Principle common to them all and what can that be but the Law of Nature and what is the Law of Nature but the Law of God himself written in mens hearts And therefore it was according to this Law before there was any positive Law of God or Man in the case that Jacob in blessing of his Children before his death did acknowledge Reuben's right of Primogeniture by saying that his was the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power because he was his first-born if he had not forfeited it by defiling his Father's Bed and consequently by committing Incest as well as Adultery crimes punishable by death even in those days as appears by Judah's condemning his Daughter-in-Law Thamar to be burnt supposing her to have been an Adulteress And it was for a crime punishable by death also that Simeon and Levi the two next eldest Sons of Jacob lost the priviledge of their Birth-right also namely for being guilty of the horrible murder of the Inhabitants of the whole City of Shechem And thus the dignity of Excellency and the dignity of Power came to be the Inheritance of Judah Jacob's fourth Son because the three Elder Brothers had forfeited their Right thereunto by being guilty of such Crimes as were punishable by death which guilt of theirs being given by their Father Jacob as a reason why or cause for which they were disinherited from thence we may infer first that naturally or according to the Law of Nature the Eldest and consequently the next in bloud hath a right to inherit before those that are younger or those that are farther off And 2dly That they are not to be excluded from that right of theirs but for some very great crime or unless God who disposeth of all things as he pleaseth do prefer the younger before the elder as he did Jacob before Esau Ephraim before Manasses and David the youngest before all his elder Brethren though Isaac and Joseph and Samuel himself seem to wonder why he did so it being contrary to the dictates of Nature and the general practice of all Mankind and contrary to the general Positive Law of God himself also concerning the descent of Inheritances from Father to Son and if he have no Son to his Daughters and if he have no Daughters to his nearest Kinsman of his Family as is set down at large Numb 27. from Verse the 8th to the 12th compared with Deuteronomy the 21. v. 16. where it is said that if a Man have a younger Son by a Wife that he loves better than he loved her by whom he had his eldest Son he shall not make the Son of his beloved Wife the first-born that is his Heir before the Son of the Wife whom he hated who is indeed the first-born or indeed his eldest and therefore indeed and in right his Heir which right it seems by the Text his Father could not deprive him of or take from him unless he were so rebellious and incorrigible as that he was to be stoned by the People and put to death for it as may be gathered from the Verses immediately following in the aforesaid Chapter So that it seems it was not by the Positive Law of God in the power of the Father to deprive his eldest Son of his Birth right for any thing less than would deprive him of his Life neither was a younger Son to be preferr'd before the eldest as to the Prerogatives of Birth-right because he was a better Man or a better Son because the Prerogative of Birth-right was not founded in Grace but in Nature and therefore though Cain was graceless and impious and Abel a righteous and religious Person yet God tells Cain that he was to rule over Abel which he could have no right or title to but because he was his elder Brother and so was profane Esau to rule over Jacob upon that Account only if he had not sold him his Birth-right and with it his Right and Title to Lordship over him And as this was the way of succeeding in the Government of Families so was it in the Government of Kingdoms also generally amongst the Gentiles as they were led by the light and instinct of Nature only and particularly amongst the Jews by the Positive Law of God as appears by the Catalogue and Genealogy of the Kings of Juda where the eldest of the Sons did always succeed his Father in the Kingdom without interruption unless God himself who is King of Kings was pleased to interpose as he did in the succession of David to Saul and of Solomon to David which were both of them Acts of God's Prerogative and not according to the ordinary course of Law amongst the Jews as appears by Solomon's answer to his Mother Batshebah when she spake to him to let his Brother Adonijah have Abishag the Shunamite to Wife Ask for him said he the Kingdom also for he is mine elder Brother which is a plain confession of Solomon himself that according to the ordinary course of Law then in force Adonijah should have succeeded David in the Kingdom had not David who was a Prophet as well as a King known God's mind to the contrary And indeed God had made known his mind unto David concerning Solomon by Nathan the Prophet when assoon as he was born he called his name Jedidiah that is beloved of the Lord thereby making David to understand that he was design'd to succeed him in the Throne Whereunto may be added that perhaps Adonijah was confederate with Absolom whose Brother he was by the same Mother in his rebellion against David and consequently had forfeited what was due to him by his Birth-right being guilty of what he deserved to be put to death for though by reason of his Fathers fondness of him he was not put to death for it But whether this or God's Intimation of his pleasure to David by Nathan the Prophet were the reason that Solomon the younger Brother was preferred before Adonijah the eldest to succeed David in the Kingdom it is evident by Solomon's aforesaid answer to his Mother and by the constant course of succession in that Kingdom that there as well as in all other Nations the eldest Son or nearest in bloud was legally to succeed in Thrones as well as in Families and do so still and are of right to do so in all Hereditary Kingdoms from which right grounded upon the Law of Nature attested by the general practice of all Mankind in all places and in all ages and ratified by God's positive Law to his own People I see not how any man can be excluded without some kind of Violation of the Law of Nature or without some kind of unbecoming Reflection upon the Positive Law of God it self as if God had not made as good and as wise a Law to obviate all inconveniences for his own People as any People could make for themselves CHAP. VI. Such Exclusion
an intire Parliament I mean the Act of Vniformity wherein the Parliament doth not only declare its own sense and judgment concerning the Kings sole Supremacy but prescribes an Oath to be taken by all that are to be admitted to teach the People what they are to think of the King I mean all that are to be admitted into holy Orders whereby they are injoyned to testifie and declare in their Conscience that the King is the only Supreme Governour of this Realm and I hope Mr. Baxter hath more reverence for Parliaments than to say or think that the Parliament did injoyn men to swear that which they did not themselves believe to be true especially those of the House of Commons who I think do all of them take the Oath of Supremacy And yet this so clear so evident and so irrefragable a proof of the Parliaments acknowledgment of the Kings sole Supremacy Mr. Baxter is pleas'd to slight as if it signified nothing calling it a sandy foundation for though he be pinched to the quick with this Argument yet he makes as if he felt it not and perceiving there was no help for him in Logick or Metaphysicks he makes use of a figure in Rhetorick which is either not to take notice of what they cannot answer or if they cannot chuse but take notice of it to slight or scoff at it as if it were not worth the answering or taking notice of And yet that he may not seem absque omni ratione insanire to have no pretence or show of reason for his slighting or rejecting of it he tells us that this Oath was made in relation to Papists only and was injoyned to be taken for the discovery of those that were suspected to be so Surely if we look to the first enacting of that Oath and the primary or original cause of it it was not for the distinguishing of Papists from Protestants for they were Papists in Henry the VIII's time and as great Persecutors of the Protestants as any were in those times that compiled and consented to the enacting and enjoyning of that Oath but it was to distinguish Papists from Papists Papists that would from Papists that would not acknowledg the Kings Supremacy And for the same end and purpose the same Oath was renewed in Queen ELIZABETHS time in the beginning of her Reign for the distinguishing of loyal from disloyal Papists as appears by the reasons she gave why She did not impose that Oath upon any of the Barons or House of Lords though many of them were then Papists because she did not as she said make any doubt of their loyalty but she caused it to be administred to the Popish Prelates and other Ecclesiasticks who had almost all of them plerisque omnibus saith Cambden taken it in her Father's time but refusing it then were deprived of their spiritual promotions for so doing lest they might teach the People to do so also and perhaps do more than so that is from denying her Supremacy in Spirituals to proceed to the denying of it in Temporals also which we see they are now come to not by their Popish but Presbyterian Teachers For preventing whereof and for obviating the scandalous interpretations that were made of it as that thereby she the Queen arrogated a Power unto her self sacrâ in Ecclesiâ celebrandi of performing divine Offices in the Church Illa edito scripto saith Cambden she published a Declaration wherein she affirms se nihil aliud arrogare quà m quod ad coronam Angliae jam olim jure spectavit that she arrogated nothing to her self but what anciently belonged of right to the Crown of England Scilicet se sub Deo summam supremam gubernationem potestatem in omnes Regni Anglici Ordines sive illi sunt Ecclesiastici sive Laici habere quodque nulla extranea potestas ullam in eos jurisdictionem vel authoritatem habeat aut habere debeat Namely that she under God had the supreme Government and Power over all orders of men in England whether Ecclesiasticks or Laicks and withal that no foreign Power had or ought to have any Jurisdiction or Authority over any of them From which Declaration published by that pious and prudent Prince it is observable First That the aforesaid Oath of Supremacy was intended by Her as well for the asserting of her own Supremacy over all Orders of men in her own Kingdom in all their capacities as it was for the disclaiming and renouncing any foreign Jurisdiction that was or could be pretended or claimed over all or any of her Subjects in any capacity whatsoever Secondly From this Declaration of Hers it is farther to be observed that she will have her own Sovereignty and Supremacy in omnes Ordines Regni over all Orders and Estates of men here at home to be asserted and sworn to before they shall swear to disclaim and renounce all foreign Authority and Jurisdiction And with very good reason because it would have done her and will do her Successors very little or rather no good at all for their Subjects to renounce all Sovereignty from abroad as long as they are taught or suffered to be taught that there are any other Sovereign or any other invested with any part of the Sovereignty here at home but their Kings only Lastly From the aforesaid Declaration we may observe also that the Queen by the Injunction of the Oath of Supremacy professeth to claim nothing to be acknowledged or sworn to but what de jure and jam olim what anciently and of right did belong to the Crown of England and consequently that the Supremacy or Sovereignty over all Estates or Orders of men in England was from all Antiquity that is as I conceive from the beginning of Monarchy or ever since there were Kings in England and that not ex dono Populi by gift of the People or compact with the People but jure by right and by what Right not jure Electionis but Hereditatis not by right of Election but of Succession and jure Coronae by right of the Crown as being inseparably annexed to the Crown or rather inherent in the Crown there being none as I have already proved that can properly be called a King or Crowned Head whether by Succession or Election but he must be the supreme and sole Sovereign over all in his own Kingdom Which as to our Kings here in England as it was acknowledged by those Parliaments that enacted the Oath of Supremacy before the War so is it by the Act of Vniformity since the War or since the Kings return and consequently since the Crowns restauration to those Prerogatives that are of right belonging to it of which the Supremacy or Sovereignty over all in the Kingdom inclusively as well as in relation to all without the Kingdom exclusively is the chiefest For if there be any either within or without the Kingdom either superior over
but hence it will not follow that he was bound to do so nay thence it will follow that neither he nor any of his Predecessors were bound to do so for then they that were the boldest in their demands that ever met and sate in Parliament would have claimed it as of right and not Petition'd for it as they did at least if they had vouchsafed to have Petition'd for it they would have called their Petition a Petition of Right which they did not So that by very Petitioning the King to grant those things which they proposed as agreed on by both Houses they acknowledged that the King was not bound by any Law Custom or Precedent from his Predecessors to consent to what both Houses had agreed on and consequently that there was no such Co-ordination betwixt the King Lords and Commons by the fundamental Constitution of this Kingdom as by the aforesaid Aâ—â—hor was pretended to be And therefo 〈…〉 in his answer to the Petition of the 〈…〉 the 19 Propositions which they pretend humbly to desire but indeed peremptorily press him to grant tells them That to say he is obliged to pass all Laws that shall be offered unto him by both Houses howsoever his own Judgment and Conscience shall be unsatisfied wiih them is to broach a new Doctrine a point of Policy as proper for their present business as destructive to all rights of Parliaments adding that it was out of a strange shamelesness that they would forget for sure there being so many Lawyers among them some of them could not chuse but remember it a Clause in a Law still in force made in the second year of King Henry the V. wherein both Houses of Parliament acknowledg that it is of the Kings Regality to grant or deny such of their Petitions as pleaseth himself And if it were so and acknowledged by both Houses of Parliament to be so in Henry the V's time I would fain know in what Kings Reign or by what Kings consent that Act or the aforesaid Clause in that Act which was in force so lately comes to be repeal'd or whether any Law or Act of Parliament can be either made or repealed without the Kings consent CHAP. XIII An Ordinance of both Houses no Law and consequently no legal Authority for the late War against the King The Militia or the Power of the Sword acknowledged by the two Houses themselves to be in the King A Sermon of Arch-Bishop Ushers in the Isle of Wight Preached to the same Purpose NOT a Law perhaps may Mr. Baxter say properly so called but an Ordinance of both Houses may and that without the Kings consent to it nay notwithstanding the Kings declaring and protesting against it oblige all the People of England to do or not to do what the two Houses will have them as much as any Law consented to by the King ever did or can do nay and may repeal any Law made by the King by the advice and with the consent of both Houses any Law or Custom to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding But per quam Regulam by what Rule Mr. Baxter By what Law of God or man can this be done Why by an Ordinance of both Houses which is equivalent at least to an Act of Parliament properly so called and so it had need to be Mr. Baxter and more too to warrant the doing of such things such horrible mischiefs and Villanies as have been done against God by Sacriledg against the King by Rebellion and by Subjects against their fellow Subjects by plundering and imprisoning and murdering one another of which side soever they were for all will be put to the account of them that had no authority I mean no legal and just Authority to warrant them to do what they did And therefore Mr. Baxter you were best be very sure that the two Houses had Authority to make such a War as they did not only without Commission from the King but against the King and to engage you and by you to engage so many thousands as you say they did in it You were best I say be very sure of it for it is not your head or your neck only which you say you are willing to hazard upon that account but your soul it self and the Everlasting Woe or Welfare of it that lies at stake for it Be not deceiv'd God is not to be mocked It is not the Confederacy of the two Houses it is not the Covenanting of the two Nations that can justifie either their commanding or their being obeyed in any thing which God hath forbidden or not allowed them to command or to be obeyed in by some known Law of his own or of the Land neither of which I am sure can be produced by them Moreover it is not the redressing of Grievances had they been as many or more and as great or greater than the House of Commons in their virulent and malicious Remonstrance to the People represented them to be nor the Reformation of Religion though there had been much more need of it than there was no nor the truly intending as well as pretending never so good or never so necessary an End for the publick Good either spiritual or temporal of the whole Nation that can justifie the Means they made use of if they had not Authority to make use of them I mean in their taking of the Sword out of the Kings hands where the Law of God and of the Land had placed it and taking it into their own notwithstanding Gods and mans Law to the contrary For the proof of the first part of which Assertion of mine I appeal to Mr. Baxter himself for amongst his many false and impious and pernicious Aphorisms he hath this true one that it is not lawful for a Nation to fight for the preservation of their Religion or their worldly goods and liberties without just authority and licence Whereunto he adds by way of exposition and illustration of his meaning That it is but a delusory course of some in these times that write many Volumes to prove that Subjects may not bear Arms against their Princes for Religion as if those that were against them did think that Religion only as the end yea or Life or Liberty would justifie Rebellion or that the Efficient Authorizing Cause were not necessary as well as the Final Where bearing Arms against Princes is warrantable quoad fundamentum as to the ground of it this will warrant it quoad finem as to the end of it A good End must have a good Ground Again for proof of the latter part of my Assertion namely that the Sword or the Power of making War was by Law in the Kings hand and not in theirs I appeal to the Acknowledgment of the two Houses themselves who after they had setled the Militia before the War was actually begun yet knowing and being conscious to themselves that they had done it illegally
I mean the House of Commons presently after the Kings death yea and both the Cromwels also of which the former was resisted though not deposed and the latter was both resisted and deposed together with the several mock-Parliaments in both their times and the last mock-Parliament of all which by the admirable conduct and courage of that ever to be renowned and ever to be remembred Souldier and Servant of God the King and his Country I mean General MONK was shatter'd in pieces never to be sodred or re-united in order to restoring of the Soveraign Power to its only true and right owner the King For as for all or for any of the rest of those Soveraign Powers as Mr. Baxter calls them and which he magnifies so much they were as far from having any right to Soveraign Power as they were from being the best Governours in all the World as Mr. Baxter most falsly and I had almost said most impudently saith they were For let him name that which he thinks to have been the best of those Governments or Governours betwixt the assuming and usurping of the Soveraign Power by the two Houses of the long Parliament and the present King 's coming home And I will undertake as old as I am if God spare me life and health to demonstrate that they were not only as arrant Traytors and Rebels as ever were in the World but that in the managery and exercise of their usurped Power they carried themselves as hypocritically and blasphemously towards God in the use of his Name and his Ordinances as insolently insultingly and barbarously towards their King not only in their buying and selling and imprisoning of Him but even in their Addresses to him and treating with Him and withal as arbitrarily as despotically as injuriously and every way as tyrannically towards their Fellow-Subjects in taking away their Goods their Liberties and their Lives not only without but against Law as ever any Governours did whether justly or unjustly so called either in this or any other Nation But when I say this I would not be understood to mean what I say of all that sate in both or either of the two Houses of Parliament that made War against the King for I do verily believe there were many and I know there were some both of the Lords and Commons that after the King was driven away stayed and sate in both Houses and did what they could to hinder the rebellious and outragious proceedings of the factious Party which was predominant in the one House as well as in the other But the Tyde was too strong and those good Men too few to stemm the current or to prevent the overflowing of it as it did over all the banks and boundaries of Obedience to the Laws as well as of Allegiance to the King And therefore as Mr. Baxter when he tells us the two Houses of Parliament were the best Governours in all the World he tells us too that by the two Houses he means the Majority of the two Houses so when I say they were Vsurpers and Traytors and Rebels and as ill Governours or Managers of their usurped power as ever were before them in this or in any other Kingdom I mean the Majority of those two Houses only Which it was not my purpose to say so much of as I have said at present but my just indignation at Mr. Baxter's extravagant magnifying such men as they were hath carried me out of the way I was in which was to prove that neither those nor any other two Houses of Parliament can properly and truly be said to share with the King in the Soveraignty or Supreme Power upon the account of theirs as well as the Kings Legislative Power in making Laws for the whole Kingdom which as I have already proved is the Kings Act only by making Bills to be Laws by his FIAT or Assent to them thereby giving them that enlivening and obliging power which they had not before and which makes them to be Laws and this being solely the King's Act without any Act of either or both of the Houses in conjunction with it it is the King alone that makes the Law or that makes that to be a Law which was not a Law before how fit soever it might be to be made a Law whereof the King is the only final Judge also from whom there lies no appeal to either or both the Houses so that whatsoever Preparatory Act or Acts of either or both Houses may be necessary in order to the making of Laws antecedently to the King's Fiat yet it is the King's Fiat only that makes them to be Laws especially it being at his choice whether he will make them to be Laws or not after the two Houses have done what legally they can do towards it CHAP. V. Vpon Mr. Baxter 's grounds the KING may make Laws in some Cases without the consent of the two Houses Ship-mony justified upon the same grounds It is the King's Assent that makes Laws The Parliaments concurrence wherein it lies IF it be objected that as the two Houses cannot make a Law without the Kings Assent so neither can the King make a Law without the Consent of the two Houses and that therefore the two Houses as well as the King are the Law-makers For answer hereunto I will not say as Mr. Baxter seems to say when he puts the Question whether if the People will not consent to that which is necessary for their own Preservation the Soveraign may not do it against their wills and answers he may do it though he be not an absolute but a limited Soveraign and limited by Covenant that is as he expresseth himself in other places by an antecedent compact with the People when they chose or admitted him to be their Soveraign and consequently that even such a Soveraign notwithstanding such a compact as for instance that he will not nor shall not make any Law without the Nobilities and Peoples consent may of himself and without their consents make such a Law as is necessary for their Preservation or that he judgeth to be so for in this case he is and of necessity must be the only Judge whether it be necessary for their Preservation or no and therefore if he judge it to be so he may according to Mr. Baxter's opinion not withstanding any compact or Constitution to the contrary make such a Law not only without but against their consents as Mr. Baxter words it because saith he that Soveraign is God's Officer for the ends of Government and therefore cannot lawfully be restrained by the People from preserving them because the People have no power above God and because it is still to be supposed that the People desire their own Preservation and therefore mistakingly resist the means which else they would consent to This is one of Mr. Baxter's Political Aphorisms which if it be true my Answer to the aforesaid
