Equitable and Necessary CONSIDERATIONS AND RESOLUTIONS FOR Association of Arms Throughout The Counties of the kingdom of England, and principality of Wales:  
Against the now 
* In the Earl of Newcastles Declaration, printed first at York, & since reprinted at London.  professed Combination of Papists, and other Enemies of the Protestant Religion, and English Rights and Liberties.  
To be presented to the Gentry and Commonalty of the County of Middlesex, at their meeting at Hix-hall the 26. of December, 1642.  
And no less conducing to the safety of other Counties, especially of Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Cheshire, where the Malignant Commissioners of Array have been most rampant.  HAB. 1.13. 
Wherefore lookest thou on them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue, when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?  JUDG. 6.12. 
The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.  
London, Printed for THOMAS UNDERHILL. 1642.   

Equitable and Christian Considerations and Resolutions of divers worthy and Well-minded Inhabitants of Middlesex, published in Print (rather than communicated in written hand, that they may be more speedily divulged and more readily used) by a true Z●lot of the welfare, as of all the Counties of England in general, so especially of that County in particular: For assistance and succour to the Religious and well-affected Ministers and people there residing, against the injurious and licentious violation of their persons, liberties and estates; By Popish, profane, and other malicious and mischievous disturbers of the public Peace, threatening thereby (as by the like Tyranny and spoil in other places) the utter ruin of the Kingdom, if the true Patriots (in all parts) do not quickly and courageously make head against them.  
1. IT is apparent to all (who are not naturally stupid, or wilfully blind) that of late there is risen up (in arms) a combination of boisterous and violent men, who (uniting themselves under the specious pretence of loyalty, and service to the King) endeavour to make the breach betwixt His Majesty and the high Court of Parliament, unreconcilable, and (with all the power they can raise in His Name) so to pull down all the Privileges and Proprieties of this noble Nation, as to make it of a Kingdom of ingenuous and freeborn Subjects, a Thraldom of mere servile and slavish Vassals.  
2. That these men (if we may call them men, who for a great part of them seem to have put off the appearance of humanity, by their barbarous manners) have most exercised their outrageous wrongs upon those who have been most noted for Religion, civility, and united fidelity to King and Kingdom.  
3. That (howsoever they have had, and shown their greatest spite at such) they have spoiled many others, who neither in profession nor in affection forted with them; 
〈◊〉 ̄●x locio ●e quo ●ixitd●l●is edor ●ucr●ex ●equali●et.  therein making no more difference betwixt their goods, which they equally love (though their personal hate be excessively bend against the best in all states) then Vespian did betwixt the money he received from the Impost of Urine, & that which came in from the noblest tribute.  
4. That being such, it is not like that (of themselves) they will set any reasonable bounds, to their own proceed, nor will give over their violent invasion of the persons and estates of men and women, until (by some adverse and prevailing power) they be stopped.  
5. That though His Majesty (as became a good and just Prince) hath set out severe Proclamations against plundering of His people by the Soldiers of his own Army (and he meaneth not to give that liberty to any other, which he denieth to them) and have engaged his Royal word for the righting of them who suffer wrong by their hands; yet we see (by sad experience) that these prohibitions produce no further effect, then to clear His Majesty from approbation of such notorious injustice (for they are not Daunted by a printed paper from their practice of pillage, since they impute His Majesty's dislike of such do, to his ignorance of the privilege of their military profession, and the oppressed are discouraged from having recourse to him for remedy against them) for they may have just cause to fear, that they who claim a licence (by the sword) to carve out of other men's estates what portion they please, will waylay the complainants, and find a way not only to frustrate their desires of relief, but to return them with an increase and aggravation of their injuries.  
6. That if this spirit of violence should march on (as hitherto it hath done) for want of seasonable and sufficient resistance, it would prevail to victory, and by a warlike conquest would subdue both King and Kingdom. For although we think so well of His Majesty, and honour him so much, that we cannot find in our hearts to make any culpable comparison betwixt him and the Turk, we must needs think so ill of them, who have not only withdrawn him, and do yet withhold him from his most wise and faithful Council (the High Court of Parliament) but abuse his power, to manage a most pernicious hostility against them, and (in them) against the whole state and people of England, that they would prove no better than the worst sort of Turkish Janissaries, (who have some times insolently Lorded it over their own Lords and masters, so as to make him but a Royal Slave, as well as exercised a tyrannical Domination over his Subjects, though His Majesty's name should still be used, and his authority strained up to uphold them, and bear them out in all their exorbitant and abominable excesses; And therefore though the King should prove more prudent and constant than Solomon in perseverance to defend the faith in the best and soundest sense of His Royal stile, and should shut his ears to the solicitations of the Queen, while she opens hers to listen to the inspirations of the Popish Faction, who have plied her with persuasions to double the spirit of her mother upon her, and to make her the midwife of that pernicious Plot, against the Protestants, which is so furiously driven on, for their utter destruction aswell in England as in Ireland, and will draw on the like danger upon Scotland and the Netherlands, if they make themselves but mere spectators of our manifold miseries; that we must expect no sincerity or purity of the Protestant Religion to be established amongst us, but either the whole Mass of Popish Superstition and Idolatry, to be obtruded upon us, or some mongrel compound (like the Childish-Dialect, descended from the mixed marriage; of the woman of Ashdod with the men of Israel▪) made up of many ounces of Popery, Arminianism, and carnal Liberty, tempered with a few Drams of Orthodox Doctrine, but without so much as one scruple of precise practice in the profession of piety.  
