Civil Duties to God and Man, under a pretence of Zeal, and a Call to fullfill prophetick Obscurities: which darkly foretell what shall be done, but do not precisely command us to do this or [Page 15] that; In which events even the wickedest men, and Anti-christs (such as these are) may, as the Vials of the wrath of God, pour our themselves, and have a great part to act, and yet re­ceive no comfort or reward, other than that of Hypocrites, who may (as Joseph's Brethren, and Nebuchadnezzar did) then most serve Gods Prophetick, and Providential disposings, when they act most contrary to his Revealed Will, and only seek to serve their own Envy, Covetousness, and unsatiable Tyranny, however they may as the Devil bait their Temptations with Scri­pture Allegations.

But know O ye hard-hearted Belshazzars (whom no hand­writing out of Gods Words, clearly setting forth your sin, curse, woe, and damnation, can yet scan or deterr from your frolick villanies) That, if you were Angels from Heaven, as you are Luciferine Brats from Hell, (transforming your selves at first into Angels of light, but now fully uncased, so that now your fiery eyes, your black and wide mouths, your blasting and sulphurious breath, your proud horns, and your cloven feet ap­pear to all but your own besotted Imps and Familiars) if (we say) you yet appeared as Angels, yet you should give us leave to believe the express Will and Word of God, rather than your jugling fancies, to which that is diametrically contrary, both in the Precept, and all practices of Christ, and his true Saints. Hear how the voice of God disagrees with your apparent folly and madness. He bids honour and obey the King, and our law­ful Governours; You cry crucifie, destroy, and scatter them. Christ commands to give unto Caesar that which is Caesars, no less than to God what is Gods: But you take away, as from God, and his Church what is his; so from our Caesar, his Empire, Liber­ty, Life, Posterity and all.

The voice of God bids us seek peace and ensue it, branding with the reprobate marks of Hypocrites, those that as Traytors, heady, high minded; and fierce despisers of what is good, break all Truce, or Treaties, which you have done, beyond what ever the fal [...]est Miscreants ever did.

The Word of God is a clear, constant, uniform light, as to the Rules of an holy life in Piety, Equity and Charity; but your Opinions, Practices, and pious Pretentions, Centaure-like, are various and deformed Changlings, many-shapen, and mis­shapen▪ Monsters, shifting Proteusses, Slippery and virtiginous Serpents, folded and hidden in the winding labarinths, and intri­cate [Page 16] circulations of your many subtil, slie, and perplexed De­signs.

The truth is, there is as wide a difference between your cla­mors, howlings, and hideous yellings which sound nothing but War, Blood, Rebellion, Famine, Death, Desolation, and Damnation) and that soft, sweet, gracious, and most glorious voyce of God in the holy Scriptures, which you use for a Net, not a Garment) as there is between the most bright, beautiful, Soul-saving-Truths, and most black, deformed, Soul-damning-Lyes. Your selves cannot think us uncharitable, if we do be­lieve, and tell you, That you have more blaspemed the Spirit, Name, Grace, Word, Saints, and Servants of God, by intituling these as Inspirers, Authors, and Approvers of your most grace­less and devillish practices; than ever those hard-hearted, and impudent Hypocrites the Pharisees did, by imputing the saving miracles of our Lord Jesus Christ to your Beelzebub the Prince of Devils: whose Servants you are, whose work you do, and whose wages you must expect.

Nor do we doubt but all the Curses written in the Book of God (which like that of Meroz, have been causelesly, facti­ously, and fasly, by some of your double-faced Janus's, formerly imprecated upon the King, and his loyallest Subjects) will cer­tainly overtake, and fall upon both you, and your viperous Ge­neration.

We hope God will in his infinite goodness not suffer this dy­ing Church, and desolated Nation, to be further partakers of your Babylonish Sins, and open Sorceries, lest we be partakers of your plagues and Torments, which are laid up in the Treasures of the wrath, both of God, and all good men against you, and your desperate faction.

We tell you▪ we are so far from counting you Saints and Sa­viours, that we look upon you as the Tophet which God hath indeed prepared for the King, and these Kingdoms, to try and torment them a while; But we doubt not, but God will at last cast you (who are our Sin, our Death, and our Hell) into the Lake that burns with fire and brimstone for ever.

Unless you repent, so many of you Officers, Souldiers, and others, as are capable of Repentance, not being so deeply enga­ged in the desperate sins of those men, your chief Leaders and Seducers, who being past feeling, of a most reprobate sense, greedy [Page 17] and unreasonable Sinners, make no conscience to damn your Souls, for the perfecting their ambitious and covetous de­signs, for which they have hitherto made use of the hands of so many valiant men, worthy of a better work, and a nobler War, whereby to destroy your and our King, subvert our Par­liaments, Laws, Government, and Religion; And all this, against all your and our Protestations, Vows, Oaths, and Pro­mises to God and Man.

O you that have followed these Theudasses, as the seduced people sometime did Absalom in the simplicity of your hearts, not aware of their devillish stratagems, devises, and designs; You that have any touch of Gods Spirit, or his Grace in your hearts, any fear of God, or dread of Sin left in you; You that have any sense of your Souls eternal welfare (which those either question or deny) any terrour of the wrath of God, or hope of his love and mercy? You that are afraid to degenerate into un­reasonable Beasts, or incarnate Devils, (that you may enjoy the benefit of the Kings last charitable Prayers for your pardon and repentance) make hast to depart from the Tents of these Achans, these Korahs, these Sinners who know themselves accursed of God and Men. Come out of their Babylon, which is become the habitation of Devils, and the Hold of every foul Spirit, a Cage of every unclean and hateful Bird, by a penitent and pious with­drawing from such filthy Harpies, such cunning, yet cruel Hy­ena's, such weeping, yet devouring Crocodiles; such Banners as bear not the Kings Arms, but his head cut from his body; such Ensignes as are dyed in the blood of their King, murthered by them, while they pretended to fight for him, and preserve him,

O drink no more of the Wine of the Wrath of their Fornica­tions, which they hold forth in that poysonous, and filthy Cup of their Agreement of the People; with which they hope to make drunk this whole Nation; That as Lots incestuous Daughters, their lusts may be fully impregnated by the conjunction of the strength, riches, and counsel of these Kingdoms, Know you for certain (O you Souldiers) that no place of Repentance can be found among those Esaus and Judas's, who have been the chief and ma­licious Actors and Contrivers of these wicked and cruel Confu­sions; whose Names as we well know, so we are sure the hand of God will find them out, making them (who have been the terrour [Page 18] and torture of men of all degrees,) to become as Pashur Ma­gornoissabis, terrour round about; As a Wheel, in past revolutions from prosperous wickedness, to miserable punishments; as Chaff toffed to and fro by the breath of Gods displeasure, and the execration, or abhorrence of all people in all Nations, Chri­stian and Heathen, where ever they are driven to be Vagabonds and Runnagates, carrying with them in their fester'd Consci­ences the forked Arrow, of their deceiving, and then cruelly destroying both their King, and their Country.

And this, till they are cast into the chains of utter darkness, who have quenched the light of Israel, and to everlasting flames, whose wrath kindled with the fire of Hell, hath burned to the very Foundations of so happy a Nation.