maker of them And yet because he cannot make them but of such materials as are by the two Houses prepared and proposed unto him therefore they are said in the common and modern stile to be enacted not by the King only but by the King Lords and Commons that is by the King and the two Houses also to the end that the People who are to be governed by them may as I said before the more willingly submit to them when they know that although they are called the Kings Laws as being made by him yet the materials whereof they were made were first devised debated digested and agreed on and then suggested to the King not only by the Lords but by the House of Commons also that is by their own Representatives and Trustees and consequently in effect by their own selves when they know this I say they must needs be the more willing to submit to them CHAP. VI. The Preface of our Laws doth not prove the Legislative Power to be in the Parliament The Old stile of enacting Laws why changed by Henry the VIII and why since resumed AND this and no more than this is the meaning of the modern form of prefacing our Laws and Statutes which we call Acts of Parliament when they are said to be enacted by the King Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament and by the Authority of the same which I call the modern stile because antiently it was otherwise And therefore Mr. Baxter laying so much stress as he doth upon this form of words to prove the Legislative Power and consequently a principal branch of the Soveraignty to be partly in the Parliament meaning the two Houses of Parliament doth well and wisely to say that he will not run to Records for he knows if he know any thing in that kind that this was not the stile that was anciently used in Prefacing the Acts or Statutes made by our Kings in Parliament Ab initio non fuit sic from the beginning it was not so For from the first of our Parliaments recorded by Poulton which was in the 9th of Hen. III. to the 15th of Hen. VIII this stile of Be it enacted by the King Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled was never used but during all that long Interval of Eleven Kings Raigns and the very many several Parliaments held by them the making ordaining and passing of Laws was in the Kings name only sometime with this addition by or with the Advice and consent of his Bishops Earls Barons c. without naming the Commons and sometimes by the advice of His Bishops Earls Barons c. at the request of the Commonalty or at the special request of the Commons and sometimes with consent of the Commons as well as of the Lords But still and always the making or enacting of the Laws is said to be by the King alone sometimes in these words We of Our meer free will have given and granted which is the stile of Magna Charta or the great Charter it self sometimes in these The King willeth and commandeth and sometimes in these It is by the King made provided and ordained This I say was the stile all along which was used in passing of Laws or Acts of Parliament until the 15th of Hen. VIII for about 300. years And then indeed it began to be changed from Be it Enacted by the King with the advice and consent of the Lords and Commons to Be it enacted by the King Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons but not constantly For in the very next King's time his very first Act of Parliament Cap. 1. runs in the old stile viz. Be it enacted by the Kings Highness with the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and of the Commons And again in the same Parliament Cap. 4. it is said that at the humble Petition and suit of the Lords and Commons in that Parliament assembled the King did declare ordain and enact by the Assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and of the Commons c. In the same old stile likewise runs the first Act of Queen Mary viz. Be it ordained and enacted by the Queen our Soveraign Lady with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and of the Commons c. The like we find in the Raign of Queen Elizabeth as may be seen in the Act of Vniformity made by Her and prefixed in our Common-Prayer-Book to another Act of the same kind made by our present King For in that of Queen Elizabeth the stile is Be it enacted by the Queens Highness with the consent of the Lords and Commons in this Parliament assembled c. And in that of our present King it is Be it enacted by the Kings most Excellent Majesty by the advice and with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and of the Commons in this Parliament assembled c. So that the first of the two Proofs Mr. Baxter alledgeth for the Legislative power in the Parliament as well as in the King and consequently their participating with him in the Soveraignty is not so convincingly conclusive from the stile used in the Preface to Acts of Parliament as he would have it thought to be but that it may without immodesty be contradicted though he tells us it cannot because saith he the Laws expresly speak their Authority when they say Be it enacted by the King Lords and Commons in Parliament and by the Authority of the same It is not saith he upon their Petition or Proposal only but by them or by their Authority But did the Laws anciently speak thus at all or do all of them speak thus in all our modern and later Acts I think I have given him Instances of both sorts to the contrary and such and so many Instances as must carry the Question if it be to be decided by the speaking of the Laws either in regard of their Antiquity or Plurality For as I said before all Laws made before Hen. VIII speak and speak expresly the King and none but the King to be the maker of them as may appear by the Instances before given and of many more that might have been given even as many more as there were Acts of Parliament during the Reigns of so many Kings for 300. years during which time I cannot find so much as one single instance of any Law which is said to be enacted by King Lords and Commons but by the King with the advice and consent of the Lords and Commons when most is ascribed to them I mean to the Commons for sometimes it is upon the request and sometimes upon the humble Petition of the Commons and with the advice and consent of the Lords that the Law is said to be enacted by the King So that if as I said before the question of who are the Law-makers be to be decided by the speaking of the Laws
themselves as Mr. Baxter calls it as either they are more venerable for Antiquity or considerable for Plurality the King and none but the King must be acknowledged to be the Enacter or the maker of them And truly one would think that those Laws that are most ancient and consequently nearest in time to the first Institution of Parliaments though they were not the most in number were most to be credited for speaking most properly of who they were that made them then and consequently who it is that makes them now Unless Mr. Baxter will say it was the King and King alone indeed that made the Laws in Parliament then but it is the King Lords and Commons or the King and Parliament that makes them now and consequently that the King is not so much a King now as He was then and that the constitution of the Kingdom it self is changed from Monarchical to Aristocratical But then I must ask him by whom and when this great change was made Was it by him that brought in this new stile of Be it enacted by the King Lords and Commons c. That was Hen. the VIII who was not a Man likely to give away any of his Authority or to part with any part of his Soveraignty to his own Subjects who rescued it from the Popes incroachments And yet perhaps even He meaning to make use of the Parliament for the countenancing whatever he had a mind to do though never so extravagant in it self though never so offensive to Foreign Princes his Allies or never so injurious to his own Children because he thought it would be serviceable to his own ends after he had forced the two Houses to consent to what he listed to enact to joyn them with himself in the enacting of it as well as by assenting to it to make it so much the more plausible or at least so much the less grievous unto the People Otherwise it is most certain that never any King of England after the making of Magna Charta reigned so despotically and arbitrarily as he did or whom the two Houses of Parliament stood so much in awe of as they did of Him as appears by his making them consent to the doing and undoing to the enacting and repealing of whatsoever he would have to be done or undone to be enacted or repealed And therefore it is not to be imagined that such a King as he was did mean by changing of the stile to lessen the Legislative Power it self which was in his Predecessors by admitting those whom he used as he did the two Houses of Parliament to a participation of any the least degree of Soveraignty And as he never meant to do so so they the two Houses of Parliament did not then or ever since for ought I ever heard understand that to be the meaning of the Alteration from Be it enacted by the King with the consent of the Lords and Commons to Be it enacted by the King Lords and Commons to signifie that either the Kings power as to the making of Laws was less or the Parliaments greater than it was before this alteration of stile For if it had been understood either by the King or Parliament to signifie any such thing as the King especially such a King as Hen. VIII was would never have suffered the alteration of the former to the latter So the two Houses who are jealous enough of their Power and Priviledges would never have suffered the alteration of the latter to the former again as it was altered by King Edward Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth King Henry's three immediate Successors and as it is altered by our present King in the Act of Vniformity For as the alteration of the former to the latter could not have been made without the Kings so the alteration of the latter to the former could not have been made without the consent of the two Houses neither And therefore I verily believe that if any thing at all was meant by the alteration of the former stile to the latter it was only ad faciendum Populum to gain the People that the People might more willingly receive and submit to the Laws when they were made especially such of them as might seem to pinch them in their Purses when they were said to be enacted by the Lords and Commons or by the Lords and their Representatives and consequently by themselves as well as by the King for Volentibus non fit injuria where there is consent there is no injury And yet again lest by this alteration of stile and misinterpretation of it the Kings Prerogative of being the sole Soveraign and consequently the sole Law giver might be thought to be diminished by being communicated to either or both Houses of Parliament therefore the first most ancient and withal the longest continued stile of Be it enacted by our Soveraign Lord the King by the advice and with the consent of the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled was presently after the first alteration of it resumed by the three next succeeding Princes as it hath been also now of late by our present Soveraign and by all of them with the consent of the Lords and Commons thereunto CHAP. VII The Laws enacted by the Authority of Parliament in what sense Why called Acts of Parliament They provide the Matter of the Laws the King gives the Form BUT withal will Mr. Baxter perhaps say with this Addition and by the Authority of the same that is by the Authority of the Parliament so that according to this former stile our Laws are said to be made and enacted by the Authority of the Parliament and consequently by the Authority of the two Houses of Lords and Commons as well as by the Kings For answer whereunto I might say in the first place that it was not till after 200. Years from the first Parliament that we read of in our Book of Statutes namely not until the Raign of Henry the VI. who owed his Title such as it was to the Parliament and to the Parliament as it signifies the two Houses only without the King for by the Authority of such a Parliament it was that is of a Body without a Head that Henry Bullingbrook was made King Richard the Second's surrender being neither voluntary nor lawful if it had been voluntary as was acknowledged by the two Houses themselves when Richard Duke of York claimed the Crown as the right Heir to it thereby acknowledging likewise that although they had de facto yet they could not de jure exclude the right Heir Howsoever their Authority being the only Title which the then present King had and held the Crown by as having not the courage either of his Grandfather or his Father to claim it by Conquest and hold it by force as they did He was willing to acknowledge he held it by Authority of Parliament as the word Parliament is taken for the two
Houses of Parliament without a King And this perhaps might be the reason why at first in that weak King's time to Be it enacted by the King with the consent of Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled was added and by the Authority of the same But this is not the Answer I rely on because this addition hath been continued ever since whereas the alteration I before spoke of did not as I have already showed And therefore 2dly to this Objection that when it is said Be it enacted by our Soveraign Lord the King by the advice and with the consent of the King Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled it is said also and by Authority of the same My Answer is that by the word Parliament is not meant the two Houses or the Lords and Commons only that is the Body without a Head but the Body with the Head to direct and govern it as the natural Head doth the Body natural and more than so for the natural Head though it directs and governs yet it doth not give its Being to the Body natural but the Parliamentary Head gives its very Being it self to the Parliamentary body as being made what it is by his Call and dissolved into what it was at his pleasure that is into so many single and private Persons as they were before as I have already shewed And truly if we mark the words well By the Authority of the same cannot be meant the Authority of those that are assembled in Parliament but of the Parliament it self wherein they are assembled which is as it is commonly truly and properly called the Kings great Council or the Kings High Court of Parliament It is by the Authority therefore of that great Council or by the Authority of that High Court that our Laws are said to be enacted But whence is it that this great Council or this High Court hath its Authority Is it not from the King Is it not from Him that makes them to be such a Council and makes them to be such a Court by his calling and assembling them together So that to say Be it enacted by the Authority of the Parliament is no more in effect than to say Be it enacted by the King in Parliament or Be it enacted by the Kings Authority in his great Council or in his High Court of Parliament For as all Inferiour Courts are and Act by the Kings Authority so is and doth the High Court of Parliament it self also for as it doth not nor cannot make it self no more than the Inferiour Courts do or can for if it did or could it might meet as often and subsist as long as they listed themselves so their acting when they are a Court is as the Actings of other Courts are if they Act as they ought to Act in and by the same Authority from whence they have their Being for Agere sequitur esse acting follows upon being as Mr. Baxter often but sometimes very impertinently tells us And therefore as in all other Courts because they are the Kings Courts the Judgments that are there given and the Decrees that are there decreed for interpreting applying and moderating of Laws already made are the Kings Decrees and the Kings Judgments because they are made by his Authority or by an Authority derived from him and delegated by Him and might if he pleased be executed by him in Person as some of them have been by some of his Predecessors so in the High Court of Parliament where Laws are to be made the Laws that are there made are the Kings Laws and that not only as being made in one of his Courts but made in a formal and solemn manner either by himself personally and immediately or by special Commission granted and authoriz'd by him to do it for him For it is the Le Roy le veult whether pronounced by himself or by any other authoriz'd by him that makes the Law So that it is the Kings Will and the King 's will only to have it a Law that makes it a Law and not any Act antecedent or subsequent of either or both the Houses of Parliament But why then are our Laws called Acts of Parliament Because as I said before they are made by the King in Parliament Yea but they are said to be Enacted by Authority of Parliament that is say I by the King's Authority in Parliament But they are said to be enacted by the Lords and Commons as well as by the King but it is not said they are enacted by the Authority of the Lords and Commons as well as by the Kings So that by enacting by Lords and Commons is meant by the Lords and Commons advising or consenting to the matter of them as appears by the indifferent use sometimes of one of the forms and sometimes of the other as I observed before Whereunto may be added that it is not unusual to ascribe the doing of a thing to Him or them that are but the advisers of it or consenters to it Thus we call that an Order of Council which is ordered by the King in Council or by the advice of his Council And thus St. Paul saith The Saints shall judge the World and Christ himself saith that his twelve Apostles shall sit upon twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel Yet it is certain as Christ tells us in another place that the Father hath committed all judgment to the Son and hath joyned none in Commission with him So that it is Christ and Christ done that shall absolve those that shall be absolved and shall condemn those that shall be condemned which are the proper Acts of a Judge quatenus as he is a Judge and therefore of none but him that is a Judge How then can the Saints be said to judge the World or the twelve Apostles be said to judge the twelve Tribes Why they do it by consenting to and approving of the judgment which shall be given by Christ whether it be the sentence of absolution or condemnation upon whomsoever it is pronounced So though it be the King and the King only that properly speaking doth make the Laws yet because he never makes any Laws but such as are agreed on and consented to by both Houses of Parliament therefore the two Houses of Parliament may in the same sence that the Saints are said to judge the World be said to make our Laws that is by consenting to the King 's making of them to be Laws But yet with this difference which is indeed no small one that Christ's judging of the World needs not the approbation or consent to it antecedently or consequently either of Saints or Angels but the King according to the legally established constitution of our Government cannot make a Law but the matter of it must be antecedently agreed on by both Houses of Parliament as a fit subject for the King to make a