No Peace without submitting our necks to an Iron yoke; No Parliament but such as would establish oppression and tyranny by Statute Law, and (besides other deposed pressures) would restore the Tyrannical Prelacy, High-Commission, and Star-Chamber, which (in their return) will bring (with them) the malignity of seven spirits, worse than the former, to make the persecution of all true and real Christians (like Nebuchadnezzers fiery-furnace) seven times hotter than it was before.  
No Justices of Peace but such as are professed friends to the Apostatical part of the Parliament, and fomenters of that burning fever (now inflaming the blood through all the veins of the body politic) or rather of that furious wildfire [of the Commission of Array] which hath put the whole Kingdom into a terrible Combustion: and as professed enemies to the constant part of the Parliament, (the faithful careful courageous Patrons of our Religion, Lives, Liberties, and estates, who remain as the sound, and solid wheat, when the hollow and empty chaff is blown away) and to those, who in conscience (out of true grounds of grace, and gratitude) account themselves bound (for the just and necessary security of what they desire to enjoy) to adhere unto them.  
No Assizes without such a Sheriff, Jury and Judges, as would take away the lives and estates, of the worthiest persons, in a worse way, then by the sword of War: for so (if their cause be good) they might die as Martyrs; but in such a formality of justice, as they must come under, (if such as those get the upper, hand) they shall be first rob of their innocency, and (that done) they must forfeit their lives, and all they have, (as convicted Malefactors) that was Nabothes case, under the tyrannical Reign of Ahab and Jesabell.  
8. That these professed enemies to all true Protestants in belief and life, have advanced so fare, in their way towards the ruin of the Kingdom;  
Neither by the greatness of their number, (for in their musters, they have many who hate their Conditions and carriage, in the present cause, and long to be delivered from the bondage, to which some relations of dependence have betrayed them.)  
Nor by their power, for i● is very small in respect of that, which is engaged to the safeguard of the whole Kingdom, from their destructive designs.  
Nor by their courage, though many of them may be the more forward to fight, because they have little to lose, having forfeited their lives and estates to public justice, which they hope to escape, rather by boldness in Battle (a boldness more desperate than valorous) then by yielding up themselves to the trial of the Parl: [much less have they— any good success; by the goodness of their Cause, which the more it is known, the more it is condemned by all truly wise and welminded men, and which at last must come to naught, (though for a time God may suffer them (as he did the wicked Amorites to make up the measure of their iniquity) because it is a most impious and bloody Combination against God and the godly.  
[But by their subtlety, in guilding over their treacherous intentions towards the state, with glorious pretences of dutiful vindication of Royal Majesty, from unsufferable affronts and wrongs, and in defaming the defence (by the Law of Nature and Nations allowed to oppressed people) with the odious imputation of Rebellion and Treason; [By falsifying their words and oaths, when by others credulity they were admitted to a power to do mischief; [By lying Relations to countenance their own cause and party in Print, which are not Printed without their knowledge and against their wills, as those Pamplets are, which seem to be published in favour, but indeed both displease and dishonour the Parliament, and that so much, that it is probable (at least of some of them) that they may be put out, by some Anti-parliamentary Politicians, to make the world believe that they make lies their refuge, and so are no more to be believed then themselves; [by confident outfacing of any truth that makes against them; [by hypocritical protestations of integrity towards preservation of the Protestant Religion, and the Realms, and the presumptuous appeal, to the majesty of God, when they make them; [By witty and well-penned Declarations (wherein sound reason and true Logic is drowned in the overflowings of Rhetoric, as Bees are sometimes drowned in their own Honey) giving as fair words as need to be spoken, to make the people content to put up as bad and injurious deeds, as ever were done in a Protestant Kingdom: by this means many are beguiled (if not rather bewitched) who are not of capacity to comprehend the whole state and condition of the present War on both sides, with the many causes whence it arose, the means by which it is promoted, and the ends whereat they would have it arrive; [by terrible threats and outrageous Acts (conjuring down feeble spirits from their hearts to their heels) [By intentive vigilancy for all advantages, and vigorous industry (Like his, who goeth about as a roaring Lion, seeking whom he may devour) by Civil War to bring that desolation upon their Country, in a few Months, from which a whole age of peace cannot redeem it; [But especially by the inconsideration, and remissness of those, who (while they enjoyed their own estates free) were not apprehensive of the spoiling of others, nor considered how soon it might come to their turn, to be rifled and rob in like manner.  
