has no Authority As for instance if he Levies Money of his People without a Law impowering him to it he goes beyond the limits of his Power and asks that to which he has no Right so that there lyes no obligation on the Subject to grant it And it any in his Name use Violence for the obtaining it they are to be looked on as so many Robbers that invade our Property and they being violent Aggressors the Principle of Self-preservation seems here to take place and to warrant as a violent a resistance 12. There is nothing more evident than that England is a free Nation that has its Liberties and Properties reserved to it by many positive and express Laws if then we have a right to our Property we must likewise be supposed to have a right to preserve it for these Rights are by the Law secured against the Invasions of the prerogative by consequence we must have a right so preserve them against those Invasions It is also evidently declared by our Law that all Orders and Warrants that are issued out in opposition to them are null of themselves And by consequence any that pretend to have commissions from the King so those ends are to be considered as if they had nâ—ne at all Since these commissions being void of themselves are indeed no commissions in the construction of the Law And therefore those who act in vertue of them are still to be considered as Private person who come to Invade and disturb us It is also to be observed that there are some points that are justly disputable and doubâ—ful and others that are so manifest that it is plain that any Objections that can be made to them are rather forced pretences than so much as plausible colours It is true if the case is doubtful the interest of the publick Peace and Order ought to carry it but the case is quite different when the Invasions that are made upon Liberty and Property are plain and visible to all that consider them 13. The main and great difficulty here is that tho our Government does indeed assert the Liberty of the Subject yet there are many express Laws made that lodge the Militia singly in the King that make it plainly unlawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King or any commissioned by him And these Laws have been put in the form of an Oath which all that have born any Imployment either in Church or State have sworn And therefore these Laws for the assuring our Liberties do indeed bind the Kings conscience and may affect his Ministers yet since it is a Maxim of our Law that the King can do no wrong these cannot be carried so far as to justifie our taking Arms against him be the transgressions of Law ever so many and so manifest And since this has been the constant Doctrine of the Church of England it will be a very heavy Imputation on us if it appears that tho we held these opinions as long as the Court and the Crown have favoured us yet as soon as the Court turns against us we change our Principles 14. Here is the true difficulty of this whole matter and therefore it ought to be exactly considered First all general words how large soever are still supposed to have a tacite Exception and reserves in them if the matter seems to require it Children are commanded to Obey their Parents in all things Wives are declared by the Scripture to be subject to their Husband in all things as the Church is unto Christ And yet how comprehensive soever these words may seem to be there is still a reserve to be understood in them And tho by our Form of Marriage the Parties swear to one another till death them do part yet few doubt but this bond is dissolved by Adultery tho it is not named for odious things ought not to be suspected and therefore not named upon such occasions But when they fall out they every still their own force with them 2. when there seems to be a Contradiction between two Articles in the Constitution we ought to examine which of the two is the most evident and the most important and so we ought to fix upon it and then we must give such an accomodating sense to that which seems to contradict it that so we may reconcile those ogether Here then are two seeming contradictions in our constitution The one is the Publick Liberties of the Nation the other is the renouncing of all resistance in case that were Invaded It is plain that our Liberty is only a thing that we enjoy at the Kings discretion and during his pleasure if the other against all Resistance is to be understood according to the out most Extent of the wordy Therefore since the chief Design of Our whole Law and all the several Rules of our Constitution is to secure and maintain Our Liberty we ought to lay that down for a conclusion that it is both the most plain and the most important of the two And the efore the other Article against Resistance ought to be so softned as that it do not destroy this 3. Since it is by a Law that Resistance is condemned we ought to understand it in such a sense as that it doth not destroy all other Laws And therefore the intent of this Law must only relate to the Executive Power which is in the King and not to the Legislative in which we cannot suppose that our Legislators who made that Law intended to give up that which we plainly see they resolved still to preserve intire according to the Ancient Constitution So then the not resisting the King can only be applyed to the Executive Power that so upon no pretence of ill Administrations in the Execution of the Law it should be lawful to resist him but this cannot with any reason be extended to an Invasion of the Leg slative Power or to a total subversion of the Government For it being plain that the Law did not Design to lodge that power in the King it is also plain that iâ— did not intend to secure him in it in case he should set about it 4. The Law mentioning the King or those Commissionate by him shâ—ws plainly that it only Designed to secure the King in the Executive Power For the word Commission necessarly imports this since if it is not according to Law it is no Commission And by consequence those who Act in Vertue of it are not commissionate by the King in the sense of the Law. The King likewise imports a Prince clothed by Law with the Regal Prerogative but of he goes to Subvert the whole Foundation of the Government he subverts that by which he himself has his power and by consequence he annulls his own power and then he ceases to be King having endeavoured to destroy that upon which his own Authority is founded It is acknowledged by the greatest asserters of Monarchical power that in some