a most illegal and insolent and impudent Invasion and Vsurpation of the Kings authority in the one nor of a most Trayterous avowed and bold-faced Rebellion against the Person as well as the Soveraignty of the King in the other and consequently that all that assisted them whether it were with their hands or with their tongues with their Swords or with their Pens with their prayers or with their Purses were as arrant Traytors and Rebels as they were Whereas if Mr. Baxter can make it evidently to appear that there was such an Original constitution of Government by such a compact or contract betwixt the People on the one part and the King and his Successors on the other part and that by virtue of the said Original constitution the Parliament was appointed and agreed on by both Parties to be such Trustees for the People as he saith the Parliament was we are now speaking of and that they might legally do what that Parliament did for the discharging of their Trust If he can make this I say evidently appear from any authentick Record I must and will confess that the Government here with us is indeed no Monarchy and that not only for the reason given by Mr. Baxter because the whole Soveraignty is not in one Person namely in the King but partly in the King and partly in the Parliament but also because according to Mr. Baxter's supposition the Soveraignty is not at all in the King but wholly in the Parliament as it was in the Ephori in Sparta and as it is now in the Senate of Venice But thanks be to God it is not come to that yet though it were once very near coming to it when they had gotten an Act to sit as long as they listed and took upon them to make Laws to raise Mony and to make War and consequently to play REX as we say by exercising all the Acts of Soveraignty and by pressing the King to devest himself of them by making another Act not only to justifie what they had done but to enable them to do the same things for one and twenty Years more And by that time the Monarchy would have been like an old Almanack worn out of date and either an Aristocracy or rather a Democracy not only set up but setled instead of it as we saw it was assoon as the Monarchy by the Murder of the then Monarch seemed to be quite down the House of Commons assuming and usurping to themselves the whole Government of the Kingdom without King or Lords which the Lords as well as the King ought to remember calling themselves a free State and behaving themselves as such both at home and abroad for the short time of their Raign which was until their Servant made himself their Master by making use of that Army for the pulling of them down which they were forced to keep in pay at the excessive charge of the People for the keeping of themselves up And then They and the People too saw and felt the difference between a legitimate and legal Monarchy and the despotical Arbitrary Government of an Vsurped Tyranny which made them wish and pray and long for the Return of the right Heir and the restoring of the right Government having found by woful experience that every change they had made was first from good to bad and then from bad to worse and lastly from worse to worst of all I mean the Rump-Parliament that so having made tryal of them all they might be the more careful to hold fast the best if God should be pleased to restore it to them again which in his infinite goodness and mercy he hath done and that in a strange and almost miraculous manner by making the Thieves fall out amongst themselves in dividing of the spoyl that so the true Owner might have what they robb'd him of again The End of the Fourth Section SECT V. An Expedient proposed for the preservation of our Government and Religion as now by Law Established from Arbitrary Power and Popery or Presbytery c. without Exclusion of the Right Heir CHAP. I. People bugbear'd with Popery and Arbitrary Government The Priviledges of English Subjects by the Favour and Grants of their KINGS Their Representatives in Parliament Grotius thwarts Mr. B. in his main Principle AND now one would have thought that being so lately delivered from so base and shameful as well as heavy and grievous a Bondage we should not so soon have forgotten what we suffered under a Succession of various Tyrannies nor so soon have been weary of our Quails and Manna as to be so desirous as many of us seem to be to return to the same or perhaps if it be possible to a worse Bondage than that they were under before and to that end there be some that do as good as say one to another as that rebellious backsliding and ever-murmuring Generation of the Jews did Let us us make us a Captain and let us return into Egypt And why so why so soon so weary of well-being Is there any Nation under heaven in a better nay in so good a condition as we are Are not we the only People of Europe that are in Peace when all our Neighbours are in War with one another Doth not every one of us from the highest to the lowest enjoy the Liberty of his person the Propriety of his gooods and the fruit of his Industry without having any of it without his own consent taken away from him So that if ever it might be said of any it may now most emphatically be said of us Happy are the people that are in such a case Yes may some men say if we were sure to continue always as we are but we are afraid we shall not we are afraid of Popery we are afraid of Arbitrary Government which may take away all we have from us that is or ought to be dear to us But why should we fear where no fear is Is not our Religion our Liberty and our Properties secured unto us by the Laws and by such Laws as can never be repealed but by our own consents Did not such a needless fear as this make us rebell against our late Gracious Soveraign Lord the King and by that Rebellion make our fellow Subjects nay the basest and vilest and meanest of our fellow Subjects to be Lords over us And if ever we come into such a slavery or any slavery at all again it must be by such a Rebellion produced by such a pretended fear or by a Foreign Invasion invited by our divisions amongst our selves that must be the cause of it Never was there a better Constitution of a Government than ours is nor ever was there better security for the keeping of it as it is than we have Never were there Subjects that had more and greater or so many and great Priviledges as the Subjects of England have neither do our Kings
against the Law of the Land also and were there or could there be such a Law it would be unjust in the present case and of dangerous consequence BUT if it be said that several Nations according to several Climates they live in may be of several Inclinations and dispositions and therefore that a Law which may be very proper and useful for one sort of People may not be so convenient for another and consequently that the Judicial Law which God gave to the Jews though it were best for them it may not be best for us or for any other Nation nay because it was best for them it cannot be best for all other Nations or for any other Nation that are naturally of a contrary or of another kind of temper or constitution than they were so that the Judicial Law of the Jews obligeth none but those for whom it was made and to whom it was given God having left it free to those that have the Legislative power in every Nation to make such Laws as they think most proper and most effectual for the well governing themselves so that they command nothing that is forbidden nor forbid nothing that is commanded by the Moral Law of God Be it so and be it supposed likewise though not granted that there is nothing in the Natural or Moral Law of God against disinheriting of the right Heir of an Hereditary Kingdom let us see whether there be any Law of the Land or any legal way according to the constitution of this Kingdom of ours that can warrant the doing of it unless the Heir of the Crown be guilty of some such crime as by Law is a forfeiture of his Life as well as his Birth-right which one Case excepted wherein the present Heir of the Crown is not so much as pretended to be at all concerned I demand first whether there be any Law now in being for excluding the right Heir of this Hereditary Kingdom upon the pretence that is alledged but not proved against him for if there be no such Law there can be no such transgression because every 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must be as St. John tells us an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every transgression must be a transgression of some Law or other and where there is no Law there is no Transgression saith St. Paul If it be said that though he cannot be excluded by any Law already made yet a Law may be made by Act of Parliament which may exclude him I demand again whether according to the fundamental and essential constitutions of Parliament there can be any Act of Parliament or any Law made by Act of Parliament without the Lords and the Kings consent to it as well as that of the House of Commons if not as yet there is not so more than probably there will never be any such Act pass or Law made the King and Lords having already declared their dissent from it But 3dly supposing the King and Lords should agree with the House of Commons to make a Law for the excluding of the next Heir of the Crown upon such an accompt as never any Heir of the Crown was excluded before nor by Law to be excluded and consequently for which he could not foresee that he deserved or was to be excluded I demand by what reason justice or equity that Law can be prejudicial to him or to any right of his all Laws being to look forwards and not backwards that is to enjoyn or prohibit something for the future upon such or such Penalties for the disobeying of them but not for the punishing of any thing that was done before there was any such Law for the prohibiting of it so that supposing but not granting that by such a Law the Heir of the Crown might justly be excluded from the succession for the future yet he that is Heir at present and was so before any such Law was made cannot as I humbly conceive upon such a pretence be excluded without violence done unto the Law as well as injury done unto himself If it be said that Salus Populi est suprema lex the safety of the People is the supreme Law and that the safety of the Kingdom doth require that as such a Law should be presently made so it should be presently executed also I answer that the Supreme Law is That no evil should be done that good may come thereof and besides that the safety and peace of the Kingdom would in all probability be much more indangered by the putting or attempting to put such a Law in Execution then it is yet or I hope ever will be for want of such a Law the present execution whereof would for fear of but a supposed uncertain future evil which many things we do see and many more we do not see may hinder put us into a real a certain and a present as evil a condition as any we seem to be afraid of and desirous to prevent I mean a present Civil War and perhaps a Foreign War too And then Dic mihi quis furor est ne moriare mori Tell me what madness is it to kill ones self for fear of being killed I say what a madness is it to run into a present greater evil to prevent a less that is to come and probably may not come at all CHAP. VII Supposing such a Law it would not be effectual for the keeping out of Popery and Arbitrary Government TO conclude supposing such a Law should be justly made and justly executed upon the preset Heir of the Crown and supposing too that Inconvenience from abroad and at home should not follow upon it for the present How would this secure us from the bringing in of Popery for the future unless the Act or Law should be made to extend to the excluding all future Heirs of the Crown as well as the present that might be suspected to be Papists though not legally proved to be so Would it not be easie for any future Heir of the Crown to defeat the efficacy of it and to avoid the Execution of it upon himself by concealing his being of that religion till he was King And then it is a known Maxime of our Law that the Crown takes away all defects in him I suppose it means that is the rightful Heir to it and against whom after he is King as no force can be used without a Rebellion so no Law can be made without Vsurpution the one being the taking of his Sword and the other the taking of his Scepter out of his hands so that if such a Law be made to extend to the exclusion of all future Heirs of the Crown as well as the present it would not be effectual for the keeping out of Popery and much less for the keeping out of Arbitrary Government or for the securing of the Protestant Religion unless we shall say that nothing but Popery can bring in Arbitrary Government which is
King cannot by his Fiat give it its factum esse till it be agreed on by the two Houses and because the two Houses by their agreeing on it do give it its fieri posse or make it ready and fit to be made a Law therefore it may truly though not properly be said to be made jointly by the King Lords and Commons because though it be not made by the Lords and Commons but by the King only yet it cannot be made without them neither that is without their doing something antecedently without their doing whereof the King cannot make Laws And this was that and all that which the late King meant when he said that the Laws of this Kingdom were made jointly by the King Lords and Commons that is according to the old Parliamentary stile by the King with the consent of the Lords and Commons or if you will by the King but not without the consent of the Lords and Commons But I hope Mr. Baxter who would be thought the Master of propriety and distinctness of speaking will not affirm that a thing can properly be said to be done by him or them without whose consent it cannot be done For I think it is one of the main matters wherein he differs or dissents from our Church that a Priest or Minister of the Word and Sacraments cannot be ordain'd without consent of the People will he therefore deny that it is the Bishop with his Presbyters that ordains him or will he say that he is jointly ordained by the Bishop and the People Certainly none but they that lay hands upon him have any thing to do in the Act of Ordination So that it doth not follow that because a Law cannot be made without the precedent consent of both Houses of Parliament that therefore they have any thing to do properly speaking in the making of it Again supposing Mr. Baxter is of the opinion of the Protestant Churches abroad that there can be no marriage without consent of Parents and supposing that opinion to be true yet I suppose neither Mr. Baxter nor any of the Ministers of those Churches will say that it is the consent of Parents that makes the Marriage though it cannot be a Marriage without it Many other Instances of the like nature might be given but this is enough to prove the thing we have in hand namely that though in some sence it may be said that our Laws are made by the King and Parliament or by the King Lords and Commons because they cannot be made by the King without the consent of the Lords and Commons yet properly speaking it is the King alone who by his LE ROY LE VEVLT makes them to be Laws in which Law-making Act of his neither of the Houses do joyn or are joyned with him and therefore the Laws so made cannot properly be said to be made by the King and them joyntly And yet because they cannot be made by the King without their antecedent consent to them and proposing of them they may truly be said to concur To the making though not In the making of them And this and no more but this was undoubtedly the late Kings meaning when he said the Laws were made here in England by the King Lords and Commons or upon their proposing such and such Bills being first agreed upon by them to be made Laws by him CHAP. XIV The making of Laws in the Roman State applied to Vs Mr. B. 's division of the Soveraignty rectified The King 's Negative voice asserted and the Enemies of Monarchy detected THus when the Soveraignty was in the People of Rome the Senate did concur to the making of Laws for the Common-wealth but did not make them they concur'd to the making of them by consulting and debating what was fit to be made a Law by the People as having no power to make it a Law themselves the making of Laws being an Act of Soveraignty and the Soveraignty being then not in the Senate but in the People and therefore the Senate did not so much as pretend to the making of Laws but only to the proposing of Laws to be made by a higher power namely that of the People as appears by the formal and solemn stile relating to the making of Laws in those times which was this Senatus rog at Populus jubet the Senate requesteth or proposeth namely such or such a thing to be made a Law but the People commands or enjoyns it that is the People maketh what was proposed by the Senate for a Law to be a Law And as this was the stile in relation to making of Laws in a Democracy when and where the Soveraignty was in the People so à paritate rationis upon the like reason and account in a Monarchy where the Soveraignty is in One the stile ought to be Populus rog at Rex jubet the People requests and the King grants And so indeed it was as I observed before according to the ancient stile used in our Parliaments here in England in divers Acts and Statutes wherein the King is said to give or grant sometimes at the special request and sometimes at the humble Petition of the Commons Neither doth the Alteration of the Stile at the Request to with the consent argue an alteration in the species of the Government for the King is still the sole Lawmaker or Lawgiver as much as he was before and consequently as much a Monarch though less Despotical and more Political in the managery and execution of his Kingly Power having by his Predecessors and his own voluntary and gracious condescension obliged himself not to exercise his Legislative power or to make any Laws without the consent of those that are to be governed by them which though it do not make him cease to be a Monarch or to have the Soveraignty or supreme power wholly and solely in himself yet it makes him cease to be an absolute arbitrary and despotical and to become a legal regulated and Political Monarch or a King that is to govern his People by Laws Laws indeed of his own making but not without their consent to them I mean without their consent by their Representatives in Parliament together with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal which all of them jointly are the Representatives of the three Estates or of that whole Body Politick whereof the King is the Head And as it is he that governs the whole Body so it is he that makes the Laws to govern the whole Body which because they are not made by the King without the consent of the three Estates representing that Body therefore Mr. Baxter thinks they are made by the three Estates as well as by the King and therefore that the Soveraignty is divided betwixt the King and them and consequently that this is no Monarchy but a mix'd Government which is the same mistake that Grotius as I said before
acquitted ANd first it was very just and very equitable also in relation to what was passed I mean if they had been enjoyned silence for the future by way of punishment onely for the mischief they had done by Preaching formerly which was such as I cannot think of without horrour nor they should not think of without a thankfull acknowledging it for a very great Mercy and Favour from God and the King that they had onely the Liberty and opportunity of doing more mischief taken away from them when their Lives might most justly have been taken away for the mischief they had done before For it is upon this account that Mr. Br. himself justifies Solomon's deposing Abiathar the High-Priest who was the next person in dignity to the King himself amongst the Jews because he might have taken away his Life saith Mr. Baxter as well as the Priesthood for his siding with Adonijah in his Rebellion And might not our King upon the same account have taken away Mr. Baxter's own Life and the Lives of all the rest of the Non-conforming Ministers as Mr. Baxter calls them namely for siding with the Rebellious Parliament and not onely for siding with it themselves but for stirring up all the People to side with it also against his Father and himself And ought they not then to acknowledge the taking away of but their Livings which they had never any legal right to and their liberty to preach which they had so horribly abused ought they not I say to acknowledge it to have been at least a just if not a very favourable punishment for their former offences and equitable too as well as just and favourable it being but the doing that unto them justly and legally which they had most unjustly and illegally done before to all the Conformable Clergy by thrusting them out and intruding themselves into their places Again as the depriving and silencing of the Nonconformists considered as a punishment for what they had done before was not onely just and equitable but favourable also So considered as a Caution against what they might doe for the future it was not onely prudent and expedient but as things then stood absolutely necessary for the securing of the publick Peace both in Church and State and consequently the safety and welfare both of Prince and People For We had reason to believe it was neither a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was neither a remorse for what they had done nor a change of Mind either in their judgments or affections in order to what they would doe that made any of the Nonconformist Parties give way to the King 's coming home as he did but onely their disability to hinder it partly by reason of the irreconcileable differences among themselves and partly because the Army was no longer in their Power but especially because the over ruling Wisedom of the divine Providence would have it to be so And therefore as we were not to thank them for that blessed change that was made so much against their Wills both in the Church and State so were we not to trust them neither with having any thing to doe either in the one or in the other especially in the Church without giving some assurance beforehand that they would not preach and act as they had done formerly And the Assurance which by the King and his great Council was thought fit to be given by them was first a renouncing of the Covenant and secondly to declare their Assent and Consent to whatsoever by the Act of Vniformity is required of them either of which if they refused to doe they did as good as tell us in plain terms what we were to expect from them namely that they thought themselves bound by their Covenant to pursue the ends of it whensoever there should be an opportunity for it and in the mean time by their praying and preaching to disaffect the People as much as they could to that way of publick Worship which they themselves refused to comply with and submit to And can any man think it was safe for us or consistent with the publick Peace either in Church or State to suffer such men to continue in their stations or to be permitted to harangue the People as they were wont to do They themselves when they were in Power though it was by Vsurpation onely thought it not onely lawfull and prudent but necessary also for the upholding of their illegal and usurped Authority to deprive and silence all our Clergy that would not take their Covenant and submit to their Directory And is it not as lawfull and prudent and necessary too for Us in order to the securing of the legal both Civil and Ecclesiastical Government to deprive and silence those that will not renounce that Covenant whereby they are obliged to ruine both or that will not join with us in the publick Worship of God as it is prescribed in the Book of Common-Prayer Certainly if it were prudent and necessary for Them in their Circumstances then to doe the one it must needs be as prudent and necessary for Vs in our circumstances now to doe the other even themselves being Judges to say nothing of the unlawfulness of what they did unto Us as being unjust in itself and having nothing to warrant it but an usurped Power and the lawfulness of what we do unto them as being just in it self and being authorized and commanded to be done by that Power which We are legally obliged to obey I know Mr. Baxter and others of the Dissenting Party use often to alledge and mainly to insist upon what the King promised them at BREDA and made them hope should be done for them when he came home But they know or ought to know that those promises whatsoever they were as they were meant by the King so they were to be understood by them to be obliging so far forth onely as they should be approved and consented to by his great Council the Two Houses of Parliament without whose Advice Approbation and Consent they knew the King could repeal no old Law that was in force against them nor make any new Law in favour of them Either of which the two Houses were so far from advising him to doe that the House of Commons gave him unanswerable reasons lately reprinted why nothing of that kind could be done without hazarding a relapse both of Church and State into as bad or perhaps a worse condition than that which it was newly come out of For the preventing whereof it was the House of Commons the Representatives of the People and not the Convocation the Representatives of the Church that upon mature deliberation devised and drew up that Bill which being assented to by the Lords they presented to the King to be made a Law as it was by the King's Fiat to oblige and be imposed upon all that are or pretend to
