who may therefore allow or reject at pleasure whatever Ordinances his Houses judge advisable The contrary would be a Solecism in Government giving to the King the Title only and leaving to his Subjects the Power of Kingship This making the Governed the Governours and therefore implying in it self a manifest Contradiction needs I hope no further Confutation Now in order to answer your first Question you must remember that Magna Charta provides That no Freeman shall be disseized of his Free-hold put out of his Inheritance or forejudged of Life or Limb but by Legal Process the Laws of the Land and Judgement of his Peers and by another Branch That the Kings Rights and Priviledges shall be preserved untouch'd One of the chiefest and upon which all the rest depend as on a Corner-stone is the Hereditarinesse of the Monarchy so that no attainder by Parliament or otherwise should hinder the Descent of the Crown upon the next of Blood the Laws supposing the King never dies which he must do if the Empire were Elective and to the observation of these Laws on pain of Damnation the present and former Kings have all been sworn So that the King having no power to act contrary to his Oath at Coronation and the Laws in being and the two Houses having none at all but what is derived from him 't is plain the next Heir cannot be put by the Succession without great impiety and violation of Justice And this has been declared so in all preceeding Parliaments not aw'd by Usurpers as well as by the practice of our Ancestors And that which most confirms it is That never any yet claimed the Crown in Parliament but under the pretence of Lineal Descent which was never allowed when false but when there was not a power in the true Owner equal to the Invader's Nor does the King alone in this particular lie under the obligation of Oaths The Lords and Commons have not only bound themselves by act of Parliament 1 Jac. cap. 1. to defend the true and lawful Heirs of the King acknowledged the undoubted Successors with their Lives and Fortunes to the Worlds end but do also swear as often as they meet or take the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy to defend all the Priviledges Rights and Preheminences of the Crown under which none can doubt but Descent in the Right Line is included against all Pretenders whatsoever whether Forraign or Domestick But because there are a sort of Men who from the foregoing Considerations being conscious they cannot maintain the Power of Parliament in this particular have recourse to the Law of Nature I will give you a Scheme of that even in their own Sence and Theorems The Law of Nature is co extended with the Power of Nature there is therefore nothing naturally unlawful and every man whether he be wise or whether he be a fool is sui juris Every thing endeavours to conserve it self within the State of Nature and to be sui juris i. e. to do what he will to repel all Force to live ex ingenio suo i. e. to be an enemie to every man but himself if he contradicts his Will Men are lyable to several Passions i. e. have several Appetites by which naturally they are engaged against one another and by the Law of Nature they inforce i. e. they contend equally jure naturae which I English by the Law of Power One man is stronger than another by force and so compels him who before was sui juris to be alterius juri when he hath him bound disarmed or takes away all his Power of offending or holds him in fear or obliges him by benefit or expectation of benefit by which last means he subjects both his Body and his Mind as long as his Fear or Hope lasts but no longer By the former he subjects his Body only which is the safer way Again One man may be stronger than another by Wit and so are men subjected to be alterius juris by Opinion Religion or Superstition Errour and Deceit Two then are stronger than one and therefore the more consenting have the greater right of Nature against the fewer dissenting may urge and compel and deprive them of their Natural Right and in brief treat them as enemies And because no man can secure himself against a whole World of single men who have every one the same Right against me that I alone have against every one and much less against a number joyned together 't is therefore necessary for me who else can have no security to enjoy what I have nor probability to acquire many of the Desirables of Life to associate my self and depart from so much of my natural Right as prudence and reason oblige me to do which is pacto vivere i. e. jus civitatis the Law Right or Power of the Commonwealth So that I have henceforth no more Right to the Law of Nature than is allowed me or not forbidden I say not forbidden because what is not forbidden I retain And this is the Foundation of Laws and though a Law be Positive yet the Virtue of it is Negative and as much as to say You shall not use your Liberty of Nature in this particular By which 't is very evident that after men have entred into Society those things that before were lawful cease to be so any longer Right and Wrong Just and Unjust depending on the Concessions Covenants and Agreements of the Persons thus combining into one Bodie And therefore nothing is more unreasonable and fallacious than to assert That the Power and original Right of Nature for the forming or altering any Government still continues and may