them then is every single Subject by himselfe alone a body politique whereof the King as King is Head and so hath as many Kingdomes as Subjects every one being distinct in relation one from the other have not nor can have any civill communion among them neither can any of them have to doe with the civill Affaires one of another And further which is not only false but destructive to the publique weale and safety of all Kingdomes If Kings be not Heades of the publique community of their People as well as of the private particulars of them then is the publique community out of the Kings Protection and Kings are discharged of all care of the publique For the mutuality of relation betwixt Protection and Subjection suffers not the one to move but within the limits of the other and if the universality must be under the Kings Protection it must be also under His Subjection for which cause the ancient and constant wisedome of our Peers and Commons sitting in Parliament as the Body representative of the whole Subject of the Kingdome doe in the Preamble of their Acts in that quality to this day recite themselves His Majesties loyall and faithfull Subjects So that in this point the Observour insolently controules the Wisedome and Iudgement of the representative of the whole Kingdome as well as contradicts the principles of reason Lastly whereas he saith that Treason so farre as it concernes the Prince is not so horrid in nature as oppression in a Prince Without excusing any way or diminishing the faults of Princes in any the least act of oppression let every one but aske his owne conscience whether is more horrid in nature Superiors to wrong Inferiours or Inferiours their Superiours Maisters their Servants or Servants their Masters Husbands their Wives or Wives their Husbands Fathers their children or children their Fathers and he will soon find the impiety of this assertion And whereas now the Observor professeth his good will and affection to Monarchy You may by these grounds which he hath laid and by his propounding to us for a patterne to our Kings the condition of the Prince of Orange and for our Kingdome the patterne of the Common-wealth of Venice know how false a meaning he hath and what his designe is even to loosen the sacred tye of Obedience toward our Liege Soveraigne and with it the firme and setled stability of the Kingdome and to prepare mens hearts and perswasions to the receiving of some new forme of Government according to the fancy of the common People Having therefore with false principles endeavoured to found the originall of all Soveraignty in the People as hoping thereby to find meanes to pluck it out of the Kings hands he then proceeds to perswade that not only naturall reason but even the frame of the Kingdome and the positive lawes thereof doe all concurr to maintaine the highest Soveraignty to be in the People But when he should make that apparent by the manifest Iudgement and Acts of our Law not being able to doe that he seekes by sly insinuations to have that admitted and swallowed which to prove he knowes were impossible Therefore pretending to shew the originall the progresse and changes of soveraigne government all from and by the authority of the People even from the fall of Adam to the present when it should be expected he should shew the Soveraignty of this Kingdome to be deriued from them he runnes himselfe into a puzle and then breakes off and tells us what he thinks and he thinks that when most Countries have found out an Art and peaceable order for publique Assemblies whereby the people may assume its own power to doe it selfe right without disturbance to it selfe or injury to Princes he were unjust that would oppose that art and order That Princes may not be beyond all limits of Law nor tryed upon them by private parties the whole Community in its underived Majesty shall convene to doe Iustice c and so he goes on insinuating that our Parliaments are such publique Assemblies wherein the Community in underived Majesty convenes to doe justice upon the King Truly I am not so well affected to arbitrary Government as to admit the judgement much lesse the thought of one man to be proof of Law and Government We shall therefore by Gods helpe examine how well this new conceipt agreeth with our Lawes and auncient setled frame of Government But this is obvious a forehand that it is so farre from being true that most Countries have found the art and order of Assemblies wherein the People may assume the power of doing themselves right As that unlesse you will call the Assembly of some meere popular Republique such an assembly there is not the ordinance of any such assembly to be found in all the world and the reducing of our Parliaments to such Assemblies will suit as well as the shaping of our Kingdome to the frame of the common-wealth of the Venetians or of the Hollanders That we may know therefore that our Parliaments are no such imaginary Assemblies in which the people in underived Majesty convene to assume any Power supposed to be theirs originally and with that Power to doe themselves right Even the Observour himselfe hath assured us when in his fast and loose play he unawares confesseth that the composition of our Parliaments are so equall and geometricall and all parts so orderly contribute their office as that no part can have any extreame predominance over other This is most true that he confesseth God grant that