No person of Worth, Honour, or Piety▪ but will ever loath to eat, drink, or converse with them, looking upon them as un­luckie prodigies; Much more will every ingenuous Man or Wo­man abhor ever to marry, or make any affinity with them, or their Families, polluted with the blood of their King; but most of all abominated will they be as to any Communion with them in Pray­er, or other religious duties, who having turned the Grace of God into wantonness; cannot but already hear Judas's silent clamors, deep despairings, and self-condemnings; Like Julian the Apo­state, they cannot but feel the secret and smart strokes of God in their Consciences, for betraying, persecuting, and destroying the innocent blood of our King. O Earth cover it not, O Time forget it not, O Heaven fail not to revenge their prodigal and cruel wast of so royal and precious blood! Surely without any un­charitable rashness, they may be suspected to be past all grace, and recovery by any Prayers. There remaining for such sinners of the sin to death, such relapsing Swine, and resorbing Dogs, who pretending to have escaped the pollutions of the World, are returned to their mire and vomit; feigning to be illuminated Saints, yet have wrought such works of thick darkness, nothing but a fearful expectation of vengeance, and fiery indignation to consume them, without infinite mercys

They have impudently, and trayterously judged, condemned, and murthered the King, upon the pretence of his raising War against the Parliament; of which Fact themselves are doubly, and most unquestionably guilty before all the World, twice me­nacing, invading, and forcibly assaulting their Masters in the [Page 19] two Houses of Parliament. Nor if their charge had been true against the King (which upon his death he both denied, and most evidently proved by the legal right he had to the Militia, and the date of their Commissions for raising VVar, before His Majesties were out) yet were not these Usurpers any competent Judges by God or Man appointed: Nor was indeed that calumny the real motive of their sudden, bloody, and resumed cruelty; but only that extream fear, hatred, and terrour, their hypocrisie, and villany had conceived against the Kings excellent wisdom, constant piety, and immovable goodness; which they had so of­ten, and so unmeasurably abused; and which they saw was the chiefest obstacle in the way of their Sacrilegious Ambitions.

And now like desperate Empyricks, upon whose cruel tamper­ings we have spent our Blood, our Estates, our Lives, the honour of our Nation, and the credit of our Reformed Religion: You (now) pretend to stop that bloody issue (which by tumult and treason you have made) by destroying the whole Royal Family, and letting out all the Antient blood of our Kings out of the veins of these Kingdoms: To extirpate Kings, Peers, and Par­liaments; and by addle fictions of your weak and confused brains, to obtrude the frippery and gullery of your Agreement of the People

As if all Rules of Justice, all true Policy, and Reason of State, and good grounds of Government (no less than all wickedness, cruelty, hypocrisie, and treason) only dwelt in your shallow brains, and narrow hearts; Who for the most part are not guilty of any Learning, or Civil Improvements, are open and declared Authors of Ignorance, Confusion and Tyranny, Enemies to all sober Manners, and good Orders, both in Church and State.

Nor do those great things (as you call them) which you have hitherto with most infamous treachery, and cruelty, peracted and attained, any way render you considerable with sober, godly, and truly wise men: For what may not Frontless Hypocrites do, who have forsaken God, and given themselves over to the De­vils Captivity, when impowered with Arms and Might, they re­solve barbarously to break through, and cast off all bonds of right, trust, duty, credit, and conscience to God and Man, as you have done.

But you O hardned and infatuated Regicides, can you in good earnest flatter your selves, that this foolish Toy, this shameless Im­posture, [Page 20] your Bastard Brat, your headless Chymera, your many­headed Hydra, called The Agreement of the People, (but by as full an Antiphrasis, as the Fiends and Furies of Hell were called Eumenides) will be a salve sufficient to heal, or Plaister to cover the wide deep and festered wounds, which your treacherous cru­elty hath made upon this Kingdom in all Estates, both joyntly as in Parliament, and severally, as in the interests of the Crown the Nobility, the Clergy and the Commons.

No, your selves know, that very Title, which you shamelesly impose upon your mad and deformed Model is nothing but a Lye and Falsity; being in no sense The Agreement of the People, not we hope ever like to be. Neither in their Representatives the Commons, whom you have disbanded and cashiered in the Majo­rity; leaving only some few Members left, whose Asinine pati­ence and stupidity suffers the Balaams of the Army, as mad and false Prophets to ride upon them for the price of blood, and wa­ges of Iniquity: To which Vassallage, we hope no Gentlemen of any Honour or Conscience, will ever betray themselves or their Country, by returning to the House again, or sitting and voting there, while it is under such insolent Tyrants.

Nor will you find it more agreeable to the generality of the peo­ple throughout the Kingdom, both Ministers and others, who [...]n thei [...] souls disagree as much from what you have done and by that further design, as light doth from darkness, Liberty from Oppressi­on, and God from your Dictator the Devil.

No, the People of England, will one day (if God please to cast his Net upon you, and put his hook into the all-devouring jawes of your Leviathan) make you and your Dawbers with the untempered mortar of a mouldred and dissolved Parliament, to un­derstand, that they abominate you and your deeds, as much as Hell it self; for your monstrous sins are their own Hell and Horror, more to be detested than all the sinless sufferings of Hell.

The antient and most honourable House of Peers, whom some­times you flattered into a Fools Paradise, (while the poor shreds and remnants of that Court might serve your turn to face your affairs by any shew of their Authority) as if you had designed no­thing to their diminution: Yet you have wholly laid them aside, as useless and dangerous Idols of honour, fit to be cast out to the Bats and Moles, to be levelled unto, or abased beneath, the [Page 21] meanest Animals, and vilest beasts of the People; for though [...]hey should, any of them, so dishonour themselves as to descend [...]nto the Hell of your infected walls; yet could they never there ascend to any degree of publique influence either for Counsel or Action, being sure to be alwaies overlaid, smothered and op­pressed by your over-voting crew of Mechanick Idols; who sa­ving that they have mouths to speak a Treasonable Yea or No, in other points, have Eyes and see not, Noses but smell not, Hearts but consider not, the blood, cruor, carkases, skulls and dead bones of their King and their Brethren of all degrees, with which they have inhumanely filled that Charnel-house, that Golgotha of that quondam House of Commons.

Sure the numerous, and once both famous and flourishing Nobility of England, besides those of Ireland and Scotland, can­not but infinitely abhorre and detest your arrogant despising of them, and trampling upon them; if they have but any drops of their Ancestors noble blood running in their veins, or any sparks of true Honour left in their Breasts: It will at length kindle such a fire of just indignation and revenge in those Cedars, as shall consume such base shrubs, such offensive thistles, and such domineering Briars: But if their ignoble despondency have so de­based them to Luxury and Cowardise, that they dare not vindi­cate the Honour of their Nation, Name and Order, together with the rights of the Crown, the Fountain of their Honour, but are content to be either bowed, or hewed down, or over-dripped, or exsuccated by such Aspiring Ivies as you are; our Counsel is, that the antient Barons of England, sometimes Peers and chief Counsellors in Parliament, would solemnly Degrade themselves, lay aside their vain and ridiculous Titles, reverse their Escoche­ons, sell their Scarlet Robes to the Brokers in Long-lane, rather than keep them, either to feed Moths, or to be Monuments to all posterity, What Capons, Poultroons and dangerous Buzzards they are, descend from such Eagles, as many of their Ancestors were.

But if the Nobility should so far betray and desert themselves, their Posterity, their King and their Countrey (who though their number be not great, yet their interest is; and so might their in­fluence on the Publique yet be, both great and good, if their spi­rits and gallantry were such, yet, how can you the greater buggs of the Army; or you the lesser Vermine and Maggots of the [Page 22] Commons (who survive and crawl after the dissolution of your Parliament; bred of, and feeding upon, the putrefaction of that House) How can you think, that the People of England, who are generally and highly concerned in the Honour, Credit and Religion of the Nation, can ever with a good Conscience, or any face of common honesty, agree to your Jugling and Sophistry; as if you or your Western Mahomet and new Antichrist ( Hugh Peters) had any Papal power to absolve their souls from those Protestations, Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, by all which they were and are both lawfully and religiously bound, under the greatest curses of God both to the Kingdom in general, and spe­cially to the Parliaments Priviledges, and the Rights of the King and his lawful Successors: of which gross and manifold perjuries, they must make themselves guilty, only to make way to the Dictatorship and Empire of some of your greater Brambles; That (forsooth) the People of England might enjoy that Liberty, Peace and Plenty under your unavoidable Tyranny, uusatiable Ra­pine, and cruel Oppression; of such Beggars as most of you are, and were, which formerly they could never have under the gra­cious Kings wise and Loyal Parliaments, the ingenuous Laws, and excellent Government of this sometime flourishing King­dom.

