THe Knights, and Burgesses, of the house of Com­mons, having taken into consideration the pre­sent estate and condition of this Kingdome, they finde [...]surrounded with va [...]ety of pernitions and dostru­ctory designes, practises and plots, against the wel-being of it, nay, the very being of it, and some of those designes hatched within our owne bowels, and Viper-like work­ing our owne destruction.

They finde Jesuits and Priests conspiring with ill Ministers of State to destroy our religion, they finde ill Ministers conjoyned together to subvertiour Lawes and liberties, they finde obstructions of justice, which is the life and blood of every estate, and having free passage from the Sovereigne power, where it is primarily seat­ed as the life and blood in the heart, and thence deri­ved through the judicatories, on through so many veines into all the parts of this great Collective Body, doth give warmth and motion to every part and member which is: nourished and enlivened by it, but being once precluded, stopped, and reared up, as the particular must needs faint, and languish, so must the whole frame of Government be dislolved.

And consequently, Soveraignty it selfe which (as the heart in the body, is primum vivens, & altimum moriens, must die and perish in the generall dissolution, and all things as in the beginning in antiquum Chaos.

My Lords, They finde the property of the subject in­vaded and violated, his estate rent from him by illegall taxations, Monopolies, and projects almost upon every thing that is for the use of man, not only upon superflu­ities, but necessaries [...] and that to enrich the Vermine and Caterpillers of th [...] [...] impoverish good sub­jects, to take the Messe from the Children, and give it to Dogs.

My Lords; If the Commons finde these things, they conceive they must needs bee ill Counsels that have brought us into this condition.

These Counsels have put all into a combustion, have discouraged the hearts of all true English men, and brought two Armies into our bowels, which is the Vul­ture upon Prometheus, cates through, and sucks and gnawes our very hearts out. Hic Dolor, sed ub [...] Medicina?

Heretofore Parliaments were the Catholicall, the balme of Gilead, which healed our wounds, restored our spirits, and made up the breaches of the Land.

But of late yeares they have been like the fig-tree in the Gospell, without efficacy, without fruit, only destru­ctive to their particular members, who discharged their duties and consciences, no way benesiciall to the Com­mon-wealth. Nobis exitiale, nec Reipublicae profuturum, As he said in Tacitus, being taken away still as Elias was with a whirle-winde, never comming to any maturity, or to their naturall end, whereas they should be like the blessed old man, who dyeth, plenus dierum, in a full age after he had fought a good sight, and overcome all his enemies, or as the shock of wheat, which commeth in due season to fill our Granaries with Corne, uphold our lives with the staffe of bread, for Parliaments are our panis quotidianus, our true bread, all other waies are but Quelkachoes which yeeld no true nourishment, bread, nor good blood.

The very Parliament which hath sate so long, hath but beat the aire, and strive against the streame, I may truly say the winde and tide hath been still against us. The same ill Counsell which first raised the storme, and almost shipwrackt the Common-wealth, they still con­tinue, they blow strong like the East winde that brought the Locusts over our Counsels, crosse our designes, cast difficulties in our way, hinder our proceedings, and make all that we doe to be fruitlesse and ineffectuall: They make us not masters of our businesse, and so not masters of mony, which have been the great businesse of this Parliament, that we might pay the Armies, accor­ding to our promises and engagements.

For my Lords, our not effecting of the good things [Page] which we had undertaken, for the good of the Church, and of the Common-wealth, hath wounded our reputa­tion, and taken off from our credit.

Is it not time then my Lords, that we should unite and concentrate our selves, in regard of this Antiperista­sis, of hurtfull and malicious intentions and practices against us?

My Lords, it is most agreeable to nature, and I am sure most agreeable to reason, in respect of the present conjuncture of our affaires, for one maine engine by which our enemies worke our mischiefe, is by infusing an opinion and beliefe into the world, that we are not united among our selves. But like Sampsons Foxes, wee draw severall waies, and tend to severall ends.

To defeat the Counsels of these Achitophels, which would involve us, Our Religion, our being, our Lawes, our liberties, and that can be neare and deare unto an ho­nest soule, in one universall and generall desolation, to defeat I say, the Counsels of evill Achitophels; the Knights, Citizens & Burgesses of the house of commons (knowing themselves to be specially entrusted with the preservation of the whole, and in their Conscience are perswaded that the dangers are so eminent, as they will admit of no delay) have thought fit to declare their uni­ted affections by entring into an association amongst themselves, and by making a solemne protestation and vow unto their God, that they will unanimously endea­vour to oppose and prevent the Counsels and Counsel­lors which have brought upon us all these misceries, and the feares of greater, to prevent the ends and bring the Authors of them to condigne punishment, and thereby discharge themselves better before God and man.

The Protestation your Lordships shall have read un­to you, together with the ground and reasons which have induced the house of Commons to make it which are prefixed before it by way of Preamble. Then the Pro­testation was read by M. Maynard.