An expedient for the king, or, King Charls his peace-offering, sacrificed at the altar of peace, for a safe and well-grounded peace the welfare and happiness of all in generall, and every subject in particular, of his kingdom of England Behold! all ye that passe by, stand stil, and see the wonderful salvation of the Lord, which he hath wrought for the people of this kingdom, by his servant King Charls : Blessed are the peace-makers for they shall be called the children of God : Aske of the King, and he shal give you not stones, for bread, nor scorpions, for fish / studied and published for the honour of the King, and his posterity, and the universall happiness of the whole kingdom of England, by Richard Farrar, Esq.

To the Right Honorable Thomas Lord Fairfax, Captain General of all the Forces Of the PARLIAMENT, And to the Lievtenant General, and to all the Commanders and Officers, and every Souldier in the Army.

NExt to His Majesty, the two Honorable Houses of Parlia∣ment, and the Clergy; I presume to make my address to you, The sons of Mars; I would I could say. The sons of Peace. That which I aym at in this my Discourse, (with a peaceful mind, God knows, not wishing ill to any man, but desiring to have peace with all men) is, to perswade you (in whose hand the power of the Sword is) that you would remember you are English∣men; that we have one Common Mother, (the Kingdom wherein we live) whose bowels are dayly ripped up by this bloody unnatural War. When the Soldiers, in the New Testament, demanded of John, What shall we do? he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsly; and be content with your Wages: If any Soldier now, high or low, Commander or Officer, should demand of me what he should do, I should first answer him as S. John did: but in

regard you are Christians (which those Soldiers were not, nor Jews neither, but Romans) I shall take the boldness to say much more then S. John did there to those Soldiers, and yet no more then our Saviour left in Command. For your Pay, to begin there, God forbid you should not have it at the full, and that quickly; You have ventured hard for it, body and soul: My former Expedient for Peace and Safe∣ty, expresses my desire in that; As for Liberty of tender Consciences, I wrote it not out of Fear or for Flattery; but what I did, and do, beleeve, ought to be: But I must profess I am infinitely afflicted to see the high calamity (like to be greater) which by a most bloody intestine War this poor Kingdom groans under; and fain I would find an Expedient for it, at least I would spend my poor talent, to make some stop of this great issue of blood: And therefore I take this boldness to speak to your Excellency (the General,) and all subordinate Officers of this great Army of the Parliament, (not leaving out all those, who have been, and now are in Arms against you,) for my discourse is to all; but my chief aym and hopes are in you: for I am perswaded it is in your power, next to the King, under God, to procure a sudden Peace, (if you will have it the right way, who dare oppose it?) and so suddenly to still the raging and furious fire of this most unnatural War. If you will but practise that lesson (which I have dictated to his Ma∣jesty, the two honorable Houses, and the Clergy) of Self-Denial, how examplary will ye be to all posterity! and how well will it be∣come you, in the midst of all your strength and power, to decline it? I mean not to lay all down instantly, and let your enemies (who, God knows, I beleeve, are far from desiring peace theright way) cut your throats or subject your selves to them: it were folly in you to trust them, and wickedness in me so to counsel you; but you to begin first (though more powerful) and to desire Peace, and endeavor it: If therefore you will begin as I said] with Self-Denial of all Self-In∣terests, be it honor, or profit, or what ever it be, Peace, I think, may be easily obtained: Why do we fight, kill, and ruine one another? Are not we brethren? May not Treaties end it better then the Sword? Remember, I pray you, what Abner said to Joab, Shall the Sword devour for ever? Knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the end? And God saith, He will not pardon innocent blood; and I am sure, there can be no War where many Innocents [yea those that know not the right hand from the left] do not suffer: God will not be an∣swered by your saying, It is the inevitable fate that accompanies War,