Sure you are not yet so much beasts, as to think, that the Com­munity of this great people can all govern themselves, or mutu­ally one another: Government must necessarily be setled and cen­tred somewhere: Nor is it likely, that your leaders and Bash [...]es, whose hands are imbrued in the blood of their King, will ever be so modest, as to lay themselves aside; and denying their own most ambitious and covetous desires, to let any others but them­selves and their creatures reap the fruit of their projects and la­bours; for which they have pawned their souls to the Devil, and sold themselves as Ahab to do wickedly.

But if you dare venture it upon so ingenuous a Trial let the peo­ple of England without your terrour, cunning, injurious restraints and exceptions be their own Umpires, and Choosers, whether they will bear the light and easie yoke of the Laws, and the gentle as well as just chastisements of their penalties under a lawful King, or the iron-yoke of your Tyranny, and the Scorpions of your wills, being so many Evening Wolves, bloody Traytors, and unlimitted Tyrams, (whose little fingers in these last three years, have been infinite­ly [Page 23] heavier than the loins of all the Kings, that ever were in this Kingdom) let the people have free suffrages, you will soon find, That the true Agreement of the People (a hundred voices to one) is this, to shake off your cruel Tyranny, to bring to condign punishment such unheard of Traitors; and to invest in his Throne our lawful King Charls the Second, the Eldest Son of that good King you lately murthered. But how can the people of England ever hope to have any other Civil Agreement of theirs, binding to you and your pragmatick faction; further than your own fan­cies, lusts, and pleasures think fit; since they find you to have so lately broken through all Laws of God and Man; all Antient and Fundamental Agreements in this Nation, on which the Honour and Safety of our Kings, the Priviledges of our Parliaments, the Liberties of the People, the Order and Purity of our Church, and the happiness of our Nation were setled? What Cautions can you give, that you will hereafter submit to any publick Agree­ment; who are such shifters, juglers and dissemblers, that no Laws, Leagues, Protestations or Promises you freely make can bind you; No faith to King, Parliament, People, Neighbour Na­tions, or God Almighty can hold you; but like the man posses­sed with the unclean spirit, you break all ties and bonds, casting Church and State into fire or water, as the rash motions of your Frantick humors carry you. &c.

Conscience you can have none; since your lights are so Luna­tick, and your principles varie every moneth.

Credit you have none, who have made bankrupt of the Publick Faith, and forfeited so many solemn and Sacred Obligations to God and Man.

Sense of Honour or Duty you can have none, since you have neither fear of God, nor reverence of Man.

Estates you have little or none, to hazard or lose upon any for­feiture of your Faith or Agreement: And for your Heads and Lives they are now so vile and cheap, that although you are not fit to live, yet they are scarce worth the taking.

Sure you cannot but appear to your selves as well as to all men, the most outlawed, notorious and stigmatized Rebels, the most perfidious Traytors that ever any King, or Senate, State or Peo­ple imployed or trusted: Having utterly blotted out all your former promeritings and good service so much boasted of; Since the Event proclaims you served not King, Parliament, or Coun­trey, [Page 24] but your own lusts, and villanous designs, which by the ad­vantages of mutinous power, you now seek to accomplish under the void, and forfeited Commission of that stupid Saint, that dumb shew of your silent, extatick, and seduced General; who in so great a concern, forgat his pristine valour and honour.

So that the darkning of your most wicked designs by this ti [...]le of The Agreement of the People, amounts to no more in the true and last sense of it, but this, That you would have the People of England, and the other two united Kingdoms, willingly to bow down to your Hoddy doddy, your all Breech-Idol, as a Prophet of your own so variously, and falsly inspired, justly calls your unlick'd, and monstruous projects, not of Goverment, but of Anarchy and Tyranny, who may live indeed to see a day of judge­ment come upon you.

You would have us all to pledge you in that horrible draught of the Kings blood, which you have greedily drank; to appove and abet your execrable villanies, and to submit for ever to the in­tollerable Tyranny of such Goths, Vandalls, and Saracens as you are.

Who are but the Devils Leieutenants; Factors for the God of this impure World; signal Anti-christs, accurate fullfillers of all the characters foretold, and brands set upon you in the last and perilous time; in which true glass, you, and all men may clearly see the ugly lineaments of your most deformed faces and manners.

It is hoped, that God hath yet so much mercy left in store for these sinful (and by you most miserable) Kingdoms, as he gives us grace utterly to abhor your desperate sins; So that we trust he will never suffer us by a Devillish Apostasie to fall from all Vows, and Oaths, by which we and our posterity are bound to God, the Crown, and our Countries; only to have yours, and the Devils absolution, to make a Covenant and Agreement with Hell and Death, with your most irreligious and damnable designs and practices.

No, the sin and horrour of your waves, are now like Absa­loms incestuous and noon-day Rapes, discovered in the sight of the Sun, and all the World; Nor will the subtilty of your soft and faigned voyces, like Syrens any more charm, and enchant the honest people of England, into such Beasts and Monsters, as your selves are; to whose hellish deformities you would have [Page 25] all others to conform: They have seen, and felt too much al­ready of your cruel Hypocrisies, your devillish and strong De­lusions.

Have not your words been alwayes Soloecisms to your purposes, and your practices contradictions to your pretences?

Have you not as much as lies in your power and malice, cast us into the dead Sea of disloyalty, perjury, cruelty, barbarity, irreligion, and confusion, that is possible for any Nation sudden­ly to relapse, and fall into, after so many Sacred, and Solemn Professions of Loyalty, and Reformation to God, and the World, whom we called to witness upon our Souls?

Agreeable to all which, and to fill up the measure of our sins, as if our Rebellion against God, and the King, were hitherto but a light and small matter, by which we have most unhappily occa­sioned his death, by the hands of cruel Edomites, and cursed Amalekites as you are; which most deplorable calamity, to us, and this Nation, we penitently look upon as the severest tem­poral stroke which the wrath of God, gone our against us, can inflict upon us. Yet your impudent Hypocrisie now seeks to obtrude upon us your wretched and abhorred Agreement; The Sum of which is to leave the Kingdom without a King, Govern­ment without Authority, Magistrates without Power, a People without Laws, a Body without an Head, Sheep without a Shep­here, Christians without Christ, Churches without Ministers, Ministers without Maintenance, a Nation without Faith; In a word, you would have us live as men without Souls, without God, willfully degeneraring to Beasts, without sense of Vertue or Vice, shame or honour, without fear of Hell, hopes of Heaven, or thoughts of Eternity; and all this to maintain a few Tyrannous Hypocrites, and Sodomitick Saints, the cry of whose sins, like Sodom, is gone up to Heaven, and are a burden too heavy for the Earth to bear. Have you not already made the Name of these Protestant, and Reformed Churches, to stink among all Nations, both Christian and Heathen, through the dead flies, and rottenness of your principles, and manners.

Have you not surpassed the cunning and cruelty of the most Jesuitick heads and hands, as much as you come short of their learning and pretensions, which are to advance the Popes Au­thority above that of Kings: But you upon baser Principles, seek to subject the Regal Soveraignty to that of the People, as [Page 26] you call it, nor that you mean so in good earnest, further than to delude the people, and to raise the heads of your desperate Fac­tion above all, both King, Prince, Peers, and People.

We appeal to all sober Christians, whether your Treasons have not far surpassed the Powder Conspiracy; Inasmuch, as they plot­ted secretly, but you have peracted openly, the murther of the King, the ruine of all the Royal Issue, the overthrow of all our Laws, the blowing up of all Parliaments, the subverting of the whole State and Government, the devastation of your Country, the abolition of all true Religion, the extirpation of all Liberty, Peace, Order, and Humanity.