be of the Clergy before they be permitted to preach unto the People or to have the Education of Youth here in this Kingdom and this is the Law called the Act of Vniformity After the making of which Law by the Advice and with the Consent of both Houses of Parliament it is to no purpose to alledge or insist upon any former Promise made by the King and made by him but conditionally onely that is if he were or should be so advised by his Parliament and not otherwise And indeed for them or any Agents of theirs to desire any thing of the King before he came home as to the repealing of any old Law or the making of any new Law without or against such Advice or Consent of Parliament or any otherwise than conditionally if the Parliament would consent to it was a high breach of the highest Privilege of both Houses of Parliament in those that did desire it then or do now complain it was not done when they knew it could not be done by the King alone and saw the Parliament would not consent to it and therefore I say still to insist upon any such promise made by the King must needs be a very great Affront to both Houses of Parliament unless they be of Mr. Baxter's opinion who as I have before observed notwithstanding his magnifying the Power of Parliaments by dividing the Sovereignty betwixt the King and them affirms that in some cases the King may make a Law not onely without but against the consent of the People if it be for their good because it is to be supposed saith he they would have consented unto it if they had known it to be so which how far it may intrench on the Power of Parliaments I leave it to them to consider I am sure I dare not be so bold with them CHAP. VII The Act of Vniformity why made Some other probable Reasons for Nonconformity and not Conscience altogether as Mr. Baxter saith it is BUt to return to what we have in hand the King having by advice and with the consent of both Houses of Parliament first passed an Act of Oblivion to quiet mens Minds for what was passed to prevent our falling again into as bad or perhaps a worse condition for the future if ill principled and ill affected Preachers were permitted to blow the trumpet of Sedition and Rebellion as they had done formerly His Majesty did by the Advice and with the Consent of the said both Houses of Parliament enact the aforesaid Act of Vniformity thereby providing that none should be admitted or permitted to preach to the People or to teach their Children that would not subscribe and conform to what was required to be subscribed and conformed unto by that Act. Which was no more than they have already consented to by their Representatives in Parliament and consequently to the Penalties for refusing to conform to it also which was neither loss of Life nor Limb nor Liberty nor any part of their Goods but onely their forbearing to preach untill they were better informed and could bring themselves to comply both in Judgment and Practice with what their Duty and Obedience to the Law required of them as some of the learnedst and generally thought to be as conscientious as any of them namely Bp. Reynolds and Dr. Connant did as perhaps many other learned and conscientious men did also But they were not one of an hundred will Mr. Baxter say in comparison of those that did not nor could not conform True I confess as to those that did not but whether all that did not could not is a thing with Mr. Baxter's good leave may be doubted whatsoever he hath said to the contrary as when he saith that to think any that do not conform would not conform if they could with a good Conscience is to think them all to be Fools or mad Men for preferring Poverty before Plenty Want before Wealth Contempt before Honour and Respect and Imprisonment before Liberty which no man in his Wits either would or ought to do if he might chuse whether he would so or no without sin And therefore Mr. Baxter thinks we must needs grant it is nothing but fear of sinning against God that makes the Nonconformists not that they will not but that they dare not conform to what the Laws of the Land as well as of the Church require of them As if all the Nonconforming Ministers that were put out of the Livings they were in or that by reason of their Inconformity are uncapable of any Preferment in the Church are therefore all of them men of Conscience and that whatsoever they ought to doe and will not or will doe and ought not it is for Conscience or for Conscience sake onely or for fear of sinning against God if they did what they doe not or did not what they doe that is if either they did conform when they are commanded or did not preach when they are forbidden But is there or can there be no other cause of their not doing what they should doe and their doing what they should not doe but Conscience onely May it not be peevishness in some and perverseness in others May it not be Pride and Ambition in the Leaders and Ignorance and Obstinacy in those that are led by them I remember that when Bishop Brownrig who is one of the few Bishops that Mr. Baxter vouchsafes to speak well of and I went together to the Treaty with the late King at the Isle of Wight he being one of the Three Divines named by the Parliament and I one of the Three named by the King though very unworthy I confess to be so when that learned Bishop I say and I went together in his Coach towards the Isle of Wight I remember not now upon what occasion it was but I remember very well that I ask'd his Lordship whether he knew Mr. Calamy and he answered me he did and had known him from his first coming to Cambridge Pray my Lord said I was he always a Nonconformist No said he far from it in his practice as well as in his judgment even untill the beginning of these times How came he then said I to be so suddenly and so strangely changed from what he was Why said the Bishop he saw the Tide was turning and having a good opinion of his own parts he thought if he was one of the foremost in coming in he might be one of the foremost if not the foremost of all the Leaders of the whole Party as you see said he he is adding that the hope to be head of a Faction was a powerfull Temptation And why might not the same Temptation prevail with many others that thought as well of themselves as Mr. Calamy did and consequently might have the same hopes that he had But why then may it be said did not the same men when the Tide turned again at
AND now I am come at last to the consideration of the last of those injurious Reflexions which in the beginning of this Book I observed to have been made upon me by Mr. Baxter and for the confutation of which I principally intended all that I have written though many other things which I thought not of at first occasionally falling in have made that which I meant should be but a small Tract to swell into a large Volume but now I am in and have gone so far I must go through with it The Reflexion therefore which I am now to speak of is in Mr. Baxter's Answer to Dr. Stillingfleet's Sermon towards the end of it the words are these I must say that when some Prelates made it their great business to silence shame and ruine us and drive us far enough from persons of power undertaking to preserve the Protestant Religion better without us than with us and after all cry out themselves that we are in danger of Popery by their own Pupils and Disciples whose instruction they undertook men will have leave to think of this awake and to judge of Causes by Effects These I say are the words of that Reflexion which I complain of as intentionally aimed at me though obliquely and by circumlocution onely especially in the latter part of it For as for the former part of that saying of his where he speaks of some Prelates that made it their great business to silence shame and ruine them that is him and the rest of the Dissenters though I doubt not but he means me for one of those Prelates and one of the chief of them because he tells me and the Bishop of Ely in plain terms that we two of all he knows have effectually helped to bring them under yet I do not take my self to be peculiarly concern'd in this whether it be truly or falsly averr'd by him and therefore though I could tell him and tell him truly and prove it too that I never made it any of my business to shame or ruine him or any of the Dissenters or to silence any more of them than by Law I was not onely allowed but obliged to silence though I could say this I say and more too to prove that I never did any the least injury to any of them but have shewed kindness to some that had dealt hardly with me namely to Mr. Langley of Pembroke College who having gotten into my Canonry of Christ's Church in Oxford never allowed me one penny out of it during above 12 years I was abroad nor after I came home made me any recompence yet thinking I was one would doe good for evil he had the confidence to write to me and to intreat me to befriend him for the renewing of a Lease he held of Magdalen College as being their Visitor I did it for him Though I say I could make proof of this yet I will not insist upon it that which I except against is a false and injurious reflexion upon me particularly being contained in the words that follow viz. driving us that is him and those of his Party far enough from Persons of power undertaking to preserve the Protestant Religion better without us than with us and after cry out themselves that we are in danger of Popery by their own Pupils and Disciples whose instruction they undertook themselves and then concludes men will have leave to think of this awake and to judge of causes by effects This I say is the Reflexion I complain of as false and injurious and as being my self more particularly aimed at in it than any other of the Prelates he before spake of For though here as well as there he makes use of the plural number as if he meant what he saith of more than one yet that which he saith of them he knew would be understood by those by whom he would have it to be understood to be meant of me or if not of me onely yet of me principally and especially because he and others perhaps of his Party had heard from Mr. JONES and others from them that I had caused the said Mr. Jones to be put out of the Duke of York's service having been before a Chaplain to his Royal Highnesses Family to his Family I say for he was never any of the four that were properly and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of eminence called the Duke's Chaplains but onely one of the two who were daily to efficiate in the Duke's Chapel to the Houshold whether He or the Dutchess were there or no so that Mr. Jones was not so great a man either in place of attendance or in grace and favour with either of their Highnesses that either his stay could hinder or his remove could further any design that I or any man else might have had upon the Duke or Dutchess in order to the seducing or perverting both or either of them in matter of Religion And yet this Mr. Jones was the man and I verily believe the onely man Mr. Baxter thought of though he speaks in the plural number here also as if we the Prelates had driven them that is all or many of them far enough from persons of Power Now I would fain know of Mr. Baxter what one man of their Party was ever driven away by any of the Prelates from any person of Power or was ever said to be so but this Mr. Jones onely who was never thought to be one of their Party whilst he was in the Duke's service I am sure he profess'd the contrary and if he had not I am sure he could not have been admitted into the Duke's service as no man else could either into the Duke's or into any other persons of power the Law not made by the Prelates but by the King in Parliament I mean the Act of Vniformity having made all of that Party as long as they were of that Party uncapable of being Chaplains or Schoolmasters in Noblemens or in any great mens Houses and therefore there was no need of the Prelates driving them farther from persons of power than the Law had driven them already Neither was it for his being one of them though perhaps he was one of them in his heart that Mr. Jones was put out of the Duke's service but for behaving himself otherwise than he ought to have done in it but how that was I forbear to say because he is dead onely I must say that I was neither Judge nor Witness nor Plaintiff nor Defendant nor any way a party in the case no nor knew not any thing of the matter it self or of the cause of it untill after it was done as Dr. Killigrew then Clerk of the Closet to the Duke and Dr. Turner then and now one of the Duke's Chaplains will I doubt not be ready to testify if it were tanti worth the while to call them to it But first that it was this Mr. Jones
them Laws by giving them an obliging power The King alone our Lawmaker Dr. Sandersons judgment in the case His Commendation for an excellent Casuist 1 Ep. Tim. Cap. 4. v. 3. The design of Mr. B. 's Holy Common-wealth He intitles the Vsurpers to the whole Soveraignty By the King 's having lost his part Vid. H. C. Thes. 145. 363. Thes. 368. And this too against a Thesis of his own Thes. 374. Mr. B. 's Thesis further examined Who in Mr. B. 's account the best Governours in all the World See the Preface to the Holy Common-wealth Whom yet he owns to be Intruders and Vsurpers II. C. p. 86. Thesis 375. His strange shuffling and self-contradiction A short account of those Vsurpers Mr. B. 's flattery to Oliver His compliance with Richard Three Remarks upon it His Eulogy of the Vsurpers * Pref. to Holy Com. W. Mr. B. rebuked for his Extravagance and his best Governors challeng'd All that slaid and sate in Parliament not censured The Recapitulation of the Legislative power being only in the King An Objection Mr. B. 's opinion that a Soveraign though limited by compact may act for the Peoples safety against their consent And why not make Laws then for that end without their consent His reason for that opinion v. p. 119. Thes. 120. The Answer according to that Opinion Ship-Money justified upon Mr. B. 's grounds The Bishop's own answer Though Laws are not made without the Peoples consent in Parliament yet that consent doth not make them Laws Ordinances of themselves not Laws The King's Assent gives being to the Laws How the two Houses concur to the making of Laws The matter of the Laws from the Parliament the Form from the King Why the Laws said to be enacted by King Lords Commons The Modern stile of enacting Laws H. C. p. 46â— The Antient stile or form When the change began The Old stile resumed afterward Mr. B. 's Argument for the Legislative power in the Parliament from the Preface of our Laws unconclusive Holy Com. p. 462. All the Ancient and several Modern Instances against him Why Henry the VIII changed the Old stile His meaning in it could not be to part with any of his Soveraignty Nor was it so understood by either King or Parliament Most likely it was to please the People Why the Old stile resumed since An Objection Those words And by the Authority of the same when added and why The Answer By Parliament here meant not Lords Commons only without the King What meant by the Authority of the same The Parliament the King 's great Council and High Court. Their Authority from the King They act in that respect as other Courts do Why our Laws called the King's Laws Why called Acts of Parliament Advice or consent sometimes intitles to the Act. 1 Cor. 6. 2. Matth. 19. 28. Joh. 5. 22. The Saints judging the World applied to this case The difference in the Case The four Causes of our Laws viz. Efficient Matter Form and End of them explain'd What kind of Cause the Consent of the two Houses is The Legislative power and the Soveraignty in the King only Two Conclusions of Mr. B. 's upon his supposition of the Soveraignty divided The Eastern Monarchs not altogether Arbitrary What it is denominates a Monarchy No Judicatory above the King The Parliament no such Judicatory The King can do no wrong how meant Another Maxime to that purpose King David accountable to God alone and punished by him David 's Monition to Kings The Peoples priviledge of consenting to their Laws a favour at first of the Kings William the Conqueror made Laws without their consent Parliament first so called in Henry I. time An antecedent compact of the People with the King a political whimsie of Mr. B ' s. Mr. Hobbs and Mr. Baxter agree The extreme unlikelihood of the supposition Our Government at first arbitrary T is likely the Custom of not making Laws without the Peoples consent began under Henry I. with that other of not raising Mony without their consent However it was it was not by Compact but by Grant Mr. B. 's vain and false distinction of two capacities in the People as Free and as Subjects H. C. p. 459. H. C. p. 458. Some Rights he saith reserved by the People in their Contract and the Parliament their Trustees Government not alway founded upon Contract as Mr. B. saith it is A free People as well as a free Man may give up themselves to be govern'd without any reservation of Rights Several free People have done so Grotius de jure Belli ac pacis Particularly in our Government no such thing as Contract or Reservation off Rights The Peoples Rights not by bargain but by Grants of their Kings The People had no Representatives till Henry I. Vid. Daniel's Hist. Baker's Chron. Mr. B. 's supposition a meer fiction The Priviledges and Representatives the People now have are not by any antecedent Compact The Peoples being represented in a double capacity as Mr. B. fancies made an Argument by him to justifie the late Rebellion Holy Com. W. H. C. Thes. 361. The King's Coronation Oath doth not prove any such compact or Reserves c. as Mr. B. affirms This made out in three Considerations Mr. B. makes the King a King in name only He hath no authentick Record for such a Contract as he supposeth Holy Com. W. p. 377. H. C. p. 468. Nor for the Parliaments being the Peoples Trustees for their reserved Rights Were the Original constitution such as Mr. B. makes it the King would not be sole Soveraign nor Soveraign at all A brief account of the Government and its changes during the Vsurpation till the Kings Return A serious Expostulation with people for their uneasiness Numb c. 14. v. 4. No reason for it The pretended ground of it The ill effect of causless fears The Constitution of our Government The Subjects Rights and Priviledges Their representatives in Parliament The duty of those Representatives How to act as Trustees also An even Balance to be kept betwixt Prerogative and Priviledge The King compared to a Father and a Husband Two observations of Grotius De jure Belli Pacis cap. 3. p. 81. lb. p. 83. Applied to Mr. B's main principle How it came that Laws are not to be made without a Parliament When our Monarchy began to be Political Yet still a Monarchy A mistake in Polybius Grotius de jure Belli pacis lib. 1. cap. 3. Sect. 19. We are to judge of a Government not by the Managery but by the Soveraignty of it Ib. This Rule applied to the English Monarchy The happy condition of English Subjects An Account of a Sermon the Bishop preacht before the Long Parliament in commendation of the English constitution both in Church and State The reason why this Account given Church and State both subject to the Monarchy Popery and Presbytery both destructive to Monarchy Two Supremes in one Kingdom
inconsistent History and Experience have taught us the inconvenience of the one and the other No fear of either's Return A just commendation of our Church-Government What duty we owe to such a Constitution * Rom. c. 16. v. 17. A mark to be set upon Dividers The Character of Separatists Ep. Jude v. 16. V. 19. They are sensual * 1 Cor. 3. 4. What Spirit it is guides them The ill Consequence if that Spirit be not restrained The late example of the Scots recommended Their Test. Vid. the Acts and Laws made in Scotland when the Duke of York was the Kings Commissioner there An. 1681. The Heir of the Crown being a Presbyterian c. all one case as his being a Papist Just Reflections upon the Presbyterian Covenant General Monks conduct prais'd The Sectaries will not indure Vs nor one another They and the Papists much alike as to cruelty Their Principles much what the same And practices too upon occasion The Tryers a kind of Inquisition An Instance from the Anabaptists The like may be judg'd of the other Sects The danger if the Heir of the Crown be of any other Religion alike as if he be a Papist What Means to be used to prevent this danger The Exclusion of the right Heir against the practice of all Nations And consequently against the Law of Nature Jacob 's three eldest Sons forfeited their Birth-right Gen c. 49. v. 3 4. Two Cases of disherison The Right of Inheritance according to Gods positive Law The like in succession of Kingdoms 1 Kings c. 2. v. 22. A donijah his Case and why Solomon preferr'd to the Throne 1 Kings c. 1. v. 6. Ibid. Granting that the Judicial Law obligeth none but Jews The Exclusion of the right Heir is contrary to the Law of the Land No such Law now in being Nor can be made without the Kings consent Nor were it made would be just in the present Case The dangerous consequence of such a Law Such a Law if made and executed would not be effectual against future Heirs Arbitrary Government may be brought in by other ways as well as by Popery A brief commendation of the Church of England and the Civil Government The Scotch Test proposed to keep out Popery and Arbitrary Government Which upon the supposition of such a Law cannot be brought in Neither by force Nor by fair means An Objection from what Queen Mary did The Case much different then from what it is now Prebytery more likely to alter the Government than Popery Such a Test will be an assurance of no change to be An Objection that a Popish Successor will be absolv'd from his Oath The thing the same if a Presbyterian The full ground of that Assurance of no Change to be in the Government Mr. B. 's own commendation of our Government Vid. H. Com. p. 207. What he means by the Government of this Common-wealth Vid. H Com. from 89. to the 104 page His wish for better order in Election of Parliament-men H. Com. W. Page 27. 208. Wherein the Bishop agrees with him Whom Mr B. perhaps thinks worhty to choose or be chosen Whom the Bishop thinks such The main qualification of a Parliament-man An Objection against the Test. A threefold Answer A reinforcement of the Test * Which if consented to by the Successor no reason to believe but it will be kept A Recital of some of Mr. B 's Principles by which he justifies the late Rebellion and by which upon the like occasion Rebellion is incouraged for the time to come The Parliament how the Peoples Representatives and Trustees in Mr. B. 's sense The Peoples Rights and Priviledges H. Com. W. p 471. The Priviledge of Parliament An Instance of an unhappy difference betwixt the two Houses concerning Priviledge In what sense the King sole Law-giver The blessed frame of English government A caution against seditious Preachers and Scriblers Several ways to prove it lawful to take up Arms against the King Calvin 's way Herl 's way Mr. Baxter 's way Vpon such Principles the King in continual danger of Rebellion Some of Mr. B. 's Principles peculiarly such What the late King meant by saying The Laws are jointly made by King Lords and Commons How Christ alone will judge the World and yet the Saints shall judge it too How the Laws made by the King alone and yet jointly by the King Lords and Commons Some Instances ad hominem to convince Mr. B of this meaning Vid. M B 's second Def. of meer Nonconf p. 127. A brief Rebearsal of our Law-making How Laws made in the Roman Common-wealth How in our Monarchy The ancient stile of our Laws Our King not an absolute but a legal Monarch The three Estates Whence Mr. B. 's errour of dividing the Soveraignty The Soveraignty how in its streams divided and in its acts limited The King 's Negative voice necessary to preserve Monarchy Who Enemies to Monarchy A Caveat to Soveraigns The Conclusion of this and the three foregoing Sections Mr. B 's insincerity of dealing The true account of the Bishop's advising him to read thâ—se 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 s. Mr. B 's fallacious intent in giving the account as he does Mr. Hooker 's judgment of Kingly power whether he be King by choice Vid Hooker 's Eccl. Pol. lib. 8. p. 456. Or by Conquest Vid. Hooker 's Eccl. Pol. lib. 8. p 454. This of Conquest our case at first Vid. Hooker p. 454. Our Kings since have restrained themselves What it is that Mr. B. doth not approve Mr Hooker 's judgment of the descent of the Crown More than Mr. B. approves pag. 184. Of the King's Supremacy Over all persons This again more than Mr. B. approves Of the King's Supremacy as to things Eccles. Pol. p. 457. lib. 8. Lib. 8. p. 469. Of his Negative voice p. 471. Of his making of Laws p. 472. This against Mr. B. And therefore not approved by him Bishop Bilson in an errour about resistance The ground of his errour The censure of it A Remark upon our late Rebellion Religion true or false inspirits men alike Not safe nor lawfull for one Prince to assist another's Rebel-Subjects How we are to help those who are persecuted for Religion Mr. B 's design in this reflexion defeated Whom he means by Vs He disowns himself to be a Presbyterian And takes it for an affront to be thought so Why called their Antesignanus Mr. B. an Apologist for all the Nonconformists What his Nonconformist Ministers are What he means by bringing them under Independents and Presbyterians like Caesar and Pompey Vnder whom they are brought viz. the King How Mr. B. and his party brought in the King An account of Ministers silenced by the Bishop Intruders as well as Non-conforming Ministers put out The silencing of the Nonconformists a just and equitable punishment Mr. B 's own case the same as he makes Abiathar 's to be The silencing of them prudent and necessary also by way of caution No thanks to