no endeavour to the contrary may ever deprive the Kingdome of the right benefit of this happy and well composed Ordinance But now then if our Parliaments be ordained Assemblies composed of three necessary different parts one Soveraigne the others Subject some appearing for their own interests others representatively for them that sent them and all ballanced in such a geometricall equality as is proper for the conservation of their severall rights and interests from any extream predominance of one of the parts above the other Then can they not be assemblies of resumption of the peoples supposed power for in such imaginary assemblies there must be a dissolution of all constitute orders degrees and qualities of the parts and all the members must be reduced to a naturall coequality undistinguished by any difference of quality degree or priviledges whatsoever so as there must be neither King nor Peers nor any office or power of the former State remaining but all resolved into a meere Chaos till all be new framed by the deity of the people So farre therefore are our Parliaments from the nature of such assemblies as that the endeavour of introducing of such Assemblies is most seditious traiterous and destructive not only to the person and dignity of the King to the Crowne Imperiall and to the Kingdome it selfe whose well ballanced rights have beside other tyes beene so often so solemnely and by so many of us
Community meane a perfect representation of the whole body Politique so as that the head as well as the other parts doe freely cooperate and concurre as in our Acts of Parliament it ever doth then can we presume no other Counsaile more assuredly wise faithfull or safe for the publique then is the counsaile of the universall representative in that sense But if by the representative we mean the representation of the grosse of the body without the head that is the representative of the body of the Subject only then is the assertion false for the Law presumes not in the representative of the Subject so assured judgement and fidelity for government as it doth in the soveraigne head alone for then it would not have placed the soveraignty in the head but in the representative of the grosse of the body But the Law knowing both Communities themselves subject to dangerous inclinations from private incitements and their representatives likewise subject to misleadings factions and ambitions of private men hath as in the most assured place placed the soveraignty in the head and the head so having the ordinance both for judgement and for government where the ordinance is there is the blessing and there the best assurance We need not seek examples how representative bodies of Subjects moving without consent of their head have been misled there is not one imitable example to be found that ever the representative of the Subject moved to act soveraignly without the consent of the head But we have examples of soveraigne representatives in Republiques themselves notoriously misled by private men was there ever a more reverend representative then the Roman Senate yet did not Appius and his Faction under the Colour of a Decâ—mvirate or Comittee of reformation so blind that Senate as to work them to conferre all the power of the Commonwealth into his and his Factious hands to the subversion of the common liberty so as that if by accident he had not been taken away he had made himselfe Prince And was not that soveraigne representative another time wholly swayed and caried by Marius and Sulpitius Sure as nothing is more wholsome for the publique then that the Soveraigne of a Kingdom should often have the advice of the body representative of the Community so is it most dangerous for the publique to have the advice of the Community enforced on the Soveraigne Least so that that should be for Our good be unto us an occasion of falling But the Observour insists not so much that the representative body is the great Councell of the King and Kingdom as that it is the supream judge and the most soveraigne power If the Prince saith he be seduced some Court must judge of the seducement and some power enforce that judgement and that must be the Parliament meaning the two houses of Parliament We have already shewed the absurdity of a superior power to enforce the Soveraigne but farther to dissolve all difficulties in this false assertion we must know that in Parliament there are diverse kinds of judgements And that the meer representative body that is the house of Commons solely hath not any judicatory power by it selfe unlesse it be in particular cases concerning their own house and members But they are as the great Inquest of the Kingdom to enquire discover impeach c. The house of Peeres hath generally in all things judgement preparatory in order to judgement of Parliament as to give Oath to take recognisance to fine to imprison c. In matters that come before them bywrit of Error it hath judgement decisive to determine and adjudge Law But this judgement it hath not as it is part of the representative body for the representative body hath not therein any part with it But the house of Peeres alone hath this superior judgement as great Court of the Kings Barons of the Kingdom which being assisted with the Iudges of all the Benches is by formall Ordinance of Law in all matters so coming before it the proper and immediat superior Iudge of Law But it is not absolute supreme Iudge