Your Elder Brother Faux himself might seem a Saint compa­red to you; whose New Light, and Dark Lanthorn you have so long made use of, to hide and disguise your desperate intenti­ons: Nor were the rest of those Powder Traytors so criminal as you, if they had effected what they designed, since they nei­ther pretended to that Saintship, or that smooth preciseness which you have done; nor had they upon them such signal ties of Publique, and special Trust (besides your many volun­tary Obligations) The total violation of all which, renders your Sins out of measure sinful, and your Treasons incomparably tray­terous; beyond what any Catelines, but your selves, ever had the desperate boldness to have conceived, or committed.

Had you been our Open Enemies, or self-raising Rebels, in a declared rivalry, and enmity against King, Parliament, and Country, we could either have prevented, and opposed you, or have born with less shame and disdain your insolent and prevail­ing Cruelties against them all.

But when we consider what ostentation, and shew you made of exact obedience, and plenary aquiescence in their Votes, Re­sults, and Orders, from whom you had your unhappy Commissi­on; also of loyal regard to His Majesties Safety, Rights, Ho­nour, and Posterity, (to whom some of your chief Comman­ders (as they well know) engaged their Souls, as much as was possible for any mortal men to do [...], devoting themselves to all the Curses of God, temporal and eternal, upon the breach and failer of their words to His Majesty.

Add to these the fair gloseings you made at your first meeting, of speedy and impartial endeavours to se [...]tle all things in Peace, Justice, due Liberty, and Piety; which how faithfully you have [Page 27] effected, the present Deplored state of this Church and state may witness; whose face is now miserably squalled, and hideously besmeared with the blood of the King, and those most indelible Reproaches wherewith you have blasphemed our God, our King, and our Religion.

We the People of England, of all sorts, Lords, Gentry, Clergy, and Commons, do again and again declare to God, and all the World, the present Age, and Posterity, so long as the World shall endure, our infinite adhorrence, utter detestation, and total disagreement, from what you the Officers of the Army, and your most slavish, ever infamous, and Unparliamentary Juncto have already done, or shall further do, (through Gods venge­ance upon this Nation) in prosecution of your never sufficient­ly abominated Villanies.

Nor do we desire any thing more of the just and Almighty God, (not in order to the satisfaction of our private malice, or desire of revenge on any of you (though our particular injuries have been many from you) but only in order to the publique Vin­dication of Gods Glory, the Honour of the Reformed Religion, the Loyalty, Faith, and Credit of this Nation, the wiping away those foul sins of Treason, Perjury, Truce-breaking, and Regal Parricide, (in all which Villanies your execrable Faction, wal­lowing in the blood of your King, and fellow-Subjects, now seek impenitently and irreparably to implunge this whole Nati­on;) That we might (as some solace under our immense sor­rows, and tyrannizing miseries inflicted by you) but live to see Gods temporal judgements so far upon you, as may pull down your Luciferian pride, and make your obstinate minds to see the horrour of your Villanies; That like Cain, you may be afraid of all men; like Judas, accursed to all Posterity, given over to Satan, and excommunicated by all good Christians, as Murther­ers of your Father, Killers of your King; That you may ever be haunted with the rueful Ghost, and hideous Phantasme of the King, whom you have trayterously butchered: That the exem­plary vengeance of God may be upon you, and your Adherents so remarkably, and in such a Proportion to your Villanies, that if there be any place left for Repentance, you may find it; and yet all the World may see, your destruction is the Lords doing, and say, Doubtless there a God that judgeth the Earth.

[Page 28] Nor do we despair, but God will upon our true Repentance for our great sins and supine folly (which gave you advantages to fulfil your most odious Villanies) so far remember his mer­cies to his most deplorable Kingdom, and by you (as so many wild Bores) desolated Churches, as to stirre up some powerful Avenger of the Kings blood; and all that other innocent blood, which the depths and deceits at first, the force and violence after­ward, of your bloody Faction hath occasioned and caused to be shed; by your tumultuating the people; your instigating the spirits of the two Houses with false and pannick fears; Your calumniating the King, and perverting his gracious purposes; Your enflaming the enmities, and heightning the Animosities on both sides; Your fraudulently voting, No Addresses; and pub­lishing that lying and most infamous Libel for your pretended grounds; Your widening the differences, and hindering all fair equable closings, both formerly, and in that [...] memorable Treaty at Newport; of which you were the most rude, savage and perfidious Violators, that ever History recorded.

We know, that you can now only trust in your Arm of Flesh, in the Devils aid and Counsel, having in your works denied the Living God; instead of whom; your Bellie and the present World, are become your God and your glorie: for the satisfa­ction of which, and the attaining places of profit and power (a­greeable to your lusts, which are enlarged like Hell) you have dared to advance thus far to the destroying of King, Parliament, and Laws; which were the only boundaries and conservers of our Peace, Properties, Lives and Liberties; yet after all this, you inscribe on your Bloody Banners, and impudent foreheads, The A­greement of the People; and the Restorers of our Liberties.

Which Plots, although you think them your Master-pieces for artifice, jugling and policy (that so you might by fair words and flattering lies, allure the many and meaner People to maintain those Monsters which you have brought forth) yet you must know, That the People of Englands eyes are not so blood-shot­ten, not their Consciences so [...]eared, nor their Hearts so disloyal, nor their sences so bewitched by your Magick and Charms, as not to see through, and fully both discover and detest your devilish designs of Tyrannie, Anarchie and Profaneness, whereto you drive, through all these cloudings of immethodical Nonsense, and indigested scriblings; which like your late damnable Remonstrance [Page 29] and your other illiterate and irrational Papers discover; that where there is so much want of grace and common honestie as in you, it is impossible not to want even those shews of common sense and vulgar Reason, which are necessarie (not to justifie (which no tongue, pen or wit of Devils can do) but so far as to palliate your filth, and cover your nakedness; or to render your wicked projects but tolerably plausible to those, that have the grossest perception of things.

The better to temper this your Cup of deadly poison, to please the vulgar relish (which you think is gross and undecerning) you tempt them with the name of Liberty, first in Civil things; which all men see is but a meer Cheat, while they are like to be held under your Iron hands, and squeezed under your tyrannous wills, and intolerable Exactions; instead of injoying the benefit of our antient and famous Laws (the best that any Subjects in the world enjoyed, the just and only bounds of our Liberties, and Conservers of our both Peace and Prosperities; to which all ho­nest men (who have no joynt stock with you in Knavery, Pover­ty, and Baseness) desire most humbly and earnestly to return; Despairing (and with good cause) that ever their Liberties and Properties can be either advanced or defended by you, who have been so insolent usurpers over King, Parliament, and all our Laws and Liberties; which our fore-fathers indeed enjoyed many years, through Gods blessing and the Fatherly care of their Prin­ces, to a greater measure of Peace, Plentie, and Pietie, than e­ver can be hoped for under such bloody Leeches, such numerous and unsatiable Caterpillars, as we have felt you to be: Nay, we tell you, we so far disdain your Hipocrisie, Treacherie, and Tyrannie, that we had rather be under the Tyrannie of our rightful King (of whose justice and clemencie we nothing doubt) than owe our Libertie, as you call it, to such vile Mushrooms and detested Traitors as you are; who boast of Libertie, yet are indeed slaves to your damned and desperate lusts; studying nothing but how to delude the people with the name and fancy of Liberty; as if you would perswade us rather to be the Devils Free-men, as you are, (led Captive by his will) than to be Loyal Subjects to our law­ful and most hopeful King; or humble servants to God, whose sacred ties are many wayes upon our souls, binding us to fear God, and to honour the King; and no less to abhorre you; and have no fellowship with such as are given to seditious or perju­rious [Page 30] changes: forbidding us to use our Libertie, as men and Christians, for a cloak of maliciousness, perjury, tyranny hypo­crisie, and all licentious villanies, as you have done.