at pleasure be resumed by the major part or their Representatives whereas that Power is restrained and can never more be made use of without every single Persons consent in the whole Community or â—…osning the Bonds of Society and re-instating them in the condition of War and Misery Madness and Folly The ground of the mistake must be Inadvertencie or Inconsideration in not regarding That promises once made can never be broken no not by the greatest number without the free consent of every individual party concerned This Power of restraining the Right of Nature is Empire If in one it is Monarchie if in some it is Aristocracie if in the common Counsels of the People it is Democracie all these Governments are lawful where they are Governments Now to disturb or ruine any of them is Rebellion and returning to the state of Nature and utterly unlawful which yet any man or companie of men may do by the original Law of Nature i. e. by might and Power but at his or their peril under the impeachment of Folly of not obtaining his or their End of losing the benefite of Society and of being â—…ated as Enemies Now because men are not guided or governed by Reason always no man or companie of men are to be trusted to their own discretion and the
they were rejected the usages of their own Countrey and the effects of their Princes will in their stead imposed upon the people who Stomaching their being thus enslaved after long grumblings and often calling to be ruled by the Laws of holy Edward they had by firs the restoration of them in great measure especially in the first Harry's days the better to secure his Usurpation But that not continuing at length a Rebellion broke forth produced the confirmation of them in the great Charter or Magna Charta which in the main as the best Lawyers will tel you is nothing else but the repetition or examplification of their old Ordinances and ever since have been the foundation of all our Statutes According to these the people were to be Governed Liberty and Property secured against the incroachments of invaders and Justice to be distributed in the several Shares or Shires of England as in Germany where Tacitus tells us Jura per pagos reddebant For to make their conditions most easie the controversies were to be determined in their own Voisinage by the Hundreder or Lord of the Mannor from whom they might appeal to the Comes or Lord of the Countie who with the assistance of several Aldermanni or Hundreders pronounced sentence Upon this Custom is founded our Judges of Assizes and the several Justices of the Peace their Assessors From this Countie Court the last final Appeal was to the Great Council after the Conquest called by the name of Parliament and composed of the great Lords Spiritual and Temporal assembled in the presence of the King when and where he was pleased to summon them To this general meeting came from all the parts of the Kingdom as manie as were aggrieved either by themselves or their Attorneys or Lawyers And hence it is that we so often find it mentioned not only in Spelman but in Hoveden Malmsbury Marthew Paris and the rest of the Monkish Writers that to this Curia Magna did resort the Princes Lords and Chief men and Causidici ab omni parte Regni From whence arose the mistake in after Ages as if those Lawyers who were only the Attournies and Pleaders of their Clients Causes made any part of the great Council unto which the Commons whatsoever Mr. Bacon Petit or any former Writers can say of their Jurisdiction were not admitted till the latter end of Henrie 3. raign when he observing the difficulties under which his Father had long struggled wisely allow'd them such a constitution and particular Priviledges of their own as might serve to Counterballance the Power of the Lords grown so exorbitant that without due poising and equal Liberation no otherwise to be done It must of necessity endanger the overthrow of the Monarchie and the disturbance of the whole Nation He is therefore to be accounted the first Author of our present Parliamentary usages and after his prescript they to this day receive their Summons and their beeing and yet if we narrowly look into the matter we shall finde they are more altered in Fashion than in substance notwithstanding their often gaining both upon the Crown and the Lords by the Kings first allowance of their management of the purse-string of the Kingdom for the Lords House alone was made and still continues the Court of Judicature the ultimate decider of Appeals where according to their first institution no original Cause was to take place to the house of Commons he has left the first motions of Grants Aids or Subsidies who represent the People now as the Lawyers did before and cannot in Propriety of speech as well as of Justice be called by other name nor allowed greater Power than of Attorneys The write sayes plainly The Lords are to advise and deliberate with the King upon certain weighty affairs of state the Commons to consent do what in such cases the King shal thereupon enact whence it clearly follows that their Power depends wholly upon the Princes pleasure and reaches ex instituto no further than to the matters by him propounded and therefore could not intermeddle with any thing else without his Permission The Commons then were called together to represent the peoples grievances to pray and receive