of Law in all things and therefore it cannot revoke the judgement which it selfe hath given Neither can the House of Commons nor the two houses together revoke or anull any judgement given in the House of Peeres or elsewhere therefore also the two Houses are not supream judges or declarers of Law The Observer fol. 44. tells you the reason To be supream judge or declarer of Law is all one as to be supream maker of Law and that you know the two Houses are not But in the whole three Estates of Parliament that is in the King the Peeres and Commons there and there only are all powers ingredient for they upon Bill are not only judges of the last resort to reverse the judgement of the House of Peeres and of inferior Courts but they can repeale and restore and repeale againe in infinitum their own Iudgements and Acts. And they can not only declare the Law but they can make the law and none but they They alone are they that cannot be bound by precedents or Acts of Parliament they alone are they that have the Legislative Power and therefore they and only they that have the absolute Supream Iudgement of the Law But saith the Observer The King deserts His Parliament implying that then the two houses must be Supream judges though otherwise they were not As well may he imply that if the King come not to Parliament then are the two Houses no more Subiects but Soveraign's yea Soveraign's in the highest exaltation Let us see what this deserting is that shall so easily create Soveraignty in Subiects We know that by the law the Kings personal presence is of no absolute necessity to the proceedings of Parliament and that by the law declared and confirmed 33. Hen 8.21 the Kings presence is not necessary at His giving consents to Acts passed but He may give consent in His absence by His great Seale If then the Law count His personall absence no deserting and as to deserting for want of iust and reasonable consent to their demands His Maiesty be so little faulty toward this Parliament as that he hath given His Consent beyond the example of His Predecessours Where then shall a sincere Conscience in any deserting the King hath made finde warrant enough to desert this Soveraign and acknowledge another Superiour but to return Diversity of Powers and authorities exercised in the severall parts of Parliament necessarily causes a diversity of respect and observance to be rendred to them And though the iudgement of the representative of the Subiect that is of the Peers and Commons in those things wherein it is properly exercised ought to have esteem and credit before any other iudgement of the Subiect Yet is it not to be opposed to the iudgement of the Soveraigne in those things which the law hath entrusted to the iudgment of the Soveraign for the law trusteth none
but whom it iudgeth to have judgment fidelity provision of all necessary incidents sufficient for that trust and then it preferrs both the Acts and iudgement of the party trusted before any other iudgement whatsoever Not is the iudgment of the whole Kingdome any whit slighted thereby no more then if in particular Sciences as Divinity Philosophy Physick Mathematique c. the iudgement of the professors of those Sciences should be preferred before the iudgement of the whole body representative for Vnicuique in sua arte credendum Matters of State and secrets of government are not only unfit and dangerous to be publiquely managed by so numerous a body as our representative is but the greater part are so little experienced or able to manage them as that in Edw. the thirds time the House of Commons themselves as the Observour fol. 6. tell us desired they might be spared from giving advice in those matters de queuxals nont pas cognizance of which they had not the Cognisans The Iudgement of the body representative it selfe did not at that time beleive but that aswell the Iudgement as the care of the Ardua Regni did cheifly belong to the King To whom alone the Law having committed the Soveraign Government ordained him withall a body of sworn privy Councell to advise with therein and a sworne Counsell at Law to advise Him of the Rights and Priviledges that belong unto Him as supream Governour and first of the three States of Parliament If any of these sworn Counsailers shall Counsaill the King against the known Law or any by their counsaill act any thing against it after legall proceeding and conviction it will soon be out of question what shall become of them But if without legall proof of particulars such Counsailers shall by generall vote of the Subject be cēsured private whisperers and seducers of the King and to be wholly removed from Him then shall the King at once be dangerously deprived of the constant meanes which the Law hath especially ordayned Him for support of His Right against the other two opposed powers and for the good discharge of His Kingly office Besides if men shall so be condemned and made guilty more by Soveraignty and uncontroulablenes of Iudgement ascribed to the condemners then by clearnesse of evidence and legall proof of any fact then is the birth-right of the Subiect in the highest concernment of Life and fortunes taken from Him and He muststand and fall by the vote of the people that like a Iudgement infallible shall supply the office of both witnes Peers and Iudge While I pursue the examination of those things which the Observour would have received for reason I may not let slip the