I Meane not to spatter or dash inke upon any person of either whose fame, or modera [...]e credit. I am neither by nature, nor cust [...]me a man of lower councells, and besides born by Religion, and the gravitie o [...] my calling, summon me to beware of [...]ayl [...]ng language, which is none other thing then, Sputum Diaboli the Flegme, and Spawling of the Devill. Strong [...]nes never g [...]i [...]ed upon any but weake heads. Wisest men are erned and won by soft words and strong arguments. I am a Yorkeshire man by birth and most by resience, and was so long an eye witnesse and specta­tor of this Tragedy of civill Warre, till the S [...]ag was all on fi [...]e. That which I undertake is no more, then to bestow a few pen fulls of Inke, and one halfe sheete of paper, to shew that the taking of this Oath, can hold no proportion with the deliberate, and advised actions of a man either religious, and fearing God, or of a man no more than morally rationall and prudentiall.

And first I would have him who is concerned herein to ob­serve [Page 4] with what a specious shew the crafts-men of this Oath have laid the first stone of it, to wit, in the very words of the Oath of Supremacie, that our Soveraigne Lord King Charles, is the true and lawful King of England, and of all other his Dominions. Well said; but why doe you not goe on, and that neither the Pope not any other f om him, &c hath power to dispose of his Kingdome, &c. but of the Pope, and those Ecclesiasticall pow rs, not a word or syllable in this oath. You are apprehended in the very act, and the case is so plaine, that impudence it selfe cannot deny, but that it is done to advantage the Papists in their Diana of the Pops Supremacie and jurisdiction over the Crowns, and Scepters of all Emperours, Kings and Princes. Wee all know the two breves of Pope Pius the fifth, to the Papists of England, and the letter of Cardinall Bellarmine to Blackwell the Arch-Priest, the declaring the sin­fulnesse, and unlawfulnesse of that Oath of Supremacie, assuring that it cannot be taken with a good Conscience, that it is destruct­ive to one of the maine Articles of the Romish faith, the prima­cie and superintendencie of the Sea of Rome: that it is to bee re­tracted, and rep nted by those who have taken it out of weake­nesse or feare, &c. King Iames that learned and notable Prince: tooke pen in hand, and whe ted his stile masculinely to discover these grand juglings and impostures in a just tractate, which is to be red in his workes, the more hate and blame will lye upon those who pretending zeale to the service of his sonne, will thus ex­pose, him and his Crowne, to the greatest enemies that ever the Crowne of England had. The Sea of Rome.

Secondly I would have it observed, that if this Oath and the pur­port of it bee bolted to the bran and considered à basso ad altum, and the fairest construction allowed unto it that may be in reason pretended unto, that thus much will follow by good conclusion, that if not only the King (whom God blesse & whom we will not asperse with suspitions) but if the Souldiers and Generalls who have Commission from him (many of w ^ch without any breach of Charity at all, according to the strictest Casuists in point of Con­science, I may and ought to be jealous of) should strive or have it in designe to introduce Popery, Liberty, and prophanenesse, Ty­ranie, and Slavery, Monopolies, and Taxes, even élotione, and the [Page 5] bre [...]king of this Parliament and consequently of all others ever to succ [...]ed, further then to bee meerely nominall, I am bound (if a wr [...]ng a [...]d unjust Oath could binde a man to any more then to repentance) both not to resist, and even to assist them therein, in the contriving and incompassing their wicked designes. Nay nothing in this Oath withstands, why the swearer of it should not introduce Iudaisme, Mahometanisme, Paganisme, if the Generalls and Souldiers who have Commission derived from the KING, would have it so.

Thirdly, it may well be noted, in how broade a difference, the Nationall Covenant (which is their Cor dolium, and whereat they so much storm) and this Oath doth run. That propounds the de­fence of the person and just rights of the King, the settling of the Protestant Religion, the due liberty of the Subject, the priviledges of Parliament, the extirpation of Popery and Prelacy, the union & uniformity of two Nations, whom God and nature have made one in deviding them from all the world, uniting them in one Iland, and under one Monarch, &c.

These are heads worthy to bee the theame of an Oath, and baites which may catch prudent, and good men, and even warm and kindle a man by degrees from nutrality to Zeale.

This Oath leads a man on in a blind obedience, sayes not a word of the Cause or reasons of either offensive or defensive armes, but thinks to over awe the conscience with persons, first the King (w ^ch indeed is a venerable name, and wherein it weighs lesse then ever it did, it is principally occasioned by those who pretends to be his friends and supporters, then forsooth, his Generalls and Souldiers a generation of men, whom if we had never known or fel, perhaps we might have had some tollerable conceits of them, but whilst we k [...]ow there is nothing, lesse then any thing of either a Chri­stian, Gentleman, or Souldier in very many of them, that they have spoyled & laid wast the largest and goodliest Country in the Kin [...]s domminions and behaved themselves as so many Bores in a garden, o the infinit and irreparable prejudice of others, and even with little or none advantage to their owne side, that the generall himselfe however he may pretend to point of honour and Court­ship, [Page 6] and indeed is a man of more state and difficult accesse then the King is by many degrees, & can cary himselfe stately, keepe distance entertaine a Mistris, &c. yet in truth is one who never laid any Religion to heart, nor hath any thing of a Souldier in him, but is wholy steered by Gene all King, Sir Thomas Glenham Sir William Widring­ton, Colonell Goring whilst he was there, &c. men who have not an Acre of land in our County; Lastly that the most of the Cap­taines and Souldiers are Tygers and Beares for cruelty, bores for wast and devastations, Swine for Drunkenesse, Goats and Stal­lions for Lust, &c. in so much as Captaine Legg, when Iohn Owsman the Post-Master of Yorke did come and tamely enough charge him for violating the Lawes of Hospitality so farre as having, the Com­mand of his whole house he had got his daughter with Child, the Captaine tooke it very ill that he should complaine, and said he had done more then so, he had laine with all in his house, save him selfe, and his Oastler.