redress as the King with the advice of the Lords should ordain and to signifie so much to the several places for which they serve Printing not being then found out and promulgation being of absolute necessitie to the obligation of all positive constitution To this Council the people flock'd as their business or their humour led them in confus'd multitudes representing by petition their grievances the Lords appointing a Select number of their own first to consider whither they were fit to be propounded to the rest the ground of our present Committees The Commons attending bare-headed for the Resolutions consented to them as do Plaintiffs and Defendants to the Judges decisions in the Courts of Westminster-Hall Hen. 3. as was said before to lessen the power of the Lords and bring a confused Assembly to a Regular meeting ordained everie Shire City and Burrough to send two Knights and two Burgesses as Attorneys for the others yet till sometime after they had no constant Speaker nor those priviledges of which length of time and concessions of Kings have given them possession But as neither nor both Houses have any original Right or Power but as all Creatures do upon the Almighty so their Lives depend upon the Breath of the Princes Nostrils and with his Call or Command come into or go out of the World so has the King on the other side condescended and promised That he will not without their Consents and Approbations repeal old nor make any new Statutes but more particularly in thirty three Parliaments he has confirmed the Foundation of all Magna Charta the boundaries of their Libertie and his Prerogative and in three declar'd it so much unalterable that any Act of Parliament or Judgement made or given contrary to it shall be and is hereby made ipso facto null and void And that with good reason for this being the Summary of all ancient Laws and Customs and the exact Rule and Measure of Right and Wrong as well between the King and his Subjects as between one another made or confirmed anew by the unanimous consent of every individual Person of full years at the first coming into the Kingdom and submitting to the Government of Hengist and his Successors and conformable to the Laws of Nature of Nations Quod tibi non vis fieri alteri non feceris ought without dispute to remain sacred and inviolable and to be imprinted in the minds of all free-born Subjects and carried about with them in their understandings as the Phylacteries of old in the Garments of the Jews By all which 't is plain that as the Kings Image and Inscription makes the Coin so his Approbation or Fiat makes the Laws current and consequently the supreme Legislative Power is solely vested in him
Ambition 'T is notoriously evident That no men were more violent for the general Indulgence nay for Popery in 167â— not to mention their before breaking the Triple League and entring into an Alliance with France than those who now are accounted the only Lovers of an English Interest and the Protestant Religion A Restitution of the Great Seal or a Treasurers White Staff a Diamond-hilted Sword or being a Publick Minister might perswade the same Persons to act again as arbitrariously as before set up France and run down Holland with a delenda est Carthago Good God! how strange it is that men who changed with every Wind as that of their own Private not their Countries Interest blew or some younger Spirits influenced by their Precepts Examples in hopes to make new or retrive crack'd Fortunes should ride and hurry the Nation to so much Heat and Passion as endangers our utter ruine and destruction either from Intestine Divisions or Forreign Invasions Consider this in time before you are bemir'd and bewitch'd by any Will o' th' Wisp who now leads you astray and will certainly leave you in the lurch when he has gain'd the Point he drives at Judge of future by former Actions and remember if we must have any That the old is better than any new Master Oh but say some If we have a Popish Successor he will be the worst of Tyrants being oblig'd says the Author of the Few Words among many to extirpate his Protestant Subjects under the pain of Excommunication Damnation that by vertue of the Council of Lateran An Assertion very groundless whether you consider at large the Princes Interest with which such a Practice is incompatible his being a King depending upon his Subjects and a powerful one upon their Multitude Strength and Riches or if you consider the Influence Christianity it self has upon the Civil Magistrate or the particular Obligations of this pretended Decree Concerning which you are to know that this Council is not esteem'd General nor the Decrees of this wholly rejected by Canus and Bellarmine nor of any Council esteem'd infallible or obligatory in point of Discipline where they are not receiv'd and corroborated by the Temporal Prince who has the power of rejecting all or what part he thinks fit of such Decrees as appears not only in this but in that of Trent which is not universally received either in France or Germany Besides these few that own this Council say it was never design'd against Sovereign Independent Princes nor was it ever practised out of Italy So that why it should be dreaded in England cannot be found reasonable since at this day in France Germany and other Countries where the main Body of the People is Popish