for the better ordering and governing of the Church but also taking away all Legislative Power from the King and Parliament and even from God himself I delivered at the same time my reason for what I said which was briefly this because there can be no Act so good of it self but may prove per Accidens or by Accident a sin And therefore if to command an Act which may prove per Accidens a sin be a sin then every Command must be a sin And if to command be a sin then certainly God can command nothing because God cannot sin and by the same reason Kings Parliaments and Churches ought not to command any thing because they ought not to sin Thus far I then charged Mr. Baxter and to this Charge he gave then no satisfaction Neither can I yet conceive it possible to give any satisfaction but by one of these two ways either by proving that the Assertion with which I charged him was never his or by shewing that the consequence I urged is not good neither of which was he then able to doe and by what he hath now been pleased to publish it is more than probable that he can never perform either of them For in his bold but weak Apology he doth not so much as pretend to shew any Invalidity in my Inference and for the Assertion with which I charged him he denies it so poorly and goes about to prove another instead of it so manifestly that he may without any injury be interpreted to yield it He saith indeed now That he told us that his Assertion made not every Evil Accident to be such as made an Imposition unlawfull But whether he ever said so before this time or no it was then clearly proved that he did assert That an Act for nothing else but because it might be per Accidens a sin could not be commanded without sin And now in his publick Appeal he hath taken a strange way to wipe off all this for he makes a very brief Narration and most notoriously imperfect and then says You know my Crime as if that were all that had been or could be objected against him Besides in the relating of this short Narrative he relies wholly upon his own memory not so much as endeavouring to satisfie himself before he presumed to satisfie others How his memory may be in other things I know not in this if it hath been faithfull to him he hath been very unfaithfull to others He relates an Answer in what terms he pleaseth and brings one Proposition as made by his Opponents in what terms he thinks fit and the Application of this answer to that Proposition he propoundeth as all his Crime whereas his Answer was far more largely given and that to several Propositions in several Syllogisms of which the Proposition which he relateth was but one or rather none so that he hath most shamefully abused his Disciples at Kidderminster with a short and partial Narrative of his Fact As for his Concurring with Learned Reverend Brethren which he would pretend to be part of his Crime and his invidious insinuation That they are not forbidden to Preach for it though he be the reason is clear He had often delivered this Assertion before the Company his Brethren had not the words of the Answer were written with his hand not with his Brethrens His Brethren had several times declared themselves not to be of his Opinion as particularly when he affirmed That a man might live without any actual sin And therefore we were so just as not to charge them with this Assertion especially considering they did shew themselves unwilling to enter upon this dispute and seemed to like much better another way tending to an amicable and fair compliance which was wholly frustrated by Mr. Baxter's furious eagerness to engage in a Disputation All his Discourse which followeth after his imperfect Narrative in justification of himself is grounded first upon a misreporting of his own Assertion secondly upon the dissembling of the several Propositions to which his Answer was so often applied thirdly upon his pretending That he says more now than that which had offended formerly which is most palpably false and in all probability if he have any memory against his own Conscience And this will presently appear by the vanity and impertinency of all those specious instances which he brings to mollifie his Assertion To Command a Navy to Sea he says is lawfull but if it were foreseen that they would fall into the Enemies hand or were like to perish by any accident it were a sin to send them Is this more than he said before or is it any defence of his Assertion at all It is not certainly because the Opponents had put it expresly in the Proposition That the Act in it self lawfull was to be supposed to have nothing consequent which the Commander of it ought to provide against and yet being so stated Mr. Baxter affirmed That if the Act might be per Accidens sinfull the Commanding of it was sin Now certainly the falling of a Navy into the Enemies hand or the perishing of it any other way if foreseen ought to be provided against by the Commander whereas Mr. Baxter's answer did import That if any Prince did Command a Fleet to Sea though he did not foresee the Fleet would fall into the Enemies hand or perish any other way yet if by Accident it miscarried that or any other way which he could not foresee or were not bound to provide against the very Command at first was sin The same reason nullifies his instances of the Poison and the Knife because the sin in selling them supposeth the murther of the buyer to be foreseen and consequently that the seller ought to prevent it but if he will speak in correspondence to his former Answer he must shew that though the seller do not foresee that the buyer will use the Poison or the Knife to his own or any other man's destruction yet if by any Accident or mistake either the buyer or any other perish by the Poison or the Knife the seller is guilty of his death His instance of setting a City on fire or putting Gunpowder under the Parliament House when the King and Parliament are there is of the same nature and needs no addition of answer but onely this that Mr. Baxter in a sense too true hath been very instrumental in setting the City on fire and in adding powder to the Parliament The rest which follows betrays the same weakness because the inconveniences are urged upon a Duty to prohibit them and his Answer did charge the Command with sin in respect of such Accidents as it was no part of the Commander's Duty to provide against It is therefore most certain that no one of those instances singly nor all of them jointly have any force in any measure to justifie that Assertion which Mr. Baxter did maintain and whereof he is accused As for that last instance
because as he saith in the same place a full and free Parliament had owned him thereby implying That a maimed and a manacled House of Commons without King and Lords and notwithstanding the violent expulsion of the secluded Members were a full and free Parliament and consequently that if such a Parliament should have taken Arms against the King he must have sided with them Yea though they had been never so much in fault and though they had been the beginners of the War for he tells us in plain and express terms VIII That if he had known the Parliament had been the beginners of the War and in most fault yet the ruine of the Trustees and Representatives and so of all the security of the Nation being a punishment greater than any faults of theirs against the King could deserve from him their faults could not disoblige him meaning himself from defending the Commonwealth Pag. 480. And that he might doe this lawfully and with a good Conscience he seems to be so confident that in his Preface he makes as it were a challenge saying that if any man can prove that the King was the highest power in the time of those Divisions and that he had power to make that war which he made he will offer his head to Justice as a Rebel As if in those times of Division the King had lost or forfeited his Sovereignty and the Parliament had not onely a part but the whole Sovereignty in themselves IX Finally Mr. Baxter tells us Pag. 486. That having often searched into his heart whether he did lawfully engage into the War or not and whether he did lawfully encourage so many thousands to it he tells us I say that the issue of all his search was but this That he cannot yet see that he was mistaken in the main cause nor dares he repent of it nor forbear doing the same if it were to doe again in the same state of things He tells us indeed in the same place that if he could be convinc'd he had sinned in this matter he would as gladly make a publick recantation as he would eat or drink which seeing he hath not yet done it is evident he is still of the same mind and consequently would upon the same occasion doe the same things viz. fight and encourage as many thousands as he could to fight against the King for any thing that calls it self or which he is pleased to call a full and free Parliament as likewise that he would own and submit to any Vsurper of the Sovereignty as set up by God although he came to it by the murther of his Master and by trampling upon the Parliament Lastly That he would hinder as much as possibly he could the restoring of the rightfull Heir unto the Crown And now whether a man of this Judgment and of these affections ought to be permitted to Preach or no Let any but himself judge THE Bishop of Winchester's VINDICATION Of Himself from divers False Scandalous and Injurious Reflexions made upon him by Mr. RICHARD BAXTER in several of his Writings As likewise A Vindication of the Rights and Sovereignty of all Kings properly so called and particularly of the King of England's being sole Soveraign over all persons in all capacities within his own Realms and Dominions from What Mr. Baxter to justifie the Rebellion against our late King of ever blessed Memory hath in many of his False Factious and Seditious Aphorisms asserted to the contrary Together with A Proposal of a more Legal and more effectual Expedient for the keeping Popery and Arbitrary Government for ever out of England than the passing of an Act to exclude the right Heir from Succession to the Crown either now or hereafter is will be or can be LONDON Printed for Joanna Brome 1683. SECTION I. Mr. BAXTER'S Assertion at the Savoy undeniably proved upon him and consequently his Charge against the Bishop of many mistakes in his Letter in matter of fact and of his Gross mistaking charge viz. Concerning the judgment of the Nonconformists of things sinfull by Accident cleared The Bishop of Winchester's Vindication of himself from divers false scandalous and injurious Reflexions made upon him by Mr. Richard Baxter in several of his Writings CHAP. I. Mr. Baxter 's Charge against the Bishop gathered out of several Writings of his and set down in his own words MAster Baxter in his Preface to his Book called by him The true and onely way of Concord of all Christian Churches reflecting upon a Letter of mine Written and Printed near 20 years before saith There are so many Mistakes in matter of fact in it that although he had made an Answer to it yet he cast it aside for Peace sake believing that the opening of the aforesaid so many mistakes would not easily be born the rather because as he says in the words immediately foregoing he knew he had greatly incurr'd both our displeasures already to wit the Bishop of Ely's and mine for what he had said and done against our Way and that as to my particular the aforesaid Letter of mine was a proof of it Again in the same Preface to the same Book he saith You meaning the Bishop of Ely and Me to whom he addresseth that Preface have above all men I know effectually helped to bring us meaning himself and the rest of his Party under These are Mr. Baxter's complements when he speaks to me and therefore I am not to expect more Civility from him when he speaks of me as he doth in divers of his Books which I have seen and perhaps in many more of them which I have not seen for I hope all men are not bound to reade all Mr. Baxter writes But in those I have seen when he speaks of me it is neither Honoris nor Charitatis gratiâ but to reproach me either directly and in express terms or covertly and by the bye as when in his Preface to the second part of his Plea for Nonconformists he saith It was Bishop Morley 's gross mistaking charge that made him write one whole Tract or Treatise namely That of things sinfull per Accidens or by accident Again in the former part of the aforesaid Plea for Nonconformists he saith Bishop Morley advised him to reade Bilson and Hooker in whom saith he I found more than he approv'd for resisting and restraining of Kings Again in another of his printed Papers I mean that Paper which he would have taken for a Recantation of some of those Political Aphorisms I had laid to his charge though he do not name me yet he points directly at me as if I had accused him for asserting That all humane powers are limited by God which to deny as he there insinuates I do and elsewhere plainly tells me I do is to defy Deity and Humanity and consequently makes me a defyer of them both Lastly with the same ingenuity and candour he aims at me more obscurely and more obliquely indeed
without the destruction of very many innocent persons I cannot understand except we can imagine the Sovereign will have no Subjects to fight for him which Christ supposeth all Kings of this world have on that there will be fighting without killing or that none or very few of those that are innocent of either party will be kill'd which in a Civil War which of all other Wars is commonly the most bloudy and most cruel is not to be imagined And consequently if Kings are not to be resisted by their Subjects but in such a case as this they are never to be resisted at all because there can never be such a Case so that Grotius his main Axiome Summam potestatem tenentibus resisti jure non posse That those who have the Supreme Power cannot lawfully he resisted is still safe and without exception Neither is the truth of it impeached by any of those several Instances which he I mean Grotius subjoyns and which seem saith he to be Exceptions to this Rule but indeed are not 1. For as to the first of those Instances it speaks of such Kings as were never Kings at all but in name onely as the Kings of Lacedoemon were 2. The second speaks of those that had been Kings but ceased to be so by their own voluntary resignations as Diocletian did and some of our Saxon Kings did also and retir'd into Monasteries 3. The third speaks of such Kings as would alienate their Kingdoms unto Strangers whom the Subjects may refuse to obey without resisting their own Sovereigns and are bound to doe so not onely in regard of the natural Allegiance all Subjects owe to their natural Sovereign and to him onely as long as he lives or as long as he continues to be their Sovereign but in regard that after his death or after he voluntarily ceaseth to be their King they owe the same Allegiance to his legal Successour in all Hereditary Kingdoms And therefore saith Grotius the act or attempt of such an Alienation is null in it self and consequently is not at all obligatory to the Subject 4. The fourth speaks of such Kings as Verè hostili animo in totius Populi exitium feruntur that is Such Kings as would if they could destroy all their Subjects and endeavour to doe so Sed vix videtur saith Grotius id accidere posse in Rege mentis compote But this saith he is hard to be imagined of any King that is mentis compos that is in his wits or that is not stark mad and if he be stark mad or not mentis compos not in his right mind then his case is the same with that of Kings that are Minors or Infants and his Kingly Power is to be administred in his name by such as by the Laws or Customes of his Kingdom are to have the custody or care of him while he continues in that condition who are no more to be resisted by the Subject than the King himself was before he was in that condition 5. The fifth instance is of such Kings as In ipsâ delatione imperii In the very making of them Kings are made Kings upon this express condition That if they doe this or that so or so Subditi omni obedientioe vinculo solvuntur The Subjects are discharged from all obligation of obedience to them for then saith Grotius he that was King became a private person again But I say such a one was never a King at all properly so called because in the very Act whereby he was made or rather called a King he was indeed made a Subject to them whomsoever they were that had power to question whether he had done this or no and to un-king him if he had nay if he had not if they should think he had or say he had though they thought or knew he had not 6. The sixth Instance is when the King hath but a part of the Supreme Power and the Senate and the People have another part of it But then say I as I said before the King is no King properly so called I mean is no Sovereign but a piece of Sovereign if there can be such a thing and it is the Sovereign He or They that have the Sovereignty or the whole Sovereign power that I say are in no case to be resisted by their Subjects 7. The seventh and last is the same in sense with the fifth though it differ in words or in the manner of expression both of them speaking of one as King who is indeed no King that is no Sovereign as no man or number of men in any Society of men can be said to be that have others in the same Society equal with them and much less superiour to them as they must be to whom they are obnoxious and accountable for their ill managery of their Government and who have authority to deprive them of it and depose them from it And of none but such Kings as these that is such as are not Kings indeed but in name onely are all the aforefaid Instances wherein Grotius seems to grant it to be lawfull for Subjects to resist their Kings to be understood but two onely and those are the third and the fourth in the former of which there is nothing either said or meant of the Subjects resisting of their Sovereign but onely of their not obeying him if he would have them become Subjects to a stranger which they cannot doe if they would without becoming injurious not onely to him but also to his Successours as I said before And there is a great difference betwixt resisting and not obeying of Sovereigns by their Subjects though Mr. Baxter will needs have not obeying to be resisting in its primary and most proper signification As to the other of these two Instances which may be meant of Kings properly so called I mean such Kings as are indeed Sovereigns namely the fourth wherein upon supposition there were such a a King as would doe and did what he could to ruine his own Kingdom and to destroy all his own Subjects Grotius grants indeed that in such a case Rex abdicat Regnum or the King renounces his Kingdom or doth ipso facto declare he will be no longer their King because voluntas imperandi voluntas perdendi non possunt simul consistere Because a Will to reign and a Will to have none to reign over are inconsistent with one another But withall he tells us it is hardly credible he might have said utterly incredible there should be such a King unless he were mad and if he be mad there be other ways as I said before to hinder him from doing himself or his People so horrible a mischief without their taking up of Arms or rebelling against him So that I do not see how it can be rationally concluded out of any of the aforesaid Instances that it is lawfull to resist him or them that have the Sovereign Power
it was not made against the King but against his evil Councellors and other his Delinquent Subjects only CHAP. III. Another ground of Mr. B's justifying the late War that according to our constitution the King is not sole Sovereign disproved The Act for the Rebel-Parliaments sitting censured All Kings properly so called not accountable to the People but to God only AND this doth farther appear by the little confidence he himself seems to have in this Topick For supposing as he had all the reason in the World to suppose that the aforesaid Declaration of the Parliament as he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 abusively and falsly calls it would signifie nothing with considering and understanding men as to the justifying of the late War from being a down-right Rebellion as indeed it was he seems to quit this as an indefensible Out-work and retires to that which he thinks to be a much stronger Hold and which if he can maintain he thinks that though he should grant the late War to have been made against the King yet it was not could not be a Rebellion because it was not made by Subjects against their Sovereign For the King of England saith he according to the constitution of our Government is not our sole Sovereign but there be others that be partners with him in the Sovereignty it self and of this he is so very confident that he saith in positive and express terms that if any man can prove that the King was the highest power in the time of those Divisions He will offer his head to justice for a Rebel Which saying of his seems to require some animadversion upon it as not being an absolute denyal of the Kings Sovereignty or of the Kings being the highest Power but of his being Sovereign or highest Power during those times of division only which seems to imply that he was even in Mr. Baxters opinion the Sovereign or highest Power before those times of division And if this be his meaning as it must be if there be any meaning at all in those words then it is not from the Constitution of the Government as Mr. Baxter saith it is that the King I mean our King of England is not the Sovereign or the highest Power always and in all times and to all intents and purposes but it was from the Alteration of the essential Constitution of our Government and from the iniquity of those Times and Persons that made that alteration that the King did not nor could not then exercise those Acts of Sovereignty or Supreme Power which was as legally invested and as inseparably inherent in him even then as ever it was before For though the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Power might and was yet the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Authority was not nor could not be taken from him but by taking away his Life also Unless Mr. Baxter will say and there seems to be some such secret intimation in that saying of his I last quoted that the King himself gave away his Sovereignty or that he made his two Houses of Parliament partakers with him in it when he passed an Act for their sitting until They themselves should be willing or content to be dissolv'd I confess this was a very great alteration in the very fundamental constitution of the Government and I confess the King passed such an Act the very great streights he was then in together with the minatory importunity of the two Houses backt by the insolent and tumultuous behaviour of the Multitude necessitating him as it were to do that which never any of his Predecessors did before him and I hope never any of his Successors will do after him I mean to pass such an Act as that was Although that Act gave neither of the Houses singly nor both of them jointly any whit or jot of more Power but only of sitting longer than what They or their Predecessors had before or their Successors now have And I hope Mr. Baxter will not say that is a Power to repeal Acts to make Ordinances of equal validity and obligation with Acts without the Royal Assent to them to raise Armies and Monies to maintain them upon their fellow-subjects and against their fellow-subjects and against the King himself also Did the Act that gave them a Power to sit until they thought fit to be dissolved give them Power to do all or any of these things before specified and many other as bold as bad and as illegal as any of those were or because they had leave to sit as long as they listed had they leave to do what they listed also No no it was their ingrateful and ungracious abuse of the Kings too gracious favour to them that was the cause of all those evils that afterwards upon that occasion befel Him and the whole Royal Family and all his Loyal Subjects And therefore of all the Acts that ever that good King did I take the passing of the aforesaid Act for the sitting of the two Houses not during his but their own pleasures to be the worst not only in point of prudence and policy as most prejudicial to the Crown and Government in general but in point of Right and Justice also to all and every one of the rest of his Subjects I mean as many of them as were capable of chusing and of being chosen Parliament-men who were all of them by the passing of this Act excluded from having what was due to them in either of those capacities and consequently from the Rights and Priviledges of Free-born Englishmen as long as those Parliament-Men that were then in being should please to sit and that might be ar was as We saw afterwards as long as they lived or at least as long as they could I mean till the Army which they raised made them to rise whether they would or no and yet there want not some that say they are still in being But to return from this digression because it is not upon this particular occasional alteration of the Government that Mr. Baxter doth openly and professedly ground his denyal of the Kings Sovereignty here in England but upon the fundamental and essential constitution of the Government it self and consequently he denies England to be a Kingdom and our King to be a King properly so called For he himself defines a Kingdom to be such a Common-wealth or body Politick as hath but one Person only for its Sovereign So that according to this definition all Kingdoms that are Kingdoms indeed are Monarchies and all Kings that are Kings indeed or Kings properly so called are Monarchs I say Kings properly so called because some have been called Kings who were really no Kings as the Kings of Sparta or Lacedaemon were who were but Generals of their Armies only the Sovereign Power of the State being in those that were called the Ephori or Overseers to whom those they called their Kings were