Lastly, I desire the grand imposture of all may be detected which indeed hath beene the Master peece of their game, and whereby they have gained more prosylites then by all the rest of their play, which is the frequent using the name of the King and his sa­cred Maiesty and the like, though in truth the same observations that S. Aug. made of the Pelagians, doth heere take the place that they did fill their mouths, and with the word Grace, grace, but it was only frangere invidiam, to break the stroke of envy: so these men cry, Treason, Treason, Rebellion, Reb [...]llion, the King, his sacred Per­son and Crowne, when all is but to put some seeming pacifi­cation on the minds of the vulgar & simple, & to cover over with some modesty their dangerous designes, and uncomly practizes.

And m [...]rke I pray you further how twice in this mould of their Oath, they joyne together the King his Generalls, and Souldiers as if any Yorkshire man who knowes the families of that Coun­try, cannot distinguish betwixt the Swerd of King Charles, and the Sword of an Howard, Dunbarre, Evers, Falconverg Gascoigne, Sayer, Bulmer, Vavasor, Mydulton, Menie [...]l Errington To [...]stall VVil­ham, Salvi [...], Fairfax of Gillings, Gailes, Thuaites, Craythorne, & many more families of that Country who are notorious, Hispaniolized and Iesuited Papists, and all up in this businesse, the yongue men [Page 7] with their Swords, middle men with their Councells & Com­mittees, and the aged with their orizons well; non arabis cum bo­ve et a sino it is an unworthy Conjunction to joyne the King & these men together, and I hope these mens swords shall never fit the Kings Scab [...]rd, but they deale iust as Greg. Nazioanzen in his first Oration against Iulian saith the Pagan Emperors did, who stamped together upon the same coynes the Image of Cesar and of the Pagan Gods, that if the Christians would not adore those Idolls, they might be guilty also of not doing homage to the Em­perour, & so suffer both death & confiscation, so these conjoyne still the King and his Souldiers, that who so disrespects & disobeyes such fellowes as Duncombe, or Duke Holtby, men infamous and stigma­tived in their very moralls, must be said to reflect upon the King himselfe? but do I not know rancide and futile this argument i [...]? did I not see what a strong and cheife influence the Papists had on the Army and Countrie? how all painfull and ho­nest Ministers? were banished, were they never so moderate and cautious in their expressions, or retired in their aboades, only because they would not rant and curvet in pulpits for their cause? did I not see and tell some of the Committee in Yorke that they could not but take notice what a persecution was upon Religion un­der pretence of being for the King? did not the Earle of Newcastle in his Proclamations and edicts give the Papists that soft and oyly terme of those of the Romish Communion? and after did hee no: (weakly and sillily enough God-wot, unlesse he would have had all the world to have knowne our synaiocrateia) insert in his commands, that he did command this and that with the ad­vice and consent of the Queene? and though the old Papists were more cautious in their words at first, did not such of them as we [...]e impetuous and forward, by reason of drinck, or passion, or youth, declare plainely it was not for the King they drew their Sword [...], but for th [...] Queene, and for their own Religion, and preservation: did not young Sayre (a family of 1700 l. Per annum, and yet must have from the Earle of Newcastle a grant of Sir Mathew Boin­tons rents, and others to) say, that he hoped by such a day, there should not be a Round head in Yorke-shire, I meane, quoth he, not a Protestant, but I containe.

[Page 8]Thus have I a little hunted as a Flea, and a Partridge, this unrea­sonable, and dangerous Oath, composed as I verily think, not only for and in behalfe of the Papists, but by them, or their Priests, and Iesuites, or at least, as they say, Mahomet had his Alcoran made up by a Iew, and a Nestorian Monke, to cull out of both religi­ons, what might please most. So I doubt (I will not affirme it, for that were to undervalue my selfe to assert what I am not cer­taine of) that not only some Popish Priests, but perhaps Doctor Balcanquall, Bish. Bramhall, Doctor Couzins, Master Triplit, Master Neale, and such have too much countenanced this Oath.

My advice in a word to my Country men is, that those that have not taken it, will trust God for protection, and not build up matter thereby, for they know not how much sorrow afterwards, if they belong to God, and those that through ignorance or frailty have, they would remember that good and safe rule, In malis promissis rescinde fidem in turpi voto muta decretum, and conclude as the Bish. of Winchester (Andrewes) did in the Star-Chamber, in the case of the Count [...]sse of Shrewsburie, who would not speake in a cause, wherein she should have given testimony, because shee had vow­ed to bee silent. I assure your Ladiship, Madam, quoth hee, you may not onely breake your vow, but vow never to make one so rash and foolish againe.