The next pretence wherewith you bait the Mousetrap, and temper the Ratsbane of your Agreement, is that of Liberty in Religion; Your meaning is, That men may be free to profess no Religion; or any which they call such, so it be not the true one, which you know is most opposite to your seditious, traite­rous, merciless, uncharitable, and bloody Superstitions: The very truth is, you aim at such an Intolerable tolleration in Religion, as you think is most agreeable to the profane hearts, and licenti­ous manners of the most debauched lives, and Atheistical Spi­rits, with which you have already pestered this English world.

In order to this Truth-darkening, and Soul-damning design, we know you follow your Leader the Devil, and his Lieutenant General, to the utter dissolving of all Government, Order, and Discipline in the Church, to discourage all learned, godly and painful Ministers; to rob and spoil them of all setled Mainte­nance; to reduce them and the work of the Ministry to that con­tempt, which in the pride and luxurie of these times, follows poverty and beggery; That they depending on the peoples good will and charity, (which in many you have made bad and cold enough toward the best and ablest Preachers) or upon your insolent and niggardly stipends, they and their families may ei­ther eat their own dung, and drink their own piss, or be forced by necessities of life to desert their Function and places; so as to leave their Congregations destitute of all holy publique duties; or expose them to those Military Wolves and Mechanick Foxes, which you have in great store provided for the supply of all pla­ces, in Church as well as State.

Thus doth your rage reach as high as Heaven, and as low as Hell: But we hope the God of Heaven will look down upon us, and our children in mercy, and by some speedie rebuke of such Satans, not suffer your follie and furie to proceed any further, it being manifest to all moral and sober men, that you are Factors not only for your selves, to devour our Estates, Houses, Lands▪ Liberties, Peace, and Lives; but like the great Dragon, yo [...] pour for [...]h a Sea of blood and poison, ignorance and profaneness▪ such as may for ever drown both our and our childrens souls it. Heathenish Barbarism, Superstition, Atheism, and Eternal de­struction.

[Page 31] But know O you neither Milstones, you poisonous Asps, you King-killing Basilisks, you desperate Deceivers, and damnably deceived: That although you have against all Faith of Turks, Jews, or any Heathens, by fraud and force usurped upon our secular and civil Liberties; so that at present we have not any formed power to oppose you, and call your Ring-leaders to a severe account for your unheard of crimes and injuries against our King and our Country. Yet shall our constancy in, and our suffering for our Religion, and our incouragement of godly learned and faithful Ministers, to our best abilities, make the world to see, that there is no Agreement between Christ in us, and Belial in you; our God and your Mammon.

We hope the Triumphing of such Hypocrites as you are, is but short; nor shall you long insult over the dead and divided Corps of our late Lord and Soveraign King; whose Wisdom, Piety, Faith, and Patience, God (we doubt not) hath crowned with Glorie and Immortalitie; having perfected those many Princely gifts and Divine graces in him (as God often doth in his dearest Saints and Martyrs, after the example of his crucified Son Jesus Christ) by his sufferings and your cruelties, whose Memory and Posterity will be ever dear, precious, and honour­ed, to us and our succeeding generations as a King, who now ap­pears beyond the Errours and Jealousies of former surmises (chiefly raised and fomented by your false and envious Faction) to have been the most constant Pillar, the Noblest Patron, the resolutest Protector, and the most patient Martyr for our Laws, Liberties, Lives, and Religion; Yea and of our Parliaments true Priviledges; which his Majesty best saw, and fullest decla­red at first to have been shamefully invaded and out-raged by your Tumults, afterby your Armies; next by your new mo­dellings, at last by actual mutinings, impudent menaces, vio­lent and warlike expressions upon their safety, libertie, faith, loyaltie and honour, with which purposes you sometime falsely aspersed, and afterward accused the King: and for which calum­nies you most unjustly condemned, and traiterously muthered him; your selves being most truly and notoriously guiltie of that, for which you wickedly, cruelly, and unjustly destroyed your and our King. Shall you escape the righteous judgement of God? Will not God visit you for these things? Shall he not be avenged of such cruel Hypocrites?

[Page 32] Nor is it without a special Providence, that you should be left wholly naked, and destitute of all pretended due Authority, in the fulfilling your execrable villanies, to which you would now fain invite the people of England; not having any shew or colour of any Parliamentary Votes, Authority, or Commands to coun­tenance your mischiefs, murthers, and tyrannies, not any con­currence of either Lords or Commons; whom now under force, and without all freedom (becoming either Gentlemen or Chri­stians) we must tell you, we look upon as no House, and their enforced, or enslaved Votes as null; Their after sittings, and complyings with you, being nothing but infamous, and base prostitutings of the Honour of that House, and Vassallatings of the Dignity and Liberty, both of the Parliament, and People of England, to the tyranny of a few Mutinous Cut-throats, Trayterous Rebels, and bloody Schismaticks; who are in no sense to be counted the People of England, any more than Scabs, or Plague-sores, or Leprosie, or putid Ulcers, and noysome Excrements, are to be repured any part of the Body, whose grief, burthen, and an­noyance they are.

So that unless you can flatter your selves to have done well, and worthily, in all you have cruelly, insolently, and trayter­ously acted against King, Lords, Commons, Gentry, Clergy, and all honest men.

Unless you can propound something to recompence the inesti­mable Injuries you have done to all Estates in these three King­doms, as in other acts of your Tyranny and Treason, so chiefly in that unparallel'd Villany of Murthering such a King, and de­priving us of so Incomparable a Prince, for Wisdom, Piety, Gra­vity, Patience, Magnanimity, Courage, Constancy, Charity, and all other Vertues, most adorning a Man, a King, and a Chri­stian; (the loss of whom, all the lives of you, and your Approvers cannot countervail, or expiate, being but as so many Dogs heads to such a Boon.)

Unless you can stop the Mouths of all men, or cut their Throats, or sear their Consences, or perswade them to damn their Souls, for your sakes, to gratifie a few Cauterised Consci­ences, bloody and ambitious Spirits among you.

You cannot but hear the sound of much Vengeance coming up­on you, to which your own black Souls summon you, and which your own Consciences will in the first place silently, but yet se­verely execute upon you.

[Page 33] Nor will your Seeming Smiles, and forced confidences, nor yet the Applauses of your sordid Flatterers, and desperate Confe­derates, nor yet the assistance of your numerous and deluded Souldiers, be able to exempt you from that storm of Fire and Brimstone, that Pit, Snare, Curse, and Hell, which pursues you, and is ready to overtake you.

How can such Zimri's, who have so trayterously slain such a King, their Lord and Master, ever hope to have peace, or impu­nity in this, or the other World? Since the Justice of Divine Providence (in a Case where his Name was not blasphemed, and so his Glory not so concerned, as in this, (of your murther­ing so lawful, and so Christian a King) suffered not any of the Murtherers of Julius Caesar, who was but an Usurper, to dye other than a violent, and immature death. Nor will (we hope) our Solomon by Gods blessing, and his Subjects assistance, suffer the hairy Scalps of those who were the chief Counsellors, and Actors, in destroying his dear Father, and our Dread Soveraign, to go down to the Grave in peace, or to dye a dry death, who have shed the blood of War, in a time when all Differences were by a Treaty drawn to a Peace and Union.

We can never think, that a Babel of so confused a fashion, of such a headlong height, as yours is; such a Toads-stool sudden­ly grown out of the Earth of Beggary and Ignorance, by Fraud and Cruelty, lately watered with the blood of the King, and his Subjects, can long thrive or stand; having no foundation in the World, or any shew of reason, equity, honour, peace, liberty, or piety to support it. Not any seeming Authority (for due and legall you could have none upon Earth.) Not any general desire, delight, consent, or Agreement, in what you have done, or propound further to do; but rather a general detesta­tion, an utter abhorrence, and a perfect hatred of you, and your deeds; which honest men will then agree to, and subscribe, when they can be content to love Death, and Hell, or to hate God, and their Souls.

