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IT is not any Ambition to be in Print, when so few spare Paper and the Presse, nor any instigations of private revenge or malice (though sew that dare be ho∣nest now want their causes) that have prevailed with me to make my sel•• the Authour of a Pamplet, and to disturbe that Quiet which at present I enjoy, by his Highnes great favour and injustice. Nor am I ignorant to how little purpose I shall imploy that time and paines, which I shal bestow upon this Paper. For to thinck that any reasons or perswasions of mine, or convictions of their own, shall draw men from any thing wherein they see profit or security, or to any thing wherein they fear losse, or see dan∣ger, is to have a better opinion both of my self and them, then either of us both deserve.
Besides, the subject it self is of that nature, that I am not onely to expect danger from ill men, but censure and disallowance from many that are good; for these opinions only lookt upon, not lookt into (which all have not eyes for) will appear bloody and cruel; & these compellations I must expect from those that have a zeal, but not according to knowledge: If therefore I had considered my self, I had spared what ever this is of paines, and not dista∣sted so many, to please so few, as are in mankinde, (the honest and the wise.) But at such a time as this, when God is not onely exercising vs with a usuall and common calamitie, of letting us fall into slavery, that used our liberty so ill; but is pleased so farr to blinde our un∣derstandings, and to debase our spirits, as to suffer us to court our bondage, and to place it amongst the requests we put up to him; Indignation makes a man break that silence that prudence would perswade him to use; if not to work upon other mens mindes, yet to ease his own.
A late Pamphlet tels us of a great designe discovered against the person of his Highnes & of the Parlements comming (for so does that junto prosane that name) to congratulate with his Highnes, his happy deliverance from that wicked and bloody attempt. Besides this that they have Ordered that God Almighty shalbe mockt with a day of thanksgiving (as I thinck the world is with the plot) & that the people shal give publique thanks for the publique cala∣mitie, that God is yet pleased to continue his judgements upon them, and to frustrate all meanes that are used for their deliverance: Certainly none will now deny that the English are a very thankfull people. But I thinck if we had read in Scripture that the Israelites had cryed unto the Lord, not for their own deliverance, but the preservation of their Task ma∣sters, and that they had thanked God with Solemnity that Pharaoh was yet living, and that there was still great hopes of the daily encrease of the number of their Bricks: Though that people did so many things not onely impiously and profanely, but ridiculously and absurdly, yet certainly they did nothing we should more have wondered at, then to have found them Ceremoniously thankfull to God for plagues, that were commonly so brutishly unthankfull for mercies; And we should have thought that Moyses had done them a great deal of wrong, if he had not suffered them to enjoy their slavery and left them to their Tasks & Garlick.
I can with justice say my principal intention in this Paper is not to declaim against my L. Protectour or his Accompl••es, for were it not more to justifie others then to accuse them, I should think their own actions ••••d that work sufficiently, and I should not take pains to tell the world what they know before. My designe is to examine whether if there hath been such a plott as we heare of; and that it was contrived by Mr. Sindercombe against my L. Protectour, and not by my L Protectour against Mr. Sindercombe (which is doubtfull) whether it deserves those Epithites Mr. Speaker is pleased to give it, of bloody wicked, and proceeding from the Prince of darknesse. I know very well how uncapable the vulger are of considering what is extraordinary & singular in every case, and that they judge of things, and name them by their exteriour appearances, without penetrating at all into their causes or natures. And without doubt when they heare the Protectour was to be kil'd, they streight conclude a man was to be murdered, not a malefactour punished: for they think the formalities do alwayes make the thing themselves, and that tis the Judge and the Cryer that makes the justice, and the Goal the Criminall: And therfore when they read in the Pamplet Mr. Speakers speech, they certainly think he gives these Plotters their right titles; and, as readily as a High-court of Justice, they condemn them, without ever examining whether they would have killed a Magistrate, or destroyed a Tyrant, over whom every man is naturally a Judge and an Exe∣••••tioner; and whom the laws of God, of nature, and of nations expose, like Beasts of prey, 〈◊〉〈◊〉 be destroyed ••s they are met.
That I may be as plain as I can, I shall first make it a question (which indeed is none) whe∣ther my Lord Protectour be a Tyrant or not? Secondly, if he be. Whether it is lawfull to do ••ustice upon him without Solemnitie, that is, to Kill him? Thirdly, if it be lawfull, Whether 〈◊〉〈◊〉 is like to prove profitable or noxious to the Common-wealth?