cases a King may fall from his power and in other cases that he may fall from the exercise of it His deserting his people his going about to enslave or sell them to any other or a furious going abour to destroy them are in the opinion of the most Monarchical Lawyers such abuses that they naturally divest those that are guilty of them of their whole Authority Infamy or Phrenzid do also put them under the Guardian-ship of others All the crowned heads of Europe have at least secretly approv'd of the putting the late King of Portugal under a Guardian-ship and the keeping him still Prisoner for a few Acts of Rage that had been fatal to a very few persons And even our Court gave the first countenance to it tho of all others the late King had the most reason to have done it at least last of all since it justified a Younger brother's supplanting the Elder yet the evidence of the thing carried it even against Interest Therefore if a King go about to subvert the Government and to overturn the whole Constitution he by this must be supposed either to fall from his power or at least from the exercise of it so far as that he ought to be put under Guardians and according to the case of Portugal the next Heir falls naturally to be the Guardian The next thing to be Considered is to see in Fact whether the Foundations of this Government have been struck at and whether those Ertors that have been perhaps committed are only such Malverâ—atians as ought to be Imputed only to Humane Frailty and to the Ignorance Inadvertencies or Passions to which all Princes may be Subject as well as other men but this will best appear if we consider what are the Fundamental Points of our Government and the chief Securities that we have for our Liberties The Authority of the Law is indeed all in one Word so that if the King pretends to a power to Dispense with Laws there is nothing left upon which the Subject can depend And yet as if Dispensing Power were not enough if Laws are wholly Suspended for all time coming this is plainly a repealing of them when likewise the Men in whose hands the Administration of Justice is put by Law such as Judges and Sheriffs are allowed to tread all Laws under foot even These that infer an incapacity on themselves if they violat them This is such a breaking of the whole Constitution that we can no more have the Administration of Justice so that it is really a Dissolution of the Government since all Tryals Sentences and the Executions of them are become so many unlawful Acts that are null and void of themselves The next thing in our Constitution which secures to us our Laws and Liberties is a Free and Lawful Parliament Now not to mention the breach of the Law of Triennial Parliament it being above three years since we had a Session that enacted any Law Methods have been taken and are daily a taking that render this impossible Parliaments ought to be chosen with an intire Liberty and without either Force or Pre-engagements Whereas if all men are required before hand to enter into Engagements how they will Vote if they were chosen themselves Or how they will give their Votes in the Electing of others This is plainly such a preparation to a Parliament as would indeed make it no Parliament but a Cabal if one were chosen after all that Corruption of Persons who had pre-engaged themselves and after the Threatning and Turning out of all Persons out of Employments who had Refused to do it And if there are such daily Regulations made in the Towns That it is plain those who manage them intend at last to put such a number of Men in the Corporations as will certainly chuse the persons who are recommended to them But above all if there are such a number of Sheriffs and Mayors made over England by whom the Elections must be conducted and returned who are now under an incapacity by Law and so are no Legal Officers and by consequence these Elections that passe under their Authority are null and void If I say it is clear that things are brought to this then the Government is dissolved because it is impossible to have a Free and Legal Parliament in this this State of things If then both the Authority of the Law and the constitution of the Parliament are struck at and dissolved here is a plain subversion of the whole Government But if we enter next into the particular branches of the Government we will find the like disorder among them all The Protestant Religion and the Church of England make a great Article of our Government the Latter being secuted notionly of old by Magna Charta but by many special Laws made of late And there are particular Laws made in K. Charles the First and the late Kingâ—s time Ceâ—â—secu them from all Commissions that the King can raise for Judging or Brenringing them If then in opposition to this a Court so condemned is issurâ—d which proceeds to Judge and Censure the Clergy and even to deisscte them of their Free bolds without so much as the Form of a Tryal tho this is the most indispensable Law of all these that secures the Property of England And if the King pretends that he can require the Clergy