Nor doubt we, but many of those Souldiers, whose valour and simplicity you have thus far grossely abused, by ingaging them in such desperate assistances (whose profit will redound to but few, or none of them) when their Christian, penitent, and smite­ing hearts shall come to see (as no doubt many of them already do, who are not throughly poisoned with your desperate Princi­ples) [Page 34] to what horrid Villanies they they▪ are made Gossips, and accessary by your Fraud, and Hipocrisie, they will speedily re­ [...]rn from you, dead Dogs, desperate Sheba's, and cursing Shimei's, [...]hose mouths and hearts are full of the gall of bitterness, whose hands and feet are swift to shed blood, who know not the way of Peace, nor have any fear of God before your eyes? whose Curse is to bo [...]st your selves in your iniquity; to fall from one wick­edness to another, till eterual vengeance upon you.

Penitently smiting their breasts, as those that came from cru­cififying Christ Jesus, (a work proportionate to the malice and crueltie of you our Kings Murtherers, our barabasses) whose barbarity hath at once deprived the King of what is wont to be dearest to men, his Life, and his Kingdoms; robbing his Sub­jects, the Christian World, and all Mankind of the greatest glory, and most Illustrious Example of Vertue and Pietie that ever sate upon a Christian Throne The most unspotted Perso [...], the wisest Prince, the most Charitable Christian, the most imitable Pattern for Moderation in Prosperity, for Patience in Adversity, for devout humility toward God, for judicious zeal to true Re­ligion, for constant love to the Church, for winning Majesty upon all men, that ever swayed the Scepter of this, or any other King­dom; Accessible in his brightest splendor, Magnanimous in his Diminutions; Of a th [...]iving and victorious Vertue under the heaviest Pressures and Crosses; Whose excellent Skill was never so much discovered as in the late Storms; Whose Darknings rende [...]ed him not less formidable to his Enemies, or less venerable to his Friends; Nor was he ever more terrible to those that are perfect haters of God, of Him, and of all Goodness, than when they saw that the Eminency of his Vertues was not to be smo­thered by their Calumnious Expressions; but the beams and lustre of Divine Majestie in him daily conquered all Ecclip­sings that either his own misfortunes, or your malice cast up­on him,

This was the Man, this the Christian, this the King, this the Saint, this the Martyr, whom [...]hese Judas's have betrayed, these Jews destroyed, these Caniballs devoured.

A Sin questionless exceeding in many respects that of Christs Crucifiers, (not as to the dignity of the person, wherein Christ infinitely surpassed the Majestie, as well as Merit, of all Earthly Kings) but as to that Eminency of Civil Dignity, and Sove­raignty, [Page] wherewith the King from God was invested; which Christ Jesus never assumed, contenting himself with the form of a servant, and subjecting himself to Civil Magistracy. Also in regard of that malice, hypocrsie and pretenceless Crueltie, which thes [...] Monsters shewed against the King, destitute of any shew of Due Authority; which the Crucifiers of our Saviour wanted not, urging also a Law they had, by which they said, (though falsely) he ought to die: What Law the Kings Murtherers ei­ther produced or pretended to justifie their Authoritie, their Ac­cusations, or their Sentence against, and Execution upon the King, we and they are yet to learn; nor is it possible they ever should; since all our Laws do most fully and clearly declare the person of the King as Supream, Sacred, Unaccountable, Invio­lable by any Person, Process, Judgement or Punishment on Earth.

When the Souldierie by Sea and Land shall once seriously re­flect upon and consider the infinite odious aggravations, where­with this horrid Murther of such a Man, such a Prince, and their lawful King, is laden (to which Villany, their Valour was abu­sed, to be only as Blood-hounds, Butchers, and Hang-men) no doubt they will be conceive so just and generous a disdain, that no mens hands will be more ready to avenge their own dishonour, the shame of their Profession, the wound and stain of their Con­sciences, the Blood of their King, the Dignity of Parliaments, and the Loyaltie of their Nation, (never so branded in any for­mer age) than those Souldiers, whose Valour you the Achito­phels, Jeroboams, Hamans, and Machiavels of our times have basely abused, only to serve you in accomplishing you Execra­ble Villanies, and to preserve you from just and speedy Venge­ance, which (as Severus said to those Villaines and Traitors, who had murthered their Emperour Pertinax) can neither be invented for you, nor executed upon you, proportionable to the many and Out ragious Villanies committed by you.

We the People of England, cannot but appeal to God, your own Consciences, (such as they are, cauterised and polluted with the Blood of our King) also to the judgement of all men, that have but common sober sense, Whether any Age, any Monuments of former times, any History of humane Aff [...]i [...]s, have ever recorded any excess of Riot, any superfluity of Wick­edness to have ever flowed from the hearts of any men, o [...] have [Page 36] been fulfilled parallel to yours? Whether any Combination of desperate men, filled with the Quintessence of all wickedness, fraught with flatterie, crueltie, hypocrisie, tyrannie, and all degrees of malicious Villany, incident to humane nature, have since the world began, and Mankind hath been planted upon the Earth, ever committed the like Villanies (which exceed all names of Vice and Infamies) or ever more deserved to be made a publick Curse, and universal Execration to all Mankind, to have their persons cut off from the face of the Earth, and buried with the burial of an Ass; to have their Posterity, as a Pestilent Progenie spewed out of the Land, (unless they fully declare their unfeigned and utter abhorrence of their Fathers Villanies, who have defiled the Land with the blood of the King;) That their Houses (which are neither great nor many) may be raised; that their memories may be blotted out from under Heaven, or only remembred with perpetual scorn, cursing and infamie.

Since they have besides many other preparatorie mischiefs, by murthering the King, dis-inheriting his Posteritie, and dissolving this antient and flourishing Monarchy, (as far as lies in their power and malice) put us upon this miserable choice; Either cowardly, basely, and shamefully to submit to their detestable and unsatiable Tyrannie; or to be ever oppressed with a War in our own bowels; in which we must either expose our Lives and Fortunes to these mens covetous Cruelty, or help to enslave and destroy our selves by assisting these Usurpers; or compel the Rightful Heir of these Kingdoms, our hopeful King CHARLS the Second, to plead and assert his Right by a Foraign Sword; be­ing denied that just assistance, which as his Subjects we ought to afford him against the Murtherers of his and our Countries Fa­ther; his own Enemies, and indeed of all Kingly Majesty, and Mankind; the Dissolvers of our Parliaments, the Oppressors of our Liberties, the Exhausters of our Estates, the Suckers of our Blood, the Blasphemers of our Religion, the Damners of our Souls (unless God preserve us,) the Crucifiers afresh of the Lord of Glory, and putting him to open shame.

The Crie of the blood of our King, the Voice of the Genius of this Nation, and the Alarm of Gods Justice, call aloud to all honest men of Foraign Nations round about, to all loyal Subjects in these three Kingdoms, to all men of any common honesty or sober profession of Religion in all the world; summoning them [Page 37] to sanctifie themselves, and lustrate and expiate not only this English Nation and these three Kingdoms, but all Mankind, and Civil Societies, by taking speedy Vengeance, and executing Gods and Mans severest Justice on these perfidious Truce-break­ers, proud Usurpers, cruel Hypocrites, traiterous Apostates, and barbarous King-killers.

We cannot but send the divided parts of our dead but endear­ed King, now a glorious Saint, (whom these men have with sub­tilty and cruelty lately murthered) to all the Tribes of this our Israel, to desire the advice of all good men, to see and consider, whether this hideous Villany were committed with their con­sent, or deserve to be patronized with their Agreement; whe­ther it was ever thus done in any Christian Nation or Kingdom, by any Army of pretending Saints, or any men, we say not of Common Honesty, but of the most exquisite and studied Villa­ny: Whether any thing can be produced out of Common Prin­ciples of sound Reason, out of the Laws of God, out of Christs Holy Precepts, out of the Actions and Examples of any holy and good men; or lastly, out of any letter, sense or meaning of our Laws, whereby in the least degree to countenance, cover or excuse the Actions of these men; or to satisfie any mans Con­science, that doth not utterly abhorre, and seriously endeavour to expiate the sin and guilt of such Detestable Villanies.