observing of his slye unfaithfulnes and deceipt to passe over that point which most of all concernes the soules and bodyes lives and fortunes of the whole Kingdome and all because his want of proof in that point does if noted overthrow all that he contends for For though he argues the lawfulnes of Subjects taking up Armes and resisting the Authority and Commands of the King under the warrant of a generall rule to this effect That in extream perill and failance of ordinary meanes any extraordinary meanes may be taken for the safety of the People yet finding an impossibility of proving the State in such extream danger for indeed such a danger must be so visible to all men as not to need any proving and finding it also not possible to prove a necessity of the Subjects arming himselfe for want of other meanes when His Maiesty in whom the naturall ordinary meanes of protection is placed readily offered and yet offers to performe that regall office of protecting The Observour passes over the matter without proving either danger or want of other meanes and presses only the lawfulnes of selfe-defence in extreame danger as if if that were granted all men might take up Armes whether there were danger or no and whether there were other ordinary meanes of defence or no and so securely doe we pursue this errour as that we with it swallow any thing and because that in ordinary providing for danger before it threaten the ordinary courses of putting the Kingdom in a posture of defence by Commissions of Lievtenancy and of Array are voted illegall therefore we not only admit them to be so but we admit also that the King to whom it properly belongs to take order for the safety of the Kingdome may not in extreamity of danger by any meanes that he can use raise Armes and put the Kingdome in a posture of defence but the Subject to whom it is Treason by the Law to raise Forces without authority from the King he may against the ordinary rule of Law raise Armes in the very same forme that is unlawfull for the King to doe and all because of the extream necessity and danger Yet the very same necessity and danger shall not make it lawfull to the Right and proper Authority of the King to doe the very same thing Oh what shall we say when at once extreame necessity is pretended all wonted formes of defence without shewing a lawfull forme are declared unlawfull and the course which Law abhorres and the Conscience of every Law-sworne Christian trembles at is set on foot without the warrant of the lawfull Soveraign when yet he is ready to supply that office in the Iust and lawfull way I cannot also but note that though levying of Armes and putting the Kingdom in a posture of defence is a right so clearly belonging to the King as that we know His Majesty all His Predecessors have ever been possessed of it as a right and authority inseperably annexed to the Crown which nere any have lawfully exercised but they And though the representative body of the Kingdom and in them every one of the body represented have according to the positive law sworn allegiance to the King and sworn to assist and defend c. all Priviledges preheminences and authorities belonging to his highnesse His heirs and successors or annexed to the Imperiall Crown of the Realm c. Yet is not the observer afraid to say that the Oath of Supremacy is not endangered by such taking of Armes Nor is he affraid to say that next to renouncing of God nothing under Heaven can be more perfidious then peoples withdrawing themselves frō their representations As if Subjects by giving authority to some of their fellowes to represent them to advise consent for them gave them a power so much above the condition of Subjects yea so much above the condition of their Soveraign as that neither breach of faith nor Oath nor any other duty unto him were comparable to their withdrawing frō the vote or act of their own representers as if the right of the King the Crown Kingdom the concurrence of the three Estates in Parliament did not so concern the Commons of the Land but that against all they stood soly bound
no personall or instrumentall assent or dissent of the Kings can alter or frustrate the sentence or judgement of any inferiour Court because that though the Iudges there give the Kings Iudgement and not their owne yet the Law having authorized none but them to be the givers of the Kings Iudgement there it taketh no notice of any other judgement in those Courts then only of the sworne Iudges themselves and though the King the Peers and Commons in Parliament have every one the power by any one of their votes to frustrate the votes of two of them from becomming the Iudgement of the whole Court yet cannot the Vote of either the King the Peers or Commons alone or of any two of them frustrate or change the Iudgement of any inferiour Court. And it is further to be observed that in those Courts the Iudges judge as strangers of matters that concernes others only and not themselves and therefore render Iudgement in invitum against the will of one of the parties at least in which case because expedit rei publica ut finis sit litium if all the Iudges agree not yet Iudgement shall be given according to the Iudgement of the Major part But now contrary to the use of inferiour Courts The parties in Parliament in those things that concerne the publique meddle not as meere Iudges but as Parties interessed with things that concerne every of their owne