it cannot be avoyded: The question will then be, Who bid you go to War? S. John bid you, Do violence to no man: and Christ he comes but a very little after the Baptist with Forgive your enemies, Away, saith he, with an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, &c. (that is, wrong for wrong:) Bless them that curse you &c. And surely it were the best Christian Courtship to appease all differences by Peace: The blood-thirsty man, saith the Scripture, shall not live out half his days: and if he do grow old in blood here (as few do) yet shall he never see the Lord in the Land of the living, unless he get it with a hearty repentance; and what hope can he have that dyes in a battel, killing, and killed? whose soul in the instant of separation, is wrapped and enveloped with rage, revenge, blood, horrot, and height of fury against his opposite; (as the body, for the most part, at the same time, is environed with dreadful sounds, howlings and shriekings, with fire and smoak, the very Emblem of Hell it self.) And what sayes our Saviour: As the Tree falls, so it lyes: I would to God, every souldier would think of this hourly, and beleive it ever: Suppose, I pray you: A common drunkard (whose practise it is dayly so to be, dyes drunk, by a fall or other accident, as we have had many such fearfull examples;) doe, or can you in any charity hope well of such a soul? shall he be received into the everlasting joyes? the like of A∣dultery or fornication (I speak of a common adulterer and fornicator) whose God is his lust, who dyes in the arms of his Dalilah▪ can you hope well of him? I am sure it is a high presumption so to speak: sure I am his case is Fearfull, and by the Rule of Scripture we may be hold to judge no hapinesse could arrive that soul so dying. The Case is the same with those that dayly fight battells (nay, who long for it if but a little retarded;) if war be unlawfull, (I dispute it not, I take it for granted:) and I am sure by the new Testament utterly condemned: Now, if so, he that dyes killing, and killed (as I said before;) what a most miserable condition is that soul in? for their works, good or bad▪ follow them, saith the scripture: doe they so? in what a state then is that soul in dog'd and clog'd with such deeds of darknesse before, at, & after the expansion of it? what time is there of repentance, when the outward man is in such a Confusion and horror? for battells afford not many quiet and calme slumbers. Sure I am, he that is lives by the mercy of God most strictly, & with S. Paul mortifies himself, and dyes dayly to the world; yet such a soul works out it is salvation with Fear & Trem∣bling, and finds it (not too) scarce well prepared for its seperation. Iudge

then ye Men of war. E. Contra. Remember for Gods sake, for your souls sake, what our Saviour saith, Matth. 24. 48. But if that evil ser∣vant shall say in his heart, my lord delayeth his coming, and shall be∣gin to smite his fellow servants &c. The Lord of that servant shall come in a day that he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him assunder, and appoint him his portion with Hypocrites; there shall be weeping, and gnashing of Teeth. Our Saviour denonneeth all this woe, but for smiting of a fellow servant: what would he have said, of Plundering, Murdering, Ravishing, ut∣terly ruining the poor, the Fatherlesse, and the widows? This is vio∣lence in a high degree: and how Guilty the Souldiers of this land, (on both sides King and Parliament) have been in all this seven years war, I leave to God to judge; and those to lament it, who have seen and felt it. I know will the common question shall we stand still, and have our Throates cut? I say not so. I know offences must come: [Christ says it] but he likewise saith, woe be to them by whom offences doe come: And the Apostle sayes, have Peace with all men, if it be possible; he doeth not for all that add, but if you cannot have Peace Peacefully, fight, kill, &c. O no, he could not preach such a doctrine: how easy were it to spend sheets of paper to prove this by very texts of Scripture, viz. the unlawfulnesse and wickednesse of war: [yet I am no Anabaptist:] Are the works of war from the Principles of light and love, if so, well and good, happy your souls; if not, and there be self-in∣terest in it, Pride, Malice, Rage, Revenge, Ill yea ill indeed is it with your souls without Repentance; [& no man repents who forsakes not the evill way••••] I am sure those works come out of the Principle of Fire and darknesse, out of Hell it self. And such a people, such a God. saith the Psalmist. His servants ye are whom ye obey: with the froward thou art Froward, and with the holy thou art holy, saith the Psalmist, speaking of God: God still. But God in his Excellency is Love: for God, saith the Apostle, is Love: and for certain the Children of God are the sons of Peace. My Peace I leave with you, was our Saviours Legacy: To conclude, no man, I say, no Man must doe evil that good may come of it: and I am sure, our war for these eight years hath done no good in Church or state; [though God knows best where a True Church is, and we poor subjects can at the present scarce discern where the state is, involved on all hands with misteries and ruines:] And for any man, be he Emperour or King, State or Republick, I am confident the sin as great, yea greater then great in the eyes