to publish all his Arbitrary Declarations And in particular one that stricks at their whole Scalement and has Ordered Processe to be begun against all that disobeyed this illegal Warrant and has treated so great a number of the Bishops as Criminals only for representing to him the reasons of their not obeying him If likewise the King is not satisfied to profess his own Religion openly tho even that is contrary to Law but has sent Ambassadors to Rome and received Nuncio's from thence which is plainly Treason by Law if likewise many Popish Churches and Chapels have been publickly opened if several Colledges of jesuits have been set up in divers parts of the Nation and One of the Order has been made a Privy Counsellour and a principal Minister of State and if Papists and even those who turn to that Religion tho declared Traitors by Law are brought into all the chief Employments both Military and Civil then it is plain that all the rights of the Church of England and the whole establishment of the Protestant Religion are struck at and designed to be overturned since all these things as they are notoriously illegal so they evidently demonstrate that the great design of them all is the rooting out this Pestilent Heresie in their stile I mean the Protestant Religion In the next place if in the whole course of Justice it is visible that their is a constant practiseing upon the Judges that they are turned out upon their varying from the Intention of the Court and if Men of not Reputation or Abilities are put in their places If an Army is kept up
in time of Peace and Men who withdrew from that illegal service are hanged up as Criminals without any collour of Law which by consequence are so many Murders And if the souldierie are connived and encouraged in the most enormous Crimes that so they may be thereby prepared to commit great ones And from single Rapes and Murders proceed to a rape upon all our Liberties and a Destruction of the Nation If I say all these things are true in Fact then it is plain that there is such a Dissolution of the Government made that there is not any one part of it left Sound and Entire And if all these things are done now it is easie to imagine what may be expected when Arbitrary Power that spares no Man And Popery that spares no Heretick are finally established then we may look for nothing but Gabelles Tailles Impositions Benevolences and all sorts of Illegal Taxes As from the other we may expect Burnings Massacres and Inquisitions In what is doing in Scotland we may gather what is to be expected in England where if the King has over and over again declared That he is vested with an Absolute Power to which all are bound to Obey without Reserve And has upon that annulled almost all the Acts of Parliament that passed in K. James l. Minority tho they were ratified by himself when he came to be of Age And were confirmed by all the subsequent Kings not excepting the present We must them conclude from thence what is resolved here in England and what will be put in Execution as soon as it is thought that the times can bear it When likewise the whole settlement of Ireland is shaken and the Army that was raised and is maintained by Taxes that were given for an Army of English Protestants to secute them from a new Massacre by the Irish Papists is now all filled with Irish Papists as well as almost all the other Employments It is plain that not only all the British Protestants Inhabiting that island are in dayly danger of being butchered a second time but that the Crown of England is in danger of losing that Island it being now put wholly into the hands and power of the Native Irish who as they formerly offered themselves up sometimes to the Crown of Spain sometimes to the Pope and once to the Duke of Lorrain so are they prehaps at this present treating with another Court for the sale and surrender of the Island and for the Massacre of the English in it If thus all the several Branches of our Constitution are dissolved it might be at least expected that one part should be left entire and that is the Regal Dignity and yet that is prostituted when we see a Young Child put in the reversion of it and pretended to be the Prince of Wales Concerning whose being Born of the Queen there appears to be not only no certain proofs but there are all the presumptions that can possibly be imagined to the contrary No proofs were ever given either to the Princess of Denmark or to any other Protestant Ladies in whom we ought to repose any confidence that the Queen was ever with Child that whole matter being mannaged with so much mysteriousness that there were violent and publick suspitions of it before the Birth But the whole contrivance of the Birth the sending away the Princess of Denmark the sudden shortning of the Reckoning the Queens sudden going to St. James's her no less sudden Delivery the hurrying the Child into another Room without shewing it to these present and without their hearing it cryâ—s And the Mysterious Conduct of all since that time No satisfaction being given to the Princess of Denmark upon her return from the Bath nor to any other Protestant Ladies of the Queens having been really brought to Bed These are all such evident Indications of a base Imposture in this matter that as the Nation has the justest Reason in the World to doubt of it so they have all possible reason to be at no quiet till they see a Legal and Free-Parliament Assembled which may Impartially and without either Fear or Corruption Examine that whole matter If all these matters are true in Fact then I suppose no Man will doubt that the whole Foundations of this Government and all the most Sacred Parts of it are overturned And as to the Truth of all these Suppositions that is left to every English-Mans Judgement and Sense FINIS