Rights in which case it is neither Law nor reason that some of the Parties should determine of that that concernes all their mutuall interests invitâ altera parte against the will of any one of the Parties But that all Parties concurre or else their mutuall interest to remaine in the same condition it was before For Parties cannot meddle with Iudging in invitum but per consensum and therefore no major part of the three Parties in Parliament but the consent of all three must make the judgement of that Court otherwise two of the three Parties may totally or in part oppresse the third and then one of those two oppresse the other and be a sole arbitrary Tyrant The King and Peers may oppresse the Commons the King and Commons may oppresse the Peers the Peers and Commons may oppresse the King and then the Peers being easily suppressed by the Commons what shall hinder but that some Appian decemvirate that under shew of zeale of reforming Church and Common-wealth may carry the sound and well-affected Subject with them After they shall have not only possessed mens mindes with the lawfulnes of their authority but possessed themselves of the Militia all the Power of the Kingdome and two or three yeare kept all that power in their hands pretending they cannot sooner perfect their Lawes of Reformation though indeed they doe but time it out till they secure all unto their private ends as Appius in all things did what then I say shall hinder but that by meanes of some such decemvirate among the Commons some Appius may invade an absolute Soveraignty over us or missing that resolve yet all our setled State into an unsure troublesome Aristocracy or Republique The better to prepare the way to some such upshot The Observor findes a defect in the frame of our State he cannot see how Parliaments can have sufficient power to restraine Tyranny if they can doe no Act without the Kings consent And he findes that if Princes in matters that concerne the publique be admitted to preferre weake opinions as he calls them before Parliamentary motives then Parliaments are vaine Princes unlimitable and Subjects miserable The Observer will be more wise and faithfull then the Law it selfe and looking only one way tells us of insufficient provision for restraint of regall power without some coercive superintendant be placed over it But the law that lookes every way tells us that the erecting of such a superintending power would unsoveraigne our King and make that superintending power Soveraign and when it were made the exercise of it would be subject to more dangerous extravagances then regall power is and yet lesse capable of regulation then it Therefore the law knowing that there is none but God qui custodiat ipsos custodes that can restraine supream Governours and knowing that nothing in this world can be reduced to so absolute a perfection of setlednesse but that in the last meanes it must meerly depend upon the providence of God after a full consideration of the weaknesse and imperfection of every severall forme of Government concludes that the Soveraignty was better placed in the hands of a sole Prince then in a popular or Aristocraticall hand and that a positive knowne law without any coercive superintendant was a sufficient and the best boundary of regall power against any irregularity whatsoever especially when the law being backed with a Parliament of all the orders of the Kingdome shall thereby find meanes of discovery and manifestation both of the truth of the law it selfe and likewise of the violation of it For the law and the transgression of the law being both at once made manifest and notorious that will so sufficient a security of the future observance of the law as Princes will not further endure to violate it because as the Poet saies Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidat Aut humana palam coquit exta nefarius Atreus Infamous acts will not endure to be committed in the sight of all the world Therefore to say truth the Observor's conceipt of having some superiour power to enforce the law that should regulate the power of the Soveraigne Prince is a meere false conception of an heart as traiterous to God as to his Prince who would have absolute security by an arme of flesh when no such can be given to it For to regulate his Prince he would not only have a law but a superiour power to enforce that law and such a superiour power being once erected that must also be either boundlesse or must be circumscribed with a law if circumscribed with a law then also must that law have a superiour coercive power to enforce it and so must we have superiour Power over superiour Power usque ad infinitum and yet at last leave the most superiour power in that liberty which the Observour calleth boundlesse arbitrary and tyrannicall And how absurd a thing is it to imagine That when the Law hath trusted the soveraigne Power in the hands of the King it should again distrust Him and unsoveraigne Him and place in another the soveraignty of the same soveraign Trust and with a second absurdity leave in the Kings hand the Power of calling together and dissolving the power whereby He himselfe should be constrained and to make up all should by authority of that power constrain all the Heads of the people and even the representative body of that power by solemne oath to declare that the King is not only Supream Governour but that He is the only Supream Governour when such