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assisted, on his own terms, to recover his

those in this nation that have appeared for the parlia ment against the encroachments of the prerogative. Nor let them flatter themselves, that they shall scape better than others, because they never opposed this princes person. It will be ground sufficient for his hatred, that they bandied against his father, and the prerogative, to which he is heir. Nor is it likely he will forget the observation made by one of his chaplains, in a sermon before him at the Hague; how that the presbyterians held his father by the hair, and the independents cut off his head; nor is it to be supposed that we shall have many parliaments hereafter; for, besides the provocations given by parliament, it is against the nature of kings to love parliaments or assemblies of their people; and it was left as a legacy by king James to his family, in his Basilicon Doron, that his successors should neglect parliaments as much as might be so that consider how this prince is en◄ gaged, not only by the interest of the crowne, his par ticular personal interest of revenge, but also by the precepts of his grandfather, and the common inclination of all monarchs; and we may easily imagine what will become of parliaments, and parliament patriots, if ever he get possession."—" And whereas many adhered to the prince, in their hearts, in hope they shall be eased of excise and taxes, &c. if he be restored, they are exceedingly mistaken. If now we have burdens, we must then look to have furrows made upon our backs. If now we are, through necessity, put to endure a few whips; we shall then, of set purpose, be chastised with scorpions. It is not an excise, or

Case of the Commonwealth, p. 40-45 See also note 36.

other dominions. This was Ireland; where

an army, that we shall escape; but be visited with whole legions of foreign desperadoes, which must be fed with greater payments than ever, and God knows when we shall be rid of them, if the prince settle upon their shoulders! Consider, how many hungry Scots gape after this gude land, who, with those of other nations, must be satisfied out of the purses of our own, whilst those that are their leaders will be gratified with this, that, and the other mans lands and possessions.Lastly, the princes consideration with the Scots, and our English presbyters (were there no other reason), might be enough to terrify any ingeniously-minded people from giving their assistance, be they royalists or not. For if the kirk be able to bind the prince to hard conditions, and prove (like the sons of Zeruiah) too strong for him, so that his interest bow to theirs, then, instead of a regal (which is more tollerable) we must all stoop to the intollerable yoke of a presbyterian tyranny, that will prove a plague upon the consciences, bodies, and purses of this free nation. The Scots by this means will effect their designe upon us, by stretching their covenant-union to an equality of interest with us in our own affairs: and the English grandees of that party will seat themselves again in the house, and exclude all others, or else a new party shall be called of persons of their own faction; so that if they should carry the day, all the comfort we shall have by casting off the present gover nors, will be only that we shall have these furious jockies for our riders. Things, perhaps, shall be in the old statu quo, as they were when the laté king was at Holdenby, whose son must then lay his scepter at the foot-stool of the kirke, or else they will restore

he had been proclaimed by the marquis

him by leizure (as they did his father) into the exercise of royalty: by which means we should be brought again, as far as ever we were, from a condition of settlement, and the commonwealth reduced to ashes by endless combustions. On the other side, put the case the prince have the better end of the staffe of the presbyters (they relying upon his courtesie, as well as the rest of the people), then, in case he carry the day, they, and all, are at his mercy, and no bar will be in the way to hinder him from an ascent unto an unlimited power. So that you plainly see, this present combination of royallists and presbyters (whichsoever of them be most prevalent) must of necessity put the nation in a hazard between Scylla and Charybdis, that we cannot chuse but fall into one of the pernicious gulphs, either of presbyterian or monarchical tyrannya. The reader doubtless will expect to find what effect this controversy produced on the behaviour of the people, for whose satisfaction, as well as the respective interests of the king and the commonwealth, it was, as pretended, set on foot.

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Bishop Sanderson tells us, "that very many men, known to be well affected to the king and his party, and reputed otherwise both learned and conscientious (not to mention the presbyterians, most of whom, truly for my own part, when we speak of learning and conscience, I hold to be very little considerable), have subscribed the engagement; who in the judgment of charity, we are to presume, would not so have done, if they had not been perswaded the words might be understood in some such qualified sense as might stand

Case of the Commonwealth, p. 47,

of Ormonde, who, having made peace with

with the duty of allegiance to the king.And it was strongly reported and believed that the king hath given way to the taking of the engagement, rather than that his good subjects should lose their estates for refusing the same. Which," adds he, "as it is a clear evidence, that the king, and they who are about him, to advise him, do not so conceive of the words of the engagement, as if they did necessarily import an abandoning the allegiance due to him: so 'tis, if true, a matter of great consideration towards the satisfaction of so many, as, out of that fear only, have scrupled the taking of it. For the doing of that cannot be reasonably thought to destroy the subjects allegiance, which the king, who expecteth allegiance from all his subjects, advisedly, and upon mature deliberation, alloweth them to do "."

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"The sectarian party," says Mr. Baxter, "swallowed the engagement easily, and so did the kings old cavaliers, so far as I was acquainted with them, or could hear of them (not heartily, no doubt, but they were very few of them sick of the disease call'd Tenderness of Conscience, or Scrupulosity): but the presbyterians and the moderate episcopal men refused it (and, I believe, so did the prelatical divines of the king's party for the most part; though the gentlemen had greater necessities). Without this engagement no man must have the benefit of suing another at law (which kept men a little from contention, and would have marr'd the lawyers trade); nor must they have any masterships in the universities, nor travel above so many miles from their houses, and more such penalties,

* Nine Cases of Conscience, p. 94. 8vo. Lond. 1678.

the Irish rebels, had the best part of that

which I remember not (so short-lived a commonwealth deserved no long remembrance). Mr. Vines and Dr. Rainbow, and many more, were hereupon put out of their headships in the universities, and Mr. Sidrach Sympson, and Mr. Jo. Sadler, and such others, put in; yea such a man as Mr. Dell, the chaplain of the army, who, I think, neither understood himself, nor was understood by others any farther than to be one who took reason, sound doctrine, order and concord to be the intolerable maladies of church and state, because they were the greatest strangers to his mind. But poor Dr. Edward Reignolds had the hardest measure; for when he refused to take the engagement, his place was forfeited; and afterwards they drew him to take it, in hopes to keep his place (which was no less then the deanerie of Christ church), and then turned him out of all, and offered his place to Mr. Jos. Caryll; but he refusing it, it was conferr'd on Dr. Owen, to whom it was continued from year to year."

It is well known that Mr. afterwards Lord Chief Justice Hale, among the lawyers; and Seth Ward, who was successively bishop of Exeter and Sarum, made no scruple of submitting to this engagement: which was, if we will speak impartially, drawn up in terms the most moderate, and the least exceptionable of any of the state oaths to which the people had been accustomed. And, to the honour of the then government, it must be also said, that they admitted men to take it in their own sense; as appears in the following passage: "The subscriptions of the army to the engagement were return'd by the general to the parliament;

* Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, b. I. p. 64. fol. Lond. 1696.

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