of the Saxon Kings here in England the Island was divided into seven several Governments but every one of the seven was a Monarchy and had a Sovereign of its own independent upon any of the other so that there was then no more a division of Sovereignty than there was afterwards when Edgar became Monarch of the whole Island or than there is now by the addition of the Kingdom of Scotland and Ireland to it I know the Roman Emperors did sometimes assumere sibi socios in imperio take to themselves partners or companions in the Empire but then the Sovereignty was either wholly and jointly in both of them as it was in the two Consuls after the expulsion of the Kings or as it is in the whole Venetian Senate at this day or else he whom the Emperor assum'd as his companion in the Empire was thereby designed only to be his Successor as the King of the Romans is now in Germany but continued a Subject and subordinate to him that assumed or adopted him as long as he lived So that in this case there was no division of the Sovereignty it self no more than in the former And much less can there be said to be a division of the Sovereignty per partes potentiales by its potential parts as Grotius saith they are called when a People that is sui juris Regem eligens quosdam actus scilicet potentiae sibi servet alios autem Regi deferat that is when a free People in chusing themselves a King reserve some Acts of Power to themselves as well as they give others to their King neque tamen id fit quotiescunque Rex promissis quibusdamque obligatur but I would not have this saith he to be understood to be the case when Kings are obliged or oblige themselves by certain promises only mark that Mr. Baxter sed tunc id fieri intelligendum est si quid Populus adhuc liber futuro Regi imperet per modum manentis Praecepti aut si quid sit additum Regem cogi aut puniri posse But this saith he that is this division of Sovereignty per partes potentiales by its potential parts or acts of Power is to be understood when the People being as yet free enjoyn their King that shall be and that by a standing Law or Precept which they will have always to be continued in force to do or not to do this or that or if any thing be added to imply that the King may be or is to be compelled or punished if he do otherwise Then or in this Case Grotius seems to think there is a division of the Sovereignty it self betwixt the King so conditionally elected and the People so magisterially electing him And upon this not only false but pace tanti viri dixerim let me speak it by favour and with leave of so great a man as he was in my opinion absurd supposition he adds that in this case the People may not only defend by force their own part of the Sovereignty if the King invade it but jure belli by right of War take away his part also if they overcome him in the Contest Which perhaps may be true upon the supposition of such a division of the Sovereign Power or rather to say the truth upon supposition of such a conditional Election made by the People of such a Magistrate as shall have the title of King and be entrusted with the managery of some part of the publick affairs either of War or Peace but so as to be accountable to the People or to some judicatory appointed by the People whether he hath kept or exceeded the bounds and limits of his delegated Power and Authority or no and if he have to be liable not only to the forfeiture of it but to be punished for it also And what is this but to be such a King as those of Sparta were who as Grotius himself tells us were not Kings indeed but in name and title only because indeed as he tells us also they were subject to the People or to the Judicatory of the Ephori appointed by the People by whom si peccarent Reges illi in leges ac Rempublicam non tantum vi repelli poterant sed si opus sit puniri morte quod Pausaniae Lacedemoniorum Regi contigit and therefore saith he those Kings and consequently say I all such Kings as those if they offended against the Laws or against the Commonwealth they might not only be resisted by force but if need were punished by death as Pausanias one of their Kings was And this he affirms to be the case of omnium Principum qui sub Populo sunt of all Princes who are under the People and if they be under the People they cannot be over the People too but the People must needs be over and above or superior unto them And then how can Grotius rationally or consistingly with himself say there is a division of the Sovereignty or of the supreme Power betwixt such a People and such Kings as these are He might as well have said that the Sovereignty is divided betwixt the King and the General of his Army by Land or the Admiral of his Fleet by Sea or the Vice-Roy of any of his Provinces for as the King reserves the whole Sovereignty or supreme Power unto himself how great soever the Title or Power is which he delegates unto others so in the aforesaid case put by Grotius the People retained the whole Sovereignty unto themselves notwithstanding any Power or Title they are pleased to give to him whom they chuse to be their King And this Grotius knew well enough as appears by the inconsistency of what he saith in this place with what he saith in others and especially by the inconsistency of his supposing that to be actually divided which he had formerly affirmed to be per se indivisum or in its own nature indivisible I mean Sovereignty or the supreme Power in every Body Politick of what kind or denomination soever whether it be in personâ in a single Person or in Caetu in a Company or Assembly of men for it cannot be partly in the one and partly in the other nor ever was no not in the Roman State it self which had many Changes Indeed but never any Division of the Sovereignty betwixt the governing and the governed party in any one of them For as when the Kings governed the Sovereignty was all of it in them and none of it either in the Senate or in the People so was it afterwards 〈…〉 Consuls and after that in the Consulls and the Senate then for a short time in the Decemviri and in none besides them and often when they were in very great danger and extremity the Sovereignty was wholly in one man only whom though they did not call a King yet never any King was more or perhaps so much a Sovereign as he was or
the Lawyers call it by the name of Domus Communium the House of Commons I am sure Livy who knew how to call things in Latin by their proper names as well as any man does now tells us that in a contest betwixt a Consul and a Tribune the Tribune bearing himself high upon the account of his Office the Consul said Scias te non Populi sed Plebis Romanae Magistratum esse You must know Sir that you are an Officer not of the People but of the Commonalty of Rome And yet this may be said in excuse of Mr. Baxter's mistake when he calls them the Representatives of the People that he saith no more of them than the House of Commons which he means said of it self for to the four first that Preached before them of whom I my self was one they gave each of them a piece of Plate with this Inscription Donum Populi Anglicani the Gift of the People of England by order of the House no doubt ingraven on it which perhaps they meant not to be Grammatically but Prophetically understood that is to be understood of them not as they were then but what they meant to be before they left sitting and as we saw they were after they had put down the Lords as well as the King and made themselves the High and Mighty States of England and Ireland and instead of Representatives and Trustees made themselves Lords and Masters of those that trusted them until He whom they had trusted with their Forces made himself Lord and Master of them also the People in the mean time the Free-born People of England having been made or rather having made themselves as arrant Slaves and Vassals as ever any People were unto them both But to return to what I was speaking of I do not find I say that any Parliament properly so called that is the King Lords and Commons or that both or either of the two Houses joyntly or severally did ever declare or vote the Kingdom of England to be no Monarchy or that the King of England was not the Sovereign and sole Sovereign of and in this and all other his Kingdoms and Dominions On the contrary I find that in all the Addresses made to the King as well by both Houses jointly as by either of them severally from the beginning of the War to the end of it they always acknowledged the King to be their Sovereign and themselves even in their publick and Parliamentary capacity to be his Subjects And if in their Parliamentary notion and capacity they were his Subjects I wonder in what notion or capacity they can be said to be Partners or partakers with him in the Sovereignty Besides he that will have either or both of the Houses to have a part of the Sovereignty must allow them a Title to Majesty also For Majesty and Sovereignty are Termini Convertibiles convertible terms as the Houses themselves confess when they treat the King sometimes with the title of Sovereign and sometimes with the title of Majesty as signifying by both these Words but one and the same thing namely the Supremacy of Power in the King Now I would fain know of Mr. Baxter whether if he were to Petition the House of Lords or the House of Commons or both of them he would address it to their Majesty the House of Lords or to their Majesty the House of Commons or to their Majesty the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament if he did I believe he would be laught at for his folly by them and perhaps punisht for his presumption by the King And yet if the Sovereignty be divided betwixt Them and the King as he saith it is I see no reason why the title of Majesty may not be given to Them as well as to the King or at least partly to them and partly to him though but proportionably to the division of the Sovereignty betwixt them of which if the Kings part be greater than that of the House of Lords and that of the House of Lords be greater than that of the House of Commons which I am afraid Mr. Baxter will hardly allow then if Majesty be the proper attribute of Sovereignty and Excellent a proper Epithet to Majesty then according to Mr. Baxter's distinctness of notion and expression the style of the House of Commons should be Their Excellent Majesty and the style of the House of Lords Their More Excellent Majesty as well as the Kings style is His Most Excellent Majesty and then there may be Treason against the House of Lords or against the House of Commons as well as against the King if laesa Majestas the offending or injuring of Majesty be Treason nay then we have three Sovereigns and not one only for whosoever hath any share in the Sovereignty is a Sovereign and then I wonder why we do not take an Oath of Allegiance to the two Houses as well as to the King nay I wonder much more why they of both Houses do all of them take an Oath of Allegiance to the King and cannot sit in either House till they do so Surely one Sovereign doth not owe Allegiance to another no not the least of Sovereigns to the greatest for as all Sovereigns the greatest as well as the least are equally under God so the least as well as the greatest are equally under none but God at least quatenùs so far forth as they are Sovereigns or in those things and places where and when they have a right to Sovereignty or to any part thereof CHAP. X. The King declared by an Act of Parliament injoyning the Oath of Supremacy to be the only Supreme Governour Mr. B 's sorry evasion of this Oath and Queen Elizabeths Declaration concerning it BUT what need is there of making such Collections or Inferences from the Addresses made to the King from either or both Houses of Parliament with their full subscriptions thereunto to prove that they acknowledg the King to be their Sovereign their fole Sovereign and themselves to be his Subjects his humble and loyal Subjects even in their Parliamentary capacity for in that capacity it was that they addressed themselves to him What need is there I say of insisting upon such more remote though very pregnant and concluding proofs when several Parliaments properly so called that is Parliaments consisting of the head the King and all the integral members that is of the Lords Spiritual as well as Temporal together with the House of Commons have in positive and express words and that not by a Vote Order or Ordinance but by an Act declared the King not only to be the Supreme but the only Supreme Governour of this Realm and of all other his Highnesses Dominions and Countries and that as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical things and causes as temporal These I say are the very words of an Act of Parliament properly so called that is of a full and free of a compleat and
him or equal to him or partaker in any part of the Sovereignty with him he cannot be said to be the only supreme Governour of this Realm and of all other his Dominions and Countries as by the Act of Vniformity those of the Kings Subjects that are to teach all the rest of their fellow Subjects are obliged not only to say but swear he is nor is it so much as to be imagined that the King Lords and Commons would have obliged any to take such an Oath if they themselves had not believed the whole subject matter of it to be true CHAP. XI The Oath of Supremacy further explained The Kings being declared the sole supreme Governor cuts off all pretence at home as well as foreign claim I say the whole subject matter of it for there be evidently two several distinct parts of that Oath both of which every one of them that takes it is equally obliged to swear unto of which the first is Assertory and the second Promissory In the former he that swears asserts the Kings Sovereignty affirmatively affirming him to have the sole supreme power over all Persons in all Causes within his Realms and Dominions and then negatively by denying any foreign Power or any without his Dominions to have any Jurisdiction over any of his Subjects or to have any thing to do within his Dominions And it is in regard of the latter of these two clauses only that this Oath can be said to be enacted and imposed for the discovery and conviction of Papists and that not of all Papists neither but such Papists only as believe the Pope to have the supreme Power over all Christians in Spirituals at least if not in Temporals whose Subjects soever they may be in Temporals But as to the former of these two Clauses in the Assertory part of this Oath which affirms the King to be sole Sovereign or that he is the Only supreme Governour in this Realm it seems principally if not wholly to be intended to assert the Government of this Kingdom to be Monarchical and to make it be acknowledged to be so For by swearing that the King is the only supreme Governour of this Realm c. they do virtually and by necessary consequence swear also that all other Governours within the Realm as they do severally and joyntly derive their Power of governing from him so they are joyntly as well as severally subordinate unto him and therefore none of them either severally or joyntly co-ordinate with him Because if any of them or all of them in any capacity were so or believed by the Parliament to be so the Parliament by enjoyning men to swear the King is the only supreme Governour of this Realm must needs be chargeable with enjoyning Perjury or which is worse with compelling others to swear that to be truth which they themselves do not believe to be so which cannot be avoided but by concluding that the Injunction of the Oath of Supremacy by Parliament is a Declaration of Parliament that this Kingdom is a Monarchy properly so called because the Sovereignty or supreme Power is in one Person only namely in the King and if in him only then in him wholly also And that this was the Parliaments meaning in prescribing and enjoyning that Oath of Supremacy may farther and if it be possible more undeniably and demonstratively be made to appear it is very observable that in the Rubrick prefixed before the Administration of that Oath which Rubrick is a part of the Act of Parliament as well as the Oath it self it is said the Bishop shall cause The Oath of the Kings Supremacy And against the Power and Authority of all Foreign Potentates c. to be administred c. It is observable I say that in the aforesaid Rubrick there is a clear and a very notable distinction made betwixt the two first Clauses of the Assertory part of the Oath namely betwixt the Clause affirming the King to be the only supreme Governor of this Realm and the Clause denying any foreign Prince Person Prelate or Potentate to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm The distinction I say by the Rubrick made betwixt the two Clauses is very notable for it is the first of them only that is called by the Rubrick the Oath of the Kings Supremacy whereas the latter is said to be against the Power and Authority of all Foreign Potentates and therefore is more properly to be called an Abjuration than an Oath And yet it is this Abjuration only that Mr. Baxter will have to be meant by the Oath of Supremacy whereas this abjuration is not the Oath of Supremacy it self but a Deduction only from the Oath of Supremacy For because the King is the only supreme Governour of this Realm therefore neither Pope nor any other foreign Prince Prelate or Potentate can claim or pretend to any Supremacy or part of Supremacy here in this Kingdom So that he that can truly swear the one may safely per modum sequelae by way of consequence swear the other also But though the truth of the former doth necessarily infer the truth of the latter yet the truth of the latter doth not necessarily infer the truth of the former For though it be never so true and never so undoubtedly acknowledged to be so that no Foreigner or none without the Realm of what quality or denomination soever doth or can justly pretend to the supreme or any part of the supreme Power either Civil or Ecclesiastical here in England yet supposing the supreme Power to be divided as Grotius supposeth it may be in some Kingdoms and Mr. Baxter saith it is here in this Kingdom it will not follow I confess that the King is or that the Parliament that made this Act and enjoyned this Oath to be taken did thereby acknowledg the King to be the only supreme Governour of this Realm But the Parliament by injoyning the Oath to be taken and those that take it not only abjurare to abjure or for swear all foreign jurisdiction but jurare to swear positively and plainly That the King is the only supreme Governour of this Realm over all Persons in all Cases and Capacities do evidently declare that They themselves believe and acknowledg the King to be so and consequently whatsoever division there may be of the supreme Power in other Kingdoms yet in this there is none For the first the most immediate and most natural deduction from this Proposition viz. The King is the only supreme Governour of this Realm is the excluding all others in this Realm from having any thing to do with the supreme Government of it And therefore the swearing to this Proposition alone is called by the Rubrick the taking of the Oath of the Kings Supremacy the following abjuration of all foreign Authorities being but a deduction and that not a primary but