According to the heaped and over-running measure of their o­pen sins, and abominable Villanies, so let every good man, that fears God, knows the Memory and Vertues of so good a King, loves his Country, will keep a good Conscience, and desires to save his own soul, not only withdraw all voluntary assistance from them, lest they seem approvers of their wicked Deeds, and be partakers of their Guilt and Judgements; but heartily pray, and constantly endeavour the Restoring of the Crowns and Kingdoms to the only Lawful Heir, the late Kings Eldest Son, upon whom are many happy Presages, and great Expectations of Glorious Atchievements; whom God hath in Mercy, we hope, to these Churches and Kingdoms, preserved out of the hands of these bloody Villains, who Declared in their Devilish Remonstrance, their purpose to destroy him, with his Brother the Duke of York, and mingle their tender bloods with that of their Father; whom special Providence hath prepared for great and excellent Designs, by the maturity of his years, by the procerity of his person, by [Page 36] [...] [Page 37] [...] [Page 38] the gallantry of his Spirit, by the excellency of his Understanding, by the gravity of his Manners, and severity of his Example, far beyond what is wonted or expected in young Men, or young Prin­ces in point of Piety and Vertue.

This is that Person, this that Prince, worthy of his high De­scent, worthy of such a Father, whose worth already promises to exceed all you can desire or hope for from a Good and Gracious King; upon him God, and our Laws, and our Oaths, commands all Loyal and Religious Subjects to fix their Eyes, to unite their Hearts and Hands to the Love and Assistance of him, to expiate the sin and shame of their former Errours and Defaults, which have produced such sad and abhorred Effects; to break the Strength, to extirpate the Persons, to oppose the Designs, and to revenge the Villanies, which have been with an high hand committed against God, the King, the Parliament, the Laws, and the Kingdoms, by these Miscreants, men alwayes of despe­rate Fortunes, but now of so desperate Minds and Manners, that all their paths lead to the Chambers of Death, and their steps are descending to the pit of Hell.

From which the Lord in Mercy deliver the people of this Na­tion, by prospering our Rightful King, and by his Valour and Vertues, redeeming us speediy from the sins, sufferings and ty­rannies of these blood-thirsty and deceitful men; with whom no Agreement can be made by any man, who doth not desperately resolve to sin against the Holy Ghost, and eternally damn his own Soul.

Lam. 5. 16. 16. The Crown is fallen from our head: Wo unto us that we have sinned.

For this our heart is faint, for these things our eyes are dim.

Eph. 5. 11. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of dark­ness, but rather reprove them.

Consilia callida & inhonesta prima fronte laeta. Tractatu dura; eventu tristia Lecit.

FINIS.

In Martyrium CAROLI PRIMI Magnae Britaniae Regis invicti, Jan. 30. 1648.

IN fandis refer as damno, sceleri (que) dolorem
Musa parem; qualis luctu sub morte Josiae
Ingenti vallem compleverat Hadarimmon.
Qualis ab irriguis oculis, seu fonte perenni,
Uberibus manet lachrymis noctu (que) diuque:
Qualem continuo rorans pia lumina fletu
Optabat V [...]tes deplorantissimus olim.
Sit modus hic nescire modum; quô postera discat
Impia gens quantum sceleretur sanguine Regis.
Regis ab antiquis oriundi Regibus; at Qui
Tantum alios superans, virtute antiquior omnes▪
Quantum lenta solent celsae viburna cupressus.
Ut scopulus mediis Neptuni in fluctibus ingens,
In coelum tollens sublimia culmina, nullis
Exuperanda undis, immotus pectore forti
Perstat, & immensis haerens radicibus, omnc [...]
Oceani frangit rabiem; n [...] territus unquam
Conjuratorum ventorum praelia temnit.
Talem Te sensêre Tui; Te (Maxime Regum)
Vidimus invictâ conatus mente ferentem
Hostiles; variâ tentato mole malorum
Inconcussa manet victrix patientia; sacro
Horrore insuetum complêsti Carolus orbem.
Aurea, quae pulchro pînxti dictamina libro,
(Tam pravi caecique malis Lux & super aevi)
Unicus implêsti vitae, moderaemine; passus
Quas alii fingunt aerumnas; ultima mortis
Humanam superant sortem miracula sancta.
Rex idem, & Martyr; Trino Diademata clarus,
Altior exurgens summ â mens ambition [...]
Martyrium imperio junxit: Quartamque Coronam
[Page] Stellis non gemmis fulgentem, sum [...]re pergit
Impavidus Christi, & Sponsae mirandus Alumnus;
Coetibus Angelicis proprior, mortalia longè
Despicit. Ante pedes (facinus deforme) Rebellûm
Dum prostrata jacet Majestas Regia, surgit
Celsior, è ten [...]bris splendens Augustior istis:
Comminuit quantum Satanae, vel militis ira,
Omni-potens tantum Numen virtutibns auxit;
Gratia grandescit, collo minor, atque corona
Carolus evafit Magnus; Ludibria Trunci
Ridet; Rex humilis sequitur vestigia Christî.
Formosum in latâ vidistis valle Leonem;
Quem trepidi cingunt Pastores; Rusticus horror
Magnanimum sequitur telo, & clamore lacessens;
Non hominum, non illa canum, petulantia terret
Gradivum, generos a fugam quia bestia nescit
Degenerem, motu nullo blanditur; at ille
Constans incedit gressu; vultuque minaci
Arduus insidias strepitusque aspernit inanes;
Inveniet, facietve viam sibi conscia virtus.
Per fastiditos sic Te tulit impetus Hostes
Ingentem Regni Genium; dumque agmine circum
Sacrilegûm spectant crudelia schismaticorum,
Immortalis abis Regna ad meliora Monarcha;
Lusit fatalim mens impenetrabilis ictum;
Plectitur illaesus; poena est victoria; fanguis
Non minus innocuum decorat, quàm purpura Regem.
Tutatur, quem non potuerunt Scepira, securis.
Non dolor Hunc, non irae movet, non Carceris horror,
Non tristis comitem squallor, non Monstra profani
Judicii, non scommata, sputa, culumnia, pulsus
Erectum laedunt animum, purissima lympha
Mille modis agitata ni [...]et: Patientia totum
Possidet; ac pleno sic fatur Numine Turbam.
"Tetrius in vosmet, quam in me p [...]ccabitis; illa
"Vulnera me cruciant potius, quae saeva paratis
"In proprias animas, quàm quae in mea corpora cives;
"Non Deus hoc vobis, non sancta oracula mandant
"Infandum facinus; Quamvis justissima summi
"Dextra patet, (suplex hanc prono exosculor ore;)
[Page] "Vos tamen injustos graevior vindicta manebit;
"Qui genus humanum, & mortalia temnitis arma,
"At sperate Deum memorem fandi, atque nefandi,
"Castigatvehemens faelicia crimina poena;
"Deprecor ultorem, mea vota novissima Christo
"Pro vobis, patriâque meâ cum sanguine fundam.
Dixerat; & dicto citius prostratus atrocem
Imperturbato Rex invictissimus ictum
Sustinuit vnltu.—
Diriguêre omnes; imo suspiria ducunt,
Pectore quê is hominum, quê is non adamantinae corda:
Non dolor, aut lachrimae, vastus stupor occupat orbem
Ingenuum, irato suffusum triste pudore
Erubuit coelum, pallentia lumina condens.
Antiquae periit sic illustrissima Gentis
Gloria; vix oculis unquam reparabile nostris
Occubuit lumen; Domini quem dextra sacrâret
In Regem, extinxit diro manus improba ferro:
Publica libertas; Decora omnia; Religionis
Sanctus honos, unâ pereunt collapsa ruina,
Singula quae tantâ fuerant suffulta columna.
In Chaos horrendum lapsos nox opprimit atra;
Cum tenebris pondus; Terras Astraea reliquit,
Sanguine pollutus Divi; Lex sancta recessit;
Militis incubuit trucis insatiata libido,
Omnia diripiens paupertate ambitiosa,
Cui stravere viam Regni perjuria dira.
Sic Lupus, & Vulpes, tecti ambo pellibus Agni
Insidiis fallunt, non vincunt Marte leonem,
Tam claro ut possint satiari sanguine fauces.
Quo (que) magis possint factis obtendere velum
Justitiae, miles procerum, plebis (que) senatum
(Relliquias vulgi rudis, informis (que) Tumultus,)
Dissipat; in sulsis toga cedere cogitur Armis.
Carnifices dant jura prius; suffragia deinde
Liberiora petunt, sequitur sententia tristis;
Corripit, incusat, condemnat, destruit, idem
Judex & Testis, Miles, Subjectus, & Hostis.
Tantum Relligio, tantum nova lumina possunt
Persuadere mali; lucis tum Lucifer almae
[Page] Nomen, & Effigiem simulat; quùm perditus error
Ingruit, & tenebras cupiens effundere vero,
Immanes animos ad atrocia crimina ducit:
Principis hinc sanguis libandus: subditus iras
Non putat averti superûm, nisi tanta litetur
Victima: non alio ritu placabile numen
Sanguinei celebrant sancti: maculata cruoré
Dextra Fraterno, Patris, Regis (que) pianda:
Tantae molis erat sanctorum condere Regnum.
Nihil habet ulterius vestris quod moribus addat
Horrens posteritas; I nunc perjure supremum
Ecoeli pergas sede exturbare Monarcham:
Inde locum teneas latè dominantis Abyssi
Regis; ut ad solium poteris conscendere dignum,
Arbitrio Cromwelle tuo, dum cuncta reguntur
Numine quis credet mundum rectore moveri?
Flevit J. G.