Protestants are permitted their Freedoms and their Fortunes A sufficient Argument that Popish Princes fear no such Sentence from Pope or Council In some places of Germany the people are governed successively by Popish Protestant Princes Lutherans by Calvinists further asunder than Church of England and Papist without inconvenience or disturbance taking their turns morning and afternoon in the publick Churches and notwithstanding the differences in Speculative matters nor possible to be avoided live together as they ought in the Union of Charity the only bond of perfection and Badge of true Christianity So that Papists may be good Kings and good Subjects as they are de facto and have been and therefore may be again And to shew how little particular Opinions can alter the Duties of Allegiance and Subjection let it be remembred That in the King of France his Descent upon Holland and in the time of his whole War with that State he could never get a Popish Spy But here I am not ignorant the Persecutions of Queen Mary will be urged though impertinently for besides that the odds was then on the Papists side yet in her Six years Reign as Speed and Baker tell us there were but 277 put to death and of these above 200 profligate Persons all dying by the Law then and several Ages before in being De Haretico comburendo by which several suffer'd in Queen Elizabeth's and King Jame's days for Arianism since abrogated So that as the case now stands in England none can suffer as Hereticks till some new Law be first made and that you know must be by Force or Parliament The first is shewn impossible and the latter improbable Yet if such an Act passd it must be esteem'd consonant to the desires of the whole Nation So that the Martyrs of Queen Mary's days can no more be accounted such than those who have suffer'd since the Popish Plot both being punish'd justly according to the Laws in being These last are reckoned 170 in the space of eighteen Mouths of which 147 starved and died in Prison and 23. executed to every of whom Pardon and Reward was offer'd would they but confess themselves guilty and make a Discovery besides five since condemned and many more fled starving and begging in other Countries And here I confess my amazement and wonder that so many Lay-men and Clergy-men Learned and Illiterate should all continue obstinate in the denial of this damnable and hellish Popish Plot when the Conspirators own'd that cruel one of the Gunpowder Treason Nor can the Objection be less trivial of the hazard to the Kings Sacred Life while a Papist is to succeed since a Clement or a Raviliac is not more easily found among them than a Poltrot or an Andelot among the Hugonots or Presbyterians But it is no greater disparagement to have single Instances of Wickedness in a Soceity than to the Apostles that there was a Judas in the number 'T is much more easie for Papists to give than to receive upon this account a Rowland for an Oliver They can not only return the number of Assassins but in stead of a few private ones shew them many publick Executioners of Kings and Princes and in stead of particular Asserters of the King-killing and Deposing Doctrines as Mariana and La Forest who yet do it but Problematically and are with their Books censured and condemned by the Eight Universities of France and the General of the Jesuits Order and the whole Body of the Catholicks and expresly forbidden by the universally receiv'd Council of Constance Sess 5. I wish there could not be found whole Shoals of the Reformed that avow those Antichristian Principles not only abroad but in England and Scotland Baxter yet alive has never recanted the Tenets of his Common-wealth not his owning in his Saints Rest his not finding upon the strictest examination to have done amiss in fomenting the late Rebellion I need not menti Outlandish Names of Calvin Beza Paraeus c. nor those of Scotland Knox Bu chann c. a Page would not contain all Miltons Englist Tutors and Scolars in this particular whose Religion is Treason and Rebellion and whose Devotion is all Cheat and Hypocrisie and who are ineed so much the
worse and more dangerous Jesuits as their Doctrines are in English openly maintained whilst the other publickly disavow what they are accus'd of Those all with one voice say Dominion is jure divino the others say 't is founded in Grace and deriv'd from the People in trust who upon male administration may resume their first Grant dethrone and murder their Sovereign in spite of all the obligations of Oaths and Promises of Faith and Allegiance Now though it 's possible both Parties may be mistaken yet I am sure the Papists Errour is on the safest side for Princes Consider Sir seriously and tell me if you find not of the two the Jesuits of Glascow and Geneva more pernicious to Peace and Government than those of Rome or St. Omers Compare their Practâ—…es and their Principles and try whether the Paris Massacre of 40000 by D'avila and as is plain in Story a politick Stratagem be not seventy times exceeded by the Warr of that Country and Germany to name no more upon the score of Reformation Whether the much-nois'd Numbers slain in Ireland computed by the Ingenious and Learned Sir William Petry on both sides during the whole Rebellion not above 36000 in a conquer'd Country set on foot for their Liberty and Estates not for Religion be not far outdone