and by usurpation of the Kings Authority without any Commission or leave from him for the doing of it they make it one of the 19 Propositions they sent to the King when he was at York in the year 42. That his Majesty would be pleased to rest satisfied with that course that the Lords and the House of Commons have appointed for the ordering of the Militia until the same shall be farther setled by a Bill by which Proposition they do plainly confess First That they had taken the Sword by having ordered the Militia of the Kingdom Secondly That they had no Commission or leave from the King for it by saying it was done by their own appointment Thirdly That they knew they had intrenched upon his Authority by so doing Why else should they desire his Majesty would be pleased to rest satisfied with what they had done in that particular at least pro tempore at the present until the same that is the ordering of the Militia should be farther setled by Bill Whereby Fourthly They confess that the Power of setling it and consequently of making any use of it was not in them as yet by Law until by a Bill consented to by the King it were made a Law and consequently that the Ordinances of both Houses as they call'd them did not nor could not make any thing they ordered to be done legal or obligatory to the whole Nation And hence or from this consciousness of the insufficiency of their own Authority to justifie either before God or the World the lawfulness of doing what they had done and meant to do it was that they so earnestly and so often press'd the King to pass their Ordinances into Acts. For though they did what they could to make the poor deluded People believe that their Ordinances were as legal as valid and as obligatory as Acts for the draining of their Purses and exposing of their Persons yet by their being so desirous as they were even after their victory and when the King was their Prisoner to legitimate their spurious Ordinances by turning them into Acts it is evident they did not themselves believe what they and their Preachers made the People to believe concerning the validity of any of those Ordinances especially that for taking up of Arms as if the Power of the Sword and ordering of the Militia of the Kingdom to fight for whom and against whom they pleased and upon what account they pleased had been in them which by what I have said it doth not only appear it was not but that they knew it was not but was and always had been in the Crown as the King tells them in his answer to the aforesaid Proposition of the two Houses telling them that he will no more part with his Right in the Militia than with his Crown and indeed when he parts with the one he doth in effect part with the other also for as the Crown upon his head is the Emblem of his Sovereignty so the Sword and the Scepter that are always when he appears as a King carried before him are the Emblems of the two supporters of his Crown or of his Sovereignty the Sword the Emblem of his supreme Military and the Scepter the Emblem of his supreme Civil or judiciary Power and both of them signifie that he is the fountain of all Power and that there is no Power that can be legally exercised within any of his Realms and Dominions but what is derived from him and exercised immediately or mediately by him and for him And that this is true in Divinity as well as by the Law of the Land in relation to our King I will cite the Authority of a Casuist whom Mr. Baxter seems to have a great reverence for and esteem of though he were a Bishop and more than a Bishop I mean Arch-Bishop Vsher whose Reduction of Episcopacy Mr. Baxter seems to approve though the Arch-Bishop himself as I have been informed would not own it to be his This Great and Good man I say preaching before the last King at the Treaty in the Isle of Wight did in that Sermon of his positively and in plain terms more than once or twice affirm the King our King to be the fountain of Power under God within his own Dominions and that therefore no Power could lawfully be assumed or made use of by any upon any pretence whatsoever but as it was derived by Commission from the King These were his very words whereunto he added This is true Doctrine were the King a Papist or a Pagan and much more when he is as our King is a Christian King an Orthodox Christian King and that not in profession only but in practice also And then having somewhat inlarged himself in speaking of the Kings personal Vertues and Graces both moral and spiritual Now said he some that hear me may think I flatter him indeed I do not but I confess that what I have said of him I have said to comfort him for never any man of his quality had more need of it both in regard of the unworthy usage he hath had and the unworthy condition he is now in which I hope said he will last no longer For this as he then added is the 49th year of his Age and at the end of the 49th year began the year of Jubilee among the Jews and then every bondman was made free and every Prisoner was set at liberty and every one that had been kept out of possession was restored to it And if said he We be not worse than Jews it will be so with us now also Haec audivimus magnum illum virum non magis verè quà m fortiter animosè disserentem these things we heard that Great man discoursing of with no less courage and resolution than with truth And I have repeated it so often upon several occasions both at home and abroad for his honour that I verily believe these for the most part were the very same words or very near the very same numerical words as well as the identical sence of that passage of his Sermon which I have repeated And although I cannot produce many Witnesses to attest the truth of what I have here said as to this particular there being but one besides my self at least that I can remember now living that heard that Sermon yet that One is one of that credit and reputation with the generality of good men that he is multorum instar as good as a great many to make any thing he attests upon his own knowledge to be believed and this was so notable a passage to be delivered at such a time and in such a place by One that was nominated not by the King but by the Commissioners for the Parliament to be sent for thither that I am sure Sir Philip Warwick could not chuse but take special notice of it as I think every body did that heard it and
therefore I am sure he cannot forget it or at least will remember it assoon as he is put in mind of it And to him I appeal for the verifying of what I have said as to this particular But if any man shall notwithstanding Sir Philip Warwick's attestation think it to be incredible that the two Houses of Parliament being then in their Zenith should indure any such thing to be said so much to their reproach and condemnation of their cause and of all their proceedings without any animadversion upon him that said it I answer it was partly because they were then in their Zenith so high advanced and so highly elevated with the success God had for our sins and for their obduration permitted them to have that they despised what any man did or could say against them and partly because they could not have taken notice of it without inflicting some punishment or other upon him for it which they could not have done he being a man of such eminency not only in regard of his quality but much more in regard of his learning and sanctity and in regard of the very great reputation he had thereby acquired both at home and abroad without exposing themselves to the envy and hatred of the whole World and without doing themselves any good by it and therefore all things considered they thought it best to take no notice at all of it as for ought I ever heard they did not Howsoever what I affirm that pious and learned Arch-Bishop said whether he said it or no is true namely that the Power of the Sword or the Power of making War though for their own defence only or for never so good an end was not in the two Houses but in the King and in the King only as they did themselves acknowledg because at that very time and at that very Treaty one of the prime Articles which they mainly insisted on was to have the Sword for so many years to be put into their hands by the Kings passing of an Act of Parliament to that purpose and for their raising of mony during that time for the support and exercise of that Power in what proportion they thought or should think fit upon their Fellow-Subjects all which they had done before by virtue of their Ordinances only which either they did or did not think to be a legal and sufficient Authority for their taking of the Sword and using it as they did If they did think so why might not the same authority have been sufficient for the continuance of it and if so what need was there of an Act for the trusting them with it but for a time only But if they did not think their own Ordinances to be a legal and sufficient Authority for their taking of the Sword and taxing of the People and the exercising all those other Acts of Arbitrary Power which they did for so many years together by vertue of their own Ordinances only why then habemus confitentes reos We have their own confession not only that they took the Sword which neither the Law nor the King had put into their hands and therefore were Vsurpers of the Regal Authority but had made use of it against the King or which is all one against those that were commissioned by the King and therefore were Traytors and Rebels as likewise that their own Ordinances were not legally sufficient to justifie their so doing and consequently that they have not such a Legislative Power as Mr. Baxter saith they have and which he is so confident of as that he offers his head to the Block if the reasons he gives for the proof of it be disproved which I am now in the last place to try whether I can do or not The end of the third Section SECT IV. England a Monarchy and the Soveraignty solely in the KING prov'd against Mr. Baxter as also that neither the Parliaments concurrence as the Peoples Representatives to the making Laws nor their being Trustees for the Peoples Rights gives them any share in the Soveraignty CHAP. I. The mischief of Schismatical Books Mr. Baxter 's Anti-episcopal and Anti-monarchical Aphorisms The Soveraignty not divided as Mr. B. saith betwixt KING and Parliament Prov'd by the Parliaments acknowledgments and by the Oath of Supremacy AND first thanks be to God and the King that Mr. Baxter is not Lugdunensem causam dicturus ad aram that he is not to plead his cause at the Kings-Bench Barr. For God knows that all the hurt I wish him is that no more hurt may be done by Him and for this end and for this end only it was that I silenced him from preaching and for this end and for this end only it is that I would have him prohibited from writing or at least from publishing what he writes until he is licensed by Authority to do so For when he hath published such pernicious Principles against the legal constitution of the Church and State as he hath done in divers of his Books especially in that of the Holy Commonwealth it is too late and to very little purpose to say as he doth say of some of them that he would have them taken pro non scriptis as if they had not been written For Serò medicina paratur Cùm mala per long as invaluêre moras that is Physick comes too late when ill humors through long delays have got too great a head An Arch-Heretick may by Gods mercy be himself reconcil'd to the Truth and become Orthodox and an Arch-Schismatick may by the same mercy be reconciled to the Church and become Conformable and yet that Heresie that was broached by the one and that Schism that was introduced by the other may be propagated and perpetuated by their Books and by their Disciples from Generation to Generation to the Worlds end and if Master Baxter will needs have a secondary Original sin I think this is that which may most properly be so called Our Countryman Brown who would needs have our Church of England to be no Church was himself convinced of this error so that he not only became a Member but a Minister of the Church of England and as I have been informed died Parson of a Parish called A-Church in Northamptonshire But did Brownism dye with him No there are Brownists still and will be God knows how long perhaps till Doom's day put an end to the World and all the Divisions that have been are or shall be in it So that as nothing can be more criminal than to be the Author of a Schism Sect or Heresie so nothing can be more dangerous than to suffer the spreading and growth of them especially of such of them as are destructive in their natural tendency whatsoever the intention of the Authors and Abettors may be to the peace and welfare of the established Government either in Church or State And such say I are Mr. Baxter's Anti-episcopal Aphorisms in
observeth to have been the error of Polybius in judging the Roman to have been a mixed Government and the Soveraignty or supreme power thereof to have been divided betwixt the Consuls the Senate the People when saith Grotius the Government was indeed meerly popular or Democratical And the cause of this mistake in Polybius saith Grotius was his respiciens ad actiones ipsas non ad jus agendi his looking at the things that were done not at the authority whereby they were done whereas if he had consider'd that what was done either by the Consuls or by the Senate was done by an authority derived from the People signified nothing if it were not ratified by the People he would have been convinc'd that the Soveraignty or supreme power was wholly in the People consequently that it was a meer Democracy and not a mixed Government In like manner Mr. Baxter looking only at the things that are done by the 3. Estates in Parliament as to their concurrence to the making of Laws subordinate managery of other parts of the Government not considering by whose Authority they do what they do and that all that they do signifies nothing unless it be ratified by the King erroneously at least if not fallaciously concludes the Soveraignty or supreme power it self to be divided betwixt the King and the 3. Estates or betwixt the King the 2. Houses of Parliament whereas their very Parliamentary being consequently the power of their Parliamentary acting is derived from the Supremacy of power inseparably and indivisibly and incommunicably inherent in the King But although the Soveraignty it self or original fountain of all power in a Monarchy be indivisibly incommunicably in the person of the King yet the streams that issue or flow from that fountain may be and are and of necessity must be divided communicated so as may be most serviceable for the several uses the whole body Politick or the whole body of the Kingdom may have of it And as this Supreme or Soveraign Power though it be always indivisibly inherent in the King as the fountain of it may have its several streams divided communicated so in the exercise of its several Acts operations it may be in all Political Kingdoms it is limited determined in some more in some less but in none more nor so much for the good of the Subject without prejudice to the Soveraignty Majesty of the King than in this of ours where the People by their Representatives are not only admitted to propose what they would have to be made Laws but where no Law can be made but what they propose or consent to though they do not make it though it be in the Kings power to refuse the making of it because the Laws we have already are sufficient to secure all their Rights unto the People as long as they are in force in force they will be until the People themselves do consent to the repealing of them For the King as he can make no new Law so he can repeal no old Law without the consent of the Representatives of the People who most certainly will never give their consent for repealing of Magna Charta or the Petition of Right or any other Law now in force for the securing any of their just Rights and Privileges So that the Kings Negative is not nor cannot be prejudicial to the Interest of the People but it is absolutely necessary for the preservation of Monarchy For if the King could not refuse to make what the 2. Houses propose to be Laws the Soveraignty would be wholly in them not at all in him Nay he would be so far from having the Soveraignty of a King that he would not have the liberty of the meanest of his Subjects that sits in the House of Commons in giving his I or No according to the dictate of his own Reason and Conscience which as it is every private mans right by nature as he is a reasonable Creature so it is the Kings right by Nature and Prerogative too as he is a King it being impossible to be a King without it And therefore those that say the King is bound to pass all those Laws quas Vulgus elegerit which the People or Commonalty shall make choice of or that he is but one of the three Co-ordinates therefore may be overvoted by the other two or that he hath but a part of the Soveraignty and therefore cannot over-rule those that have their parts in the Soveraignty as well as he or that he may not prorogue or dissolve Parliaments when he thinks fit to do so All these are Enemies not only to the well-being but to the very being of Monarchy and that not of absolute or despotical Monarchy only but of Political or Paternal Monarchy also And therefore though they cajole and flatter the People never so much they are the greatest Enemies they have and as such the People ought to look upon them would do so if they were not like Beasts without understanding nay worse than Beasts without sence and memory of what they have so often and so lately suffered by listning to the same Songs of the same Sirens or sweet Singers that have so often deceived them But if the People cannot or will not understand the things that belong unto their peace yet Be wise O ye Kings and be learned O ye Judges of the Earth be wise for the Peoples sake be wise for your own sakes also For if you do not prevent the raising raging of those waves the Pilot as well as the Passengers will be swallowed up by them And there is no way to prevent the raising of those Waves nor the raging of them when they are raised but by rebuking the Winds that raised them for if it were not for those boysterous Winds that puff them up there would be no such swelling Waves as we see there are In the mean time I hope I have said nothing for the justifying of my self from being a Defier of Deity and Humanity and from being an Enemy to God to Kings and to all Mankind as Mr. Baxter saith I am because I maintain it to be Vnlawful for Subjects to resist their Soveraigns in any cause or upon any provocation whatsoever and for the confutation of Mr. Baxter's erroneous and seditious Aphorisms or Principles to the contrary I hope I say I have said nothing in order to either of these ends that will give any just offence to such as are judicious and impartial Friends to Truth and do really wish and desire the continuance of the Peace and welfare of their Country and then for such as are contrary minded I care not what they think or say of me The End of the Fifth Section SECTION VI. The rest of Mr. Baxter's Reflexions called to account as concerning the Bishop's advising him to reade Hooker and
supposing I was mistaken in thinking him to be a Presbyterian I know not why he should take it as an affront to be thought to be so for being evidently and confessedly a Dissenter from the Government and publick way of Worship as it is established by Law in the Church of England I thought it was more for his Honour to be thought and treated with as a Presbyterian than as one of any other of the more novel and more ignoble Sects which though they all of them have Presbytery for their Mother yet they had not all of them Calvin for their Father but are the bastard issue of unknown Sires Besides I had reason to think that Mr. Baxter was of the same persuasion that his Commilitones his Fellow-Souldiers in the Dispute at the Savoy were who were always taken for Presbyterians and did not take it for a Reproach but rather for an Honour to be thought to be so And if it be honourable to be of such or such a party it is much more honourable to be the Antesignanus or leader of such a party And therefore thinking as I did for the reasons aforesaid Mr. Baxter to be a Presbyterian and hearing he had been a Souldier in the late War and having observed how he had behaved himself as a Leader in the aforesaid Dispute at the Savoy I thought I could not call him a more proper name in relation to both his Professions I mean that of a Warriour and that of a Disputer than that of Antesignanus a Standard-bearer But perhaps I may be mistaken all this while in thinking Mr. Baxter takes it ill to be called either Antesignanus or Antesignanus Presbyterianorum Whereas it is his being called Antesignanus of the Presbyterians onely and not of the other Sects as well as of that which offends it being a diminution of his just Title to be the Antesignanus but of one Sect onely whereas he undertakes the defence of all the Nonconformists so far forth at least as they refuse to conform to the Church of England how much soever they may differ among themselves as appears by the Title page of one of his last Books published last Year but written as he saith many Years before and called An Apology for the Nonconformists Ministry containing their Reasons for their Preaching and an Answer to the Accusations urged as Reasons for the silencing about 2000 by Bishop Morley Dr. Saywell Mr. Durell c. From which Title of that Book of his it is manifest that he owns himself an Apologist for all the Nonconformists at least for all their Preachers and especially for all those that were silenced which were all that had been Preachers before of what Sect or denomination soever which would not subscribe and submit to the Act of Vniformity after the King's Restauration And those were Anabaptists Antinomians Quakers Fifth monarchy men as well as Presbyterians and Independents for all these were Nonconformists and every of these Sects had their Preachers who were all of them equally silenced by the Act of Vniformity and therefore must be reckoned amongst those for whom Mr. Baxter professeth himself to be an Apologist and indeed if they be not I think he will hardly make up one of his 2000 silenced Preachers If he say that in the aforesaid Title to that Book of his it is the Nonconformists Ministry or the Ministers of the Nonconformists that he pleads for I demand whether by the Ministry he means onely such as have an outward Call by publick Authority to the Work of the Ministry or to the teaching of others whether that calling be by the Episcopal or Presbyterian way of Ordination If so then not onely all those gifted men that pretend to no other but an inward calling are excluded from being any of his 2000 whom he pleads for but the Congregational or Independent Preachers also who have no outward calling but from their own Congregations onely and so perhaps have the Gifted men whether Anabaptists or Quakers or any other of the Fanatical holders-forth from those that are their own Auditours also so that Mr. Baxter must either leave out those I mean the Independents or take in these I mean all the rest of the Sectaries into the number of those he calls the Nonconformist Ministry and for whom he professeth he maketh the aforesaid Apology and whom he would have restored to the same liberty or licence of preaching which they had formerly in the time of the Rebellion and Usurpation A very sober and seasonable Proposal to be made to Bishops and those Bishops whom he makes it to are very much beholding to him for the good opinion he hath of them as the onely men of their Order that are likely to hearken to such a proposal In the mean time we may learn from hence whom he means by the word Vs when he tells the Bishop of Ely and Me that We two of all he knows have most effectually helped to bring Vs that is all the Nonconformists of all kinds under CHAP. V. How Mr. B. and his party have been brought under and how they brought in the King WE are therefore now in the second place to guess as well as we can at what he means by bringing him and the rest of the Nonconformists Vnder There is none of them I believe but would be uppermost if they could for Pride is inseparable from Schism and it is the downfall of Pride to be brought under The Two chief Sects of the Nonconformists the Presbyterians and Independents have had their turns in being uppermost the Presbyterians whilst the Parliament and the Independents whilst the Army and Cromwell had the power of which two Sects it may be said as it was of Caesar and Pompey the one to wit the Independents like Caesar could not ferre priorem could endure none to be above them and the other to wit the Presbyterians like Pompey could not ferre parem must needs have all to be under them and therefore each of them having been uppermost before they must needs be very angry with all those who have helped to bring them both under after they had domineered so long as they had done And of those that have helped to bring them under Mr. Baxter tells the Bishop of Ely and Me that We two of all men he knows have been the chief But under whom or under what is it that We have helped to bring them Sure it must be under some Person or some Thing that they would not willingly have been brought under otherwise they would not have been angry with us or complained of us for so doing Vnder whom is it therefore that We have helped to bring them Is it not He under whom they ought always to have been under namely the KING their natural Liege-Lord and Sovereign But they had brought his Father under them and therefore were the more unwilling to be brought under his Son for fear he might remember
