enjoying the Power of garrisoning and fortifying Places one of the Powers that hinder our Happiness ibid. 9. To imploy only such People about him as the Parliament might confide in 9. That those of the Four Councils appointed by Parliament if his Majesty pleases to have the ordering his oeconomy and Houshold c. pag. 242. 10. No Peer hereafter to be made to sit in Parliament without their consent 10. That for the future no Peer shall be made but by Act of Parliament pag 252. These made the Substance of those Seditious Propositions that they prest upon the poor Prince with which they would have forc't our Charles the First to the Misfortune and Fate of a Richard the Second the most aggravated Misery that can befal a Monarch the deposing of himself These were they that filled their Parliament Papers and Proposals to their King at York the most Insolent that could be proposed surely to a Prince that was then in a Condition more likely to demand with Arms what he was denied against Law whom they might expect to see as they did soon after at the Head of good Souldiers as well as in the Hearts of Loyal Subjects such Insolencies as would have been Insufferable had they tryed and gained what was afterward so unhappily gotten that unlucky Fortune of the Day had they then what their Prosperous Villany did at last effect made their Mighty Monarch their Peoples Slave and a meer Capâ—â—ne of a King Carisbrook and the Isle of Wight could not have born with of much Indignity as was offered to him heâ—e when even at Nottingham and York their Non Addresses when his Person was in the Castle were less hard than such an Address when his Standard was in the Field These were those that provok't even the Mildest Prince to Protest in some rage That if he were their Prisoner Vid. Baker â—1â— he would never stoop so low These were those by which he must have made Himself what our Republican would have him now made of a King of England but a Duke of Venice and with These did they never cease to perplex his unshaken Heart his unmoved Soul continually upon all their Messages Treatises and Remonstrances and Petitions These still the Subjects of their demands when their Commissioners were sent to Oxford after their Newbury Battle these when the perfidious Scot had gotten him in their Power and Hands at Newark and New-Castle but bandied then only for the better buying of their King whom his own Country as basely sold then offered rather to make matter of delaying War then truly design'd for Peace that there might be somewhat in Agitation till the Summ was agreed upon and his Majesty diverted with the small Hopes of being at last a Titular King while they were selling him to Foreigners for an absolute Slave Lastly with these did they Plague and Pester the Poor Prince when they had made him a perfect Prisoner at Hampton Court and how well these Proposals of the late Rebels agree with the Politicks of this present Republican I 'll submit even to the most partial Person of the Party upon the perusal of this Parallel And what could be the design then at such a Season of Publishing such a piece of our Mutinous Members hugging in their Hearts and applauding with their Tongues Printed and Publisht Treason But that what was offered in their Plato was once presented in Parliament that the Politick Rebel could be pickt even out of the Journals of their House That they had Presidents there too for a Common Wealth as well as in Starkey's Shop and hoped to see her Revive again by Vote as well as by Book But these blessed Expedients tho but proposed out of the Press are the more Pernicious at the same time its Publisher makes them pertinent to what I have here applyed them the Propositions of a Parliament for he tells us he would not have them wrested from his Majesty but that he be petitioned to part with them very seasonably suggested I confess when we were so full of petitioning He would not have it effected by the Power of the Sword the Politician it seems is mightily for Peace and the Preservation of his Majesties Person but would only have them raise at first a civil War upon his Soul use the Son a little more kindly than they did the Father and not seize his Militia with an Ordinance because they cannot Fight him with his consent nor Rebel first against their King with an open War and then send him Propositions for Peace and the making him a Slave And since some of our Seditious Souls have not only a great Veneration left for these Parliamentary Projects and as great esteem for this Statesman for the reviving them in his Politicks since some that would be thought Persons sober and moderate can think the Kings Complyance in some of these Grants and Concessions somewhat necessary and a Trifle of the Crowns prerogative to be pared from the State as requisite as a Surplice or Ceremony to be partted with in the Church since the Propositions of that Rebel Parliament and the Politicks of this rank Republican make up so perfect a Parallel It will supersede some separate labour and pains to be able to animadvert upon them together and at once His Answerer will be somewhat obliged to his Authors being but a Thief and will shew that whatever some think that such pieces of Power might be par'd from the Crown like some sappy Excrescencies from the Trunks of Trees for the better Nourishment of the Stock that all and every one of them strike directly at the very Root That the Government cannot well subsist without them all and that all of them are inseperably settled in the Crown by all the Fundamental Laws of all the Land The first that feels the reforming Cook 4. Inst Cap. 2. p. 53. Vid. Ten several Rolls of Par. cited by him for it's Iustification Rot. Par. 50. Ed. 3. n. 10. 1. R. 2. n. 4. c. stroke of their Fury we find to be the Kings Privy Council and what is that why their own Oracle of the Law will assure them the most Noble most Honorable and reverend Assembly consulting for the publick good and that the number of them is altogether at the King's Will And shall those be numbered now and regulated at the Will of a Parliament whom their own Acts Statutes Rolls declare acknowledge and confess to depend upon the Nomination Power and Pleasure of the Prince would they repeal those Laws of their Ancestors enacted even according to the greatest Reason only for an Introducing their own Innovations against all Reason and Law Can it be consonant to common Sense that those whom their King is to Consult and Sit with at his Pleasure and that according to the very express Words of Authentick Rolls and Records that those should depend for their being and Existence Rot. Claus 12. Ed. 3. Par. â—â—m 19. 39. Ed.
but of our own Soveraign's Father and that only because he could not Dissolve them but had in effect signed his Destiny with their Bill of Sitting during the Pleasure of the two Houses Base Hypocrites 't is not a Parliaments Sitting you contend for but the Sitting of such a Parliament that good honest Parliament the late long and healing one which their virulent Villains Libelled for Popish Pensionary perhaps because it would not take the Peoples pay long enough might that have been discontinued or Prorogued wen ever heard then of the Statutes of Edwards and the Triennial Acts but their Pens were employed then to prove even that Dissolution that discontents them now so much 'T is not above Eight years since their * Vide Considerations upon the Question London 1677. The dissolver The Letter of my Lord Shaftsbury Pamphlets would demonstrate a Parliament dissolved for being but for