of God, to begin a War: and if the hearts of such were searched (as God can, doth, and will.) it would be found, it is Self-Interest, let them plead and say what they wil; and to fight for Religion, for Re∣formation, be they who they will, they have no true Christian Reli∣gion in them: Religion, by all Kings, since Christs time, hath been made but the stalking horse, to catch up their other ends in the world: With∣out holiness no man shall see God: Is there holiness in War? be not deceived, God will not be mocked. Let the Souldier therefore lay by all Self-Interest; in your Declarations you have professed it, and seek the Peace of the Kingdom, the setling of the King in his just Rights, Him and his Children, the Parliament in their Priviledges, the Subject in their true Liberties from Tyrannical Government, and Arbitrary too; You have promised it, do it; and the King, I beleeve, is ready to per∣form his part: but do it by Love, by Peace; and God shall bless you, and you shall find rest to your souls: but if you proceed to do it by blood, on that you will have a Peace of your own moulding: I pray remember your own words, p. 4. nothing more abhorring to you then a new flame of War: I fear, that will not discover the practise of Self-Denial to be yet embraced of you; and had you all your desires for this world, (as I am confident the Souldiers profession, Kings and Subjects, have rare∣ly, or never obtained their hopes, the reason is, the blood that is by them spilt, which God abhors:) Look upon the King of Swede, see his end, kil'd in a Battel, by one of his own side, it is thought; and see yet how his people fare, and what rest have they, or when are they like to have any?) Yet what shall it profit a man, saith Christ, (beleeve him ye men of War) to win the whole world (thats more then a Kingdom) and lose his own soul? I speak to all who adore and dote on that Heathen God, Mars (War,) rightly interpreted according to the Dialect of the Holy Ghost, by the Apostles, in divers places, the very Devil himself. Now the works of the flesh, saith S. Paul, Gal. 5. 19. are manifest, which are these, Adultery, Fornication, Ʋncleanness, Lasciviousness, Idolatry, Witcheraft, Hatred, Variance, Emulations, Wrath, Strife, Seditions, Heresies, Envyings, Murthers, Drunkenness, Revelings, and such like; of the which I tell you now, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not wherit the King∣dom of God. But the Fruit of the Spirit is Love, Joy, Peace, Long∣suffering, Gentleness, Goodness, Faith, Meekness, Temperance, against such there is no Law. And they that are Christs, have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts: If we live in the Spirit, let us also

walk in the Spirit: Let us not be desirous of vain-glory, provoking one another, envying one another.

You have held out Reformation in Church and State, take heed of Deformation in both, or rather utter ruin of all: where is your Com∣mission to proceed in blood? Learn of me, (saith Christ) for I am humble and meek: Is there meekness in War? He that taketh up the sword, shall perish with the sword, (saith Christ.) I know well, he once asked his Disciples for a sword; he was answered, there were two; he said it was enough, and perhaps thought it too much; he did not bid them use it, nor did he ever make use of it, or command it, but the contrary. You are Subjects, as well as I am; remember you are so: and you are (or were) Servants also to the Parliament, who employed you. Act both parts according to Reason and Religion, and then this bleeding Kingdom shall ow no small share of its happiness to you; but if you fail to do it, assure your selves the end cannot be good: Love is the fulfilling of the Law. Now the God of Peace, and the Peace of God which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the Fear and Love of God, &c. So prays he, (that beleeves no man should dare to say the Lords Prayer, Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us, if he wash his hands in the blood of another, by War.) Who is,

My Lord,

Your Excellencies most humble Servant Richard Farrar.