9 That the Parliament (the representative body of the whole Kingdom, and the great Council of the King) having upon such grounds as these, or some of them, concluded and resolved, that it is not only lawful but needful to withstand such dangerous and desperate invadors of our Protestant Religion, and our English Rights; we hold it our duties, to resolve and presently to put in practice, all just and warrantable ways of Association and mutual aid, for the freedom of ourselves, children, neighbours, and Country men from their lawless lusts, and intolerable tyranny, as from a confederacy of thiefs, murderers and Anabaptists, not of Christian Anabaptists (who out of mistaken charity would have all things common among believers) but of such, as are Unchristian and Antichristian who would take away the bounds of men's proper interests, and being (in Condition) like the wild Beast of the Forest, would break down all partition walls, and pales of propriety, that they may make spoil of our Houses, Gardens, Fields and pleasant Pastures, and finding the Land as a Garden of Eden before them, may leave it all behind them as a desolate Wilderness, from whom we cannot hope to be delivered by the service of mere mercenary sword men (who take up the practice of killing for a trade of life) but chief by our own undertake, and the blessing of God upon our endeavours, and adventures, directed to his glory and welfare of our Country.  
10. That (not meddling with any disputable points of questioned privileges) we will engage ourselves (according to the duty we own to christian piety and common humanity) to a just defence of our own and our fellow Subjects undoubted rights, especially in these particulars.  
1. That the Ministers and people of England may sociably and safely meet for the celebration of God's public worship, and the salvation of their souls, without fear of violent attempts and assaults upon their bodies, which be most endangered on the days of their solemn assemblies, whereof the sons of Belial make an especial choice for cruel encounters, having no respect at all to the Lords day, unless it be to make the Dominical Letter a Symball of bloody slaughters of the Lords servants.  
2. That every one may enjoy that particular portion of comfort in his wife, children, and estate which God hath given him.  
3. That Tillage, without which, neither King nor people can be supported, may not be interrupted by giving the Husbandman cause to fear, that the pains and cost of seed time, shall not be recompensed by an harvest.  
4. That the provision of corn, in Barnes and Garneries, may not injuriously be taken from the owners, nor wastefully bestowed upon beasts, whereby a famine may be like to be brought upon men.  
5. That the high ways may be safe for intercourse of posts, carriers, and other travellers, upon their just and lawful occasions.  
6. That markets and other means of common commerce for the general benefit of the Kingdom may be continued, without force or fear of armed enemies of the Kingdom, in Cities and Towns of most trade and traffic.  
7. That Justice may be done upon such, as make no scruple (but rather make it their delight and glory) to undo the best affected and behaved people of the Land: and that while poor thiefs for petty pilferies, (pricked on unto them happily by the sharp goad of necessity) are kept in rags, fettors and dungeons, such great thiefs and burgliers may not be suffered to ride in scarlet, and to range about and rob and spoil at their pleasures, as now they do, to the great scorn and contumely, of the justice of the King and Parliament, and of all the judicatories of the Kingdom.  
And while we take up arms to these ends, we hold ourselves not more bound (with our hands) to resist the personal assaults of such pernicious enemies, then with our true manners to oppose theirs, their bold impieties with our lawful fear of the Majesty of God, their profaneness with our holiness of life, their desperate and God damne-me Oaths and execrations, with our making scruple conscience of an Oath; their unruly lusts, and corcupiscence with our regular continence, their drunkenness with our sebrietie, their unreasonable rapine with our equitable justice; their violence and boldness with as much moderation and mildness on our part, as the necessary defence of so good a cause, and so many good people will possibly permit. And in all this we shall endeavour faithfully to perform, the duty we own to God, the King, Parliament and people of His Majesty's Dominions, Deeply charged upon us, by our late solemn Protestation; and while we do this we will encourage ourselves in the service by the words of holy Hezekiah (as pertinent to us in our present cause and condition) Be strong and courageous, be not afraid or dismayed at the number or power of your enemies, for there be more with us then with them, with them is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us, and to fight our Battles, and the people rested themselves upon these words. 2 Chr. 32.7, 8. And so will we do. Finis.