by the late Rebellion of England contriv'd and carried on by the Godly party This was not Christ's Method of planting the Gospel 't is the Sword of the Spirit and not that of the flesh that must propagate Religion yet excepting our own Country where it came not in dry-shod have not the Reformers every where waded deep in Blood in opposition to popery I need not instance the Countries are obvious and 't is an undeniable Truth that there has been ten times more War and Bloud shed on the score of Religion since Luther and Calvin's time then was in all the parts of Europ before while popery was at the highest But besides all this the Vote of the late House of Commons has most certainly secured on that side all danger to the King 's Sacred Person Whom God long preserve for if now any should be so mad as to be Authors of so great an Impiety considering the vast inequalities of their Numbers they could not expect less then the loss of their own Lives and of the whole party therefore by that Vote they are not only charmed into Loyalty if otherwise disposed but qualified to guard the King's Person if admitted from the attempts of any other Conspirators so that their mutual safeties depend upon each other And therefore it were adviseable since other acts forbid their access to Court for all the Papists to quit their Country or their Religion lest they might hereafter smart for the Act of Nature or the wickedness of any other Faction if not likely at least not impossible Sacred and profane story furnishes us with many instances of plots made by one and father'd on another party And the beast in the Apologue with a Lump of Flesh on his Fore-head was not imprudent in quitting the Forrest upon the Lyons proclamation That all horned Beasts should at their peril depart for when he was asked why he ran away he answered If the Lyon said the Lump was a Horn it would be in vain for him to contend or after hope an escape And really I see no security in the change of Religon since people are so imposed upon to swallow Gudgeons in believing if that indeed they do what they so loudly speak that after all Oaths Tests and Sacraments they are still Papists in Masquerade and have Bulls and Dispensations for dissembling and perjury a Supposition not only idiculous but reflective upon the Wisdom of the Parliament for if no mark of discrimination nor scent can be found to discover the blown Deer and separate them from the rest of the Herd 't is in vain to hunt and the Parliament have taken great pains to find out papists but to no purpose a censure no less severe upon them than 't would be folly in the Pope to expect Obedience from those he absolved from all Obligations For the Oaths do not only allow them to swear Fealty and Homage to one Prince but bind them to renounce all others and being so taken in the plain literal Sence and Acceptation of the Words there can be no reserve For however the Jesuits are accused to allow Equivocation and mental Reservation they are not yet arrived to that impudence of owning to the World so monstrous an Impiety And therefore I hope the new Sheriffs of London re abused by their Friend who publishes their having taken the Oathes and Abjurations in their own meanings and tell us that how contrary soever that may be to the plain Words yet 't is conformable to the Sense and Intention of the Imposers the Parliament A new Doctrine I confess and very expressive of a tender Conscience For if you examine it aright you will find it turns the design of Oaths into Folly leaving them no force nor Men under any Obligation For it is all one to swear and not to swear at all if the taker of the Oath may do it in his own and not in the Imposers Sense it reconciles extreams makes a narrow half-pynt City Conscience and one as large and wide as the great Tun of Heidelberg the same Here will be no longer stumbling at straws nor leaping over Blocks straining at a Gnat and swallowing a Camel will be a Jest all will go down with equal ease and all tyes between King and Subjects will cease the Oaths of Coronation and Allegiance are Fopperies Chaff to cath the credulous neither will be perjured if the one prove a Tyrant or the other a Rebel So monstrous a Tenet ought not to scape publick Animadversion And I do as verily believe a Jesuit sham'd that Pamphlet upon the Sheriffs as that the Papists made Venner's plot and the two following of 1662 and 1666. altho in their stead the poor innocent Fifth Monarchy men and Phanaticks paid the reckoning at Tyburn But if indeed there were Dispensations to he had is it supposable by Men Fools may take a Wind-Mill for an inchanted Castle and Don Quixor like fight against the wind that any would forfet Liberty Fortune or Country much more Life it self as is notorious many have done rather than take these Oaths There is then no cause to fear the Papists will be undiscoverable or that they can be terrible considering the smallness of their Number tho the D. of Y. should come to govern For besides that it would not be in his Power nor for his Interest as is already shewn to innovate the Constitutions of Church and State nothing like it can be dreaded from his Character which all knowing and disinterested Persons will thus give you That he is a Prince of so many admirable Endowments and excellent Qualifications both by Nature by Art as make it a question to