CAROLUS REDUX; Sive Nemesis ad CAROLUM SECUNDUM.

CArole, vindictam celera; ne per fidus orbis
Esse Deum tàm corde neget, quàm pernegat actis:
Imp [...]a, quae laeti, & ridentes facta tuentur
Prosperiora mali, falso dum lumine cernunt
Crimina, mox viderint quum tristia, turpia credent.
Carole, vindictam celera; Te mille ruinis
Pressa vocant tria Regna; uno Te vindice sperans
Sustentat miseris reliquam patientia vitam:
Te leges vocitant; sancto Te murmure poscunt
Pectora, quae tacitis miscent susprcia votis.
Carole, vindictam celera; Te justior ira
Flagitat, & Coeli, & Terrae; Te Gentis, & Orbis
[Page] Vox properare jubet; multo Te mersa cruore
Et Patria, & Patris clamat Te sanguis inultus;
Perfida quem fudit truculentum Dextra Rebellum.
Carole, vindictam celera; victricibus Armis
Ora petas exosa Deo; seu, fulmina ab alto
Omnipotens quando Numen librabat Olympo,
Usta Gygantae is cecidere cadavera flammis:
Et subitam, & certam fundat tua dextra ruinam.
Carolus adventum celeres; non Phosphorus almae
Nuncius Aurorae post noctem gratior atram;
Non requies fessis; calidis non umbra; minaci
Gurgite jactatis non portus; non sitienti
Rivus; certa salus non aegris; non morienti
Vita magis laeta est, aut gratâ mente recepta,
Quam Tua solicitis aderit praesentia nobis.
Publica vita, Salus, Requies, Lux (Unicus) adsis,
Numinis auxiliis fultus; Qui monstra domares
Et foedam lustres Gentem virtutibus Haeros.
Fatidicum vox est Te Majestate secundum,
Et caedem ulcisci & Regnum superare Parentis.
Vovit J. G.
1649

Manibus Montisrosanis sacrum.

Votivam hanc quam vides, invides (que) viator tabulam
Nudam; non auro, miniove pictam,
Uno Montisrosani Nomine
(Vilis plebeculae Nobile ludibrium)
[Page] Ornatam, sanctam, satis (que) celebratam,
Malè foederatae Gent is infamia,
(Heu justae merita (que) nimis!)
Foedam, deformatam (que) senties.
Caut is, & Oceani proles barbara,
Mente, manu (que) truculentâ,
Solis detescens vitiis, & dedecore;
Caetera vilis, & pauperrima;
Ingens Christiani Nominis
Dehonestamentum, & propudium;
Busiridas, Cyclopes (que) omnes
Immanitate superat nefandâ.
Tragicum obscurae Gentis facinus,
Ne nescias (Lector) audi.
Regii vindices sanginis dum videri volunt,
Nobilissimum Regii sanguinis vindicem,
Majestatis (que) sacrae assertorem aeerrimum,
Montisrosanum (Gentis decus, dedecus (que)) vitâ,
Seipsos honore humanitate (que) privant Scythae.
Quo enim nuper sancti, ligati (que) perduelles,
Vafri, perjuri, truces, inexorabiles,
Insatiabilem restringuentes Ambition is sit [...],
Regium propinârunt poculo cruorem;
Idem diverso nequiores isti
Excipiunt, ex sorbent (que) animo
Egregium impotenti vindictae
Mactantes Heroem,
Pristina facinora,
Novissimo hoc piaverunt monstro.
Quum enim venditum prius amissum (que) Carolum
(Virtutum & Regum exemplar unicum
Mirandum, inimitabile, aeternum)
Propriâ neglexerant trucidare dextrâ,
Montisrosani pergunt jacturam reparare caede.
Imbelle [...], fraudum, irarum (que) vernae;
Uti nescientes, quam parti sunt victoriâ.
[Page] Immites (proh pudor!) mitissimi Numines cultores,
Amantissimum satagunt immanitate placare Deum,
Humanum quasi cruorem sitiret, esuriretvé sanguinem
Propriis qui non pepercit, nostrae consuluit saluti
Christus, mitis, misericors, clemens, placabilis,
[...]nimicorum indultor, ligantium solutor
Damnantium salus, crucifigentium Redemptor,
Occidentium vita.
Hunc, Hunc Christianae tantus Reformator sectae
Audire, imitarive si velis Scote,
Non carnificis Christiano praetulisses munus,
Infame, detestabile, diris execrandum;
Aut una saltem simplici (que) lainenâ
Contentus, non dimidatâ, aut lentâ
Torquere debuisses (miser!) Hero [...],
Totâ. Quem non terruisti morte:
[...]ereri fas est, non irridere miserum;
Nec ludibrio suplicio (que) simul excipere
Praeclarum hoc virtutis aenigma,
Humanae (que) prodigium inconstantiae;
Qui
Sapìentiam temerìtate, Fortitudinem fugâ,
Splendorem Tenebris, Foelicitatem infortunio,
Victorias laqueo, Triumphos patibulo
Clausit.
Adeo demirandâ, deplorandâ (que) rerum vicissit [...]line,
In valles celsos videas desidere montes,
In spinas su [...]ves degenerare Rosas.
Suspensum satis, lusum (que) cadaver
Rabiosi dum lacerant Canes,
Invicta interim ridet Anima
Trunci dispendia Montisrosani.
Quem enim unus non capit Tumulus, bust [...]mve▪
Totus Hunc orbis excipit, condit (que) sinu,
Docto, ingeuo, molli▪ ver [...]c [...]ndo:
Adeo non mendicatâ Pompâ,
Aut ementito Honore,
Funeris, fruitur, caretve,
[...]el jam superstes Heros;
[Page] Quem immortale [...]esse jubent
Gratiae, Musae, virtutes (que) omnes.
Haec (viator) dum legeris,
Luge si poteris;
Si nescis, Actor esse
Detestandus incipis,
Qui lector & indolen [...]
Ista deseris.
L. M. Q. J. G.
FINIS.

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