and particularly such as are against Princes safety and honour or whose Principles tend to overthrow the honour and safety of Governours and to kindle the fire of contention and enmity or such as draw their hearers Souls into any damnable errour or sin or that perswade men against any precept of the Decalogue and consequently against any of the precepts of the second Table as well as of the first all such as these saith Mr. Baxter are to be restrained from preaching For far be it saith Mr. Baxter from any sober man to think that the Magistrate must let all men doe the evil that they will but pretend to God and Conscience for Which one saying of his makes all that he said before to justifie the preaching of his Nonconformists to signifie nothing if they be silenced or forbidden to preach for any of the aforesaid causes by him specified and acknowledged to be such as Preachers ought to be silenced for notwithstanding any pretence of conscience to the contrary So this being agreed on betwixt us the next thing in question betwixt us is whether those that are silenced are such as Mr. Baxter confesseth ought to be silenced or no for if they be he confesseth likewise that no pretence of conscience can warrant their preaching and much less oblige them to preach For the deciding of this question therefore whether those that are silenced are justly silenced or no there remains one and but one question more and that is who shall judge and finally determine whether they that are silenced be or be not such as ought to be silenced or restrained from preaching Surely they themselves must not be their own judges but who must then why who but the Magistrate saith Mr. Baxter who in Church cases and religion hath the onely publick judgment whom he shall countenance maintain or tolerate or whom he shall punish or not tolerate nor maintain but with this caution so he be not the executioner of the Clergy's sentence without or against his own conscience and judgment Where by the Magistrate I hope he means the supreme Magistrate and by his judgment he means his judgment according to Law For the Law and nothing but the Law is the declaration of the supreme Magistrate's publick judgment in giving whereof he neither is nor can be the executioner of any other man's sentence but all subordinate Magistrates whether Civil or Ecclesiastical are the executioners of the supreme Magistrate's judgment or sentence and are no farther binding or to be obeyed than they are so Now that the supreme Magistrate with the advice and consent of his great Council hath given his judgment not onely who are and who are not to be tolerated to preach in publick or in Churches appears by the Act of Vniformity as likewise that he hath given his judgment also that those who are not to be tolerated to preach in publick or in Churches are not to be tolerated to preach in private nor in Conventicles neither appears by those other Acts of Parliament whereby such preaching is forbidden and such penalties as are therein specified are to be inflicted upon the transgressours of them Lastly as those Acts of Parliament are undeniable evidences who are and who are not to be tolerated to preach either publickly or privately according to the publick judgment of the State so the reasons why such preaching and such Preachers are prohibited are declared in the Titles and Prefaces of the aforesaid Acts for example the Title to one of those Acts namely that of decimo tertio of our present King is this An Act for the safety and preservation of his Majesty's person and Government against treasonable and seditious practices and attempts and in the Preface to the said Act it is said that the Lords and Commons assembled in that Parliament deeply weighing and considering the miseries and calamities of well nigh 20 years before his Majesty's happy return and withall reflecting upon the causes and occasions of so great and deplorable confusions the growth and increase of which they say did in a very great measure proceed from a multitude of seditious Sermons Pamphlets and Speeches published with a transcendent boldness from which kind of distemper say they as the present age is not wholly free so posterity may be apt to relapse into them if a timely remedy be not provided Therefore say they We the Lords and Commons having duly considered the Premisses do most humbly beseech your Majesty that it may be enacted c. By which Title and preface it plainly appears that the Lords and Commons did believe that neither the safety of the King's person nor of the Government could be secured if such kind of Preaching and Preachers as had in the late times been the stirrers up of the People to rebellion were not restrained from preaching for the future unless they would give some such security as the Parliament should think fit to require which was their renouncing the Covenant and their subscription to the Act of Vniformity which was enacted by the King by the advice and with the consent of the Lords and Commons the year following And it was for their not conforming to this Act of Vniformity that is for their not giving that security which the Law required that they would not preach schismatically and factiously and seditiously as they had done formerly for which they were some of them deprived and all of them disabled to preach publickly in Churches and consecrated places But this Act not proving effectual enough to prevent the danger for preventing whereof it was enacted because those that were forbid to preach publickly and in Churches did preach the same doctrines in Conventicles and in corners confirming their old and making more and more new Proselytes and being more and more followed because they were forbidden to preach in publick Therefore two years after this there was another Act made by the same Authority the Title whereof is An Act to prevent and suppress seditious Conventicles and the Preface or Preamble thereof is That for the providing of farther and more speedy remedies against the growing and dangerous practices of seditious Sectaries and other disloyal Persons who under pretence of tender Consciences do at their meetings contrive Insurrections as late experience hath shewed Be it enacted c. And then tells us first what shall be taken for a seditious Conventicle namely any meeting or Assembly in any place under colour or pretence of any exercise of Religion in other manner than is allowed by the Liturgy or practice of the Church of England where there shall be five Persons or more over and above those of the same house Secondly What are to be the Penalties for the first second and third Offence and lastly who are to be the Executioners and Inflicters of these Penalties Where you see that it is the Highest secular Magistrate whom Mr. Baxter will have
Vid. a vindication of the Primitive Church in answer to Mr. B 's Church History A remark in general upon those who censure our Translation The danger and vanity of such bold censures Some examples of Mr. B 's thus doing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a city with him stands for a Market town Because he would have no Bishop of more than one congregation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not properly rendred he saith to resist To resist is more than not to obey Vid. Holy Common-wealth p. 37. p 377. So to resist God is more than not to obey him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to resist are both Military Terms Our Translatours of St. Paul 's judgment as Mr. B. is not What meant by Resisting Resistance impious and irreligious Irrational also as inconsistent with the being of a Body Politick The necessity of a Supreme power in all Bodies Politick That Supreme power unquestionable The reason of this grounded upon Nature Grotius his testimony Monarchy God's government Mr. B 's just and loyal opinion of the Sovereigns power Vid. Holy Com. p. 72. Spoiled by his following Aphorisms H. C. p. 73. H. C. p. 87. Aph. 79. H. C. p. 87. 88. H. C. p. 74. Vpon these suppositions Mr. B. justifies the late Rebellion And by consequence the King's murther The Independents as justifiable as the Presbyterians Those Assertions of Mr. B 's taken to task Resistance inconsistent with the well-being of Bodies Politick As being an occasion of Civil War the worst of evils No small matter in Mr. B 's opinion that will excuse resisting Grotius puts a case but contradicts himself and the Primitive Christians in his answer to it De jure belli pacis lib. 1. c. 4 p. 104. A passage of his before cited concerning the Primitive Christians compared with this He himself in effect disallows his own Answer De jure Belli ac pacis p. 112. Some instances of his wherein Resistance may seem lawfull examined Thâ—se Instances of his are of Kings and nâ— Kings The third Instance The fourth Instance Those Instances but seeming Exceptions The Law of non-resisting the foundation and preservative of humane society Other reasons for non-resistance Resistance unlawfull even in Grotius his Case An Instance from the Holy League in France The Catholick Religion the pretence there The like Instance from our late Rebellion in England The Protestant Religion the pretence here Other pretences made use of for the late Rebellion The doctrine of Non-resistance recommended The Bishops grounds to prove the late War unlawful Mr. B's contrary grounds to justifie it His confidence of these grounds H. C. p. 489 490. The first of them confidered H. C. 476. ad sinem istius pagine The Parliaments Declaration Ibid. Mr. B. personally ingaged in the War The Parliaments design in that Declaration * 2 Chron. 18. v. 30. Mr. B's own confession in the case H. C. p. 422. H. C. p. 471. By Parliament Mr. B. means the House of Commons The ground of Felton's Murthering the D. of Buckingham a Vote of the House of Commons The dangerous consequence of such Votes No man safe in such cases The Remonstrance of the House of Commons made use of for the destruction of the Kings Person Hol. C. p. 489 Parliaments not infallible nor impeccable by Mr. B's own confession Holy Com-w pag. 437 438. And in some cases to be deferred by the People Ibid. Holy Com-w pag. 439. Mr. B's inconsistence in the resolution of such cases The Law a sure Rule * In Prolegom de jure Belli Pacis The E. of Essex his case in Q. Elizabeths time The Judges Opinion in that case * Cambd. Eliz. ad Ann. 1601. A threefold confirmation of that their opinion Three Observations drawn from thence The Presbyterians would have done what the Independents did had they been let alone Holy Com. p. 422. The Kings Person excepted in none of their Commissions The Presbyterian Clergy taxed as to the late Kings Death Fid. Evangil Armatum Mr. B. particularly charged Hol. Com. p. 489 490. Notwithstanding his confidence Ibid. Rebellion as Mr. B. owns a greater sin than Murther Whordom Drunkenness c. Some were Rebels who did not think themselves so The Schismatical Clergy under a just reproof The King's Power destroyed in the late War The Presbyterian Party who destroyed his Power by Mr. B 's own confession Rebels Nor consequently can they be absolv'd from the guilt of the King's murther The late War then was made against the King And that though the Parliament declared it was not H. Com. p. 419. Mr. B. proved to believe so himself Another Topick of Mr. B 's that the late War was not Rebellion Because the King he saith is not sole Sovereign Mr. B 's bold offer Vid. Praef. to Holy C. prope finem What Mr. B 's meaning is in denying the King to be the highest Power in the time of our divisions The King's Power taken from him his Authority remained good The Act which the King past for the Parliaments sitting Gave them no more Power than they had before The worst Act that blessed King ever did Mr. B grounds his denyal of the Kings Sovereignty upon the constitution of the Government His definition of a Kingdom H. C. p. 85. The Lacedaemonian Kings only titular The Government there Aristocratical All Kings indeed unaccountable to the Reople Even Political Kings who are obliged to govern by Law And though Kings by Election only All such Kings accountable to God only The Question The Answer 1 Reason The People upon their choice part with all the Power they had Valerian 's Reply in the like case Vid. Zozom lib. 6. cap. 6. 2 Reason A King so chosen hath hic Kingly Power immediately from God and not from the People as Mr. B. grants Nothing in Scripture for People to controul their Kings The state of the Jewish Kings Our King according to Mr. B 's own Principles a sole Sovereign Holy Com. p. 61. Ibid. p. 62. The King hath no Superior to judg him nor Peers to try him Mr. B. starts a Controversie which form of Government the English is H. C. p. 87. This Controversie never heard of till the late times The Rebell-Parliament modest at first The secret design of some from the first to change the Government Mr. B. makes the Kingdom of England a mixt Common-wealth H. C. p. 87. My Lord Cook 's judgment in the Case In the Preface to his fourth Book of Reports His judgment to be preferr'd before foreign Lawyers and Divines Calvin the Patriarch of the Presbyterians What properly Calvinism Calvin condemns Resistance of Kings by private men but obliges some sort of Magistrates to it His wariness in expressing himself The three Estates have no such Power as he supposeth Perhaps a salvo for a Lye Calvin himself doubts whether there be any such Magistrates as he speaketh of No such Magistrates by God's Ordinance The inconvenience and mischief of
such Magistrates if there were any such This opinion of Calvin and his Followers taxed by Grotius Heb 12. 15. His reason for it Nam Magistratus illi inferiorum quidem ratione habità sunt publicae personae at superiores si considerentur privati sunt Grotius de jure Belli Pacis l. 1. cap. 4. sect 6. Another passage of Grotius wherein he allows resistance of Kings Si Rex habeat partem summi Imperii partem alteram populus aut senatus Regi in partem non suam involanti vi justè opponi poterit quia catenus imperium non habet quod locum habere censeo etlamsi dictum sit belli potestatem penes Regem fore id enim de Bello externo intelligendum est cùm alioqui quisquis Imperii summi partem habeat non possit non habere eam partem tuendi potestatem quod ubl fit potest Rex suam Imperii partem belli jure amittere Grot. Ibid. This passage the ground of Mr. B's justifying the late War No such Case possible as Grotius supposeth Sovereignty indivisible The division of the Roman Empire no division of Sovereignty Our English Heptarchy such Partners in the Empire upon what account The Case when a King is conditionally elected A King thus Elected a King in title only No division of the Sovereignty in this Case as being wholly in the People Grotius inconsistent with himself An account of the changes in the Roman States in none of which ever any Division of the Sovereignty The changes of Government in that State but three properly speaking The Sovereignty not divided all the while The Senate not Co-partners in it with the Emperor as Mr. B. would have it Grotius his design in his supposed Division of the Sovereignty to justifie the Netherlands war against the King of Spain A Book of his wherein he states the Case He lodges the Sovereignty all along in the States and makes K. Philip an Vsurper os it Lib. de Antiquitate Reipub Baravicae cap. 7. page 49. This however it may perhaps justifie his Countrymen doth not reach the Case in hand This further made out The whole Sovereignty he saith was always in the States De Antiquitate Relpub Batav p. 52. Ib. p. 49. Their Kings but Titular The States according to Grotius in their war with the King of Spain did but recover what was their own before upon these grounds if true that War no Rebellion The Sovereignty of necessity either wholly in the People or wholly in the King Sovereignty or the supreme Power is that in the Body Politick which the Soul is in the natural Body No such division of the Sovereignty in England If England a Monarchy as it is the King sole Sovereign Both which Mr. B. denies though sworn by him at his Ordination The Parliaments pretended Declaration about it inquired after No such Declaration to be heard of from any Parliament The House of Commons which with Mr. B. goes for the Parliament how Representatives of the People Of Representatives at last they made themselves Lords and Masters In their Addresses they always acknowledged the King their Sovereign If the two Houses either or both have a share in the Sovereignty they would have a title to Majesty also The King declared to be the only Supreme Governour by an Act of Parliament To wit by the Act of Vniformity H. C. 460. Mr. B. slights what he cannot answer Ibid. The Oath of Supremacy not made against Papists only as he saith The use Q. Elizabeth made of that Oath She justified her self in it by a publick Declaration Camd. Eliz. p. 39 40. Three things observed from that Declaration of Hers. The Supremacy the chief Prerogative of the Crown Two parts in the Oath of Supremacy the one Assertory the other Promissory In the Assertory part two Clauses one Affirmative the other Negative The later Clause discovers Papists The former Clause asserts the Monarchy What intended by swearing the King to be the only supreme Governour The distinction which the Rubrick makes betwixt those two Clauses Vid. The form and manner of making of Deacons The first Clause is called the Oath The second is rather an Abjuration The former Clause infers the later the later not the former The Kings being the only supreme Governor excludes all pretence to the Supremacy from any other as well at home as abroad Why not an express abjuration of the Supremacies being in any at home beside the King as of its being in any abroad The 1 Reason The 2 Reason There is a claim to the Supremacy from abroad no such pretence at home A Pamphlet in the late times taxed which makes the two Houses Co-ordinate with the King The project of Co-ordination utterly inconsistent with our Government The constitution the same now as ever The two Houses Petitioning the King a proof that there is no Co-ordination The King free to grant or deny as he pleaseth An Ordinance of both Houses with Mr. B. equivalent to an Act of Parliament No legal Authority for the late War against the King Nor can any pretence justifie it Mr. B. himself appealed to Holy Com. w. p. 441. The two Houses themselves acknowledged the power of the Sword to be in the King Some Remarks upon that acknowledgment The invalidity of their Ordinances made out The King asserts the Militia Vid. the Kings Answer from York to the 19 Propositions A remarkable passage in a Sermon of Arch-Bishop Usher at the Treaty in the Isle of Wight Sir Phil. Warwick a witness to that passage An objection against its credibility answered The Parliaments own acknowledgment further made out Tâ—e mischievousness of some of Mr. B. 's writings Heresie and Schism propagated by Books though the Authors themselves repent their errors An Instance of Brown the Father of the Brownists Mr. Baxter the Founder of the Baxterian Sect. His Anti-episcopal Aphorisms past by His Anti-monarchical Aphorisms justly excepted against The Soveraignty he saith divided betwixt King and Parliament and his Reasons to prove it Of his first Proof The Parliament hath always acknowledg'd the King their Soveraign The Oath of Supremacy proves it His second Proof from the Legislative power The Legislative power solely in the King By Parliament is meant not King Lords Commons but Lords and Commons that is the two Houses Mr. B. by Parliament often understands the House of Commons and in effect lodges the whole Legislative power in them How the two Houses come to be a Parliament The Lords summoned by the King The Commons chosen by the People with the King's leave The King gives the Parliament its being and continuance as he pleaseth The two Houses therefore not co-ordinate nor sharers in the Soveraignty with the King Vid. Grotium de Antiquitate Reipub. Batavicae What hurts the Crown hurts the People The Legislative power a branch of Soveraignty How far the two Houses concerned in that They only propose Bills The Royal Assent makes
them for the King 's coming home The security the government required of them Their own measure meted to them The King's Promise at Breda discharged As being conditional Their carriage an affront to the Parliament Mr. B 's boldness with Parliaments The reason of the Act of Vniformity The penalty of not conforming Some have conformed Why the rest did not whether for Conscience as Mr. B. saith Bp. Brownrig's account of Mr Calamy 's not conforming A probable reason why some refused offers of preferment To wit to indear themselves to their party Many stood out in hopes of a Toleration Supposing it is out of Conscience they do not conform yet they are justly silenced The Popish Priests have the same Plea as Mr. B 's Nonconforming Ministers And that upon Mr. B 's own Reasons Vid. Apology for the Nonconformist Ministry p. 14. ibid. p. 15. As from the Obligation of holy Orders From their being consecrated to God's service ibid. p. 20. From scriptural Authority From the guilt of murthering souls if they do not preach Pag. 45. Plea for Non-con's Ministry No such necessity of preaching now as in the primitive times The Homilies of the Church recommended for excellent Sermons The efficacy of those Homilies maintained An Argument drawn from their own repetitions of Sermons Mr. B 's murther of Souls a phantasm The assistance of Nonconformists offered gratis Apol. p. 16. Why not to be accepted The Popish Priests under a greater obligation of preaching Neither of them to be permitted According to Christ's own Caveat and S. Paul 's order to Titus The like practised at the beginning of the Reformation Themselves serv'd the Church of England-men so What Preachers to be silenced by Mr. B 's own sentence * Vid. True and onely way to concord part 3. Third part of True and onely way of conc p. 121. 122. The Ministers Mr. B. pleads for are such as he confesseth ought to be silenced The Magistrate the Judge in this case saith Mr. B. Vid. Third part of Book of Concord pag. 140. The Law is a declaration of his Judgment What kind of Preachers tolerated what not is there set down With the reasons of such restraint A descant upon those reasons The security which the Law requires from Preachers The ground of the Act against Conventicles What are seditious Conventicles Who seditious Preachers Mr. B 's Apology for them falls to ground The very Conventicles whatever people doe there are seditious One main reason of forbidding them to prevent the murthering of Souls * Holy Com. Wealth p. 486. This Mr. B. charged particularly with upon his own confession Ibidem The words of the Reflexion The Bishop not peculiarly concern'd in the former part of those words The latter part of them particularly aimed at the Bishop Mr. Jones a Chaplain to the Duke's Family not to his Person Mr. Jones the man intended by Mr. B. The Bishop no way concerned in his being put out of the Duke's service Some reasons that Mr. Jones is meant by Mr. B. for one that was driven away Vid. The Premonition to the true and onely way of Concord And that the Bishop of Winton is meant by the Prelate who drove him away The false account which Elymas the Sorcerer gives of Mr. Jones 's removal Mr. B. perhaps the Godfather of that Pamphlet Elymas a Comment upon Mr. B 's Text. The Protestant Religion to be preserved better without the Dissenters than with them The condition of the Church of England as to Dissenters Object 1. The Answer Object 2. The Answer Mr. B ' s. Recantation as to the Time very tardy His Sermon before the King The manner of his Recantation Not clearly worded Clog'd with Proviso's His vain-glorious professions of Loyalty Some of his disloyal Principles He justifies the late War Most likely that he is of the same judgment still Two Plots carrying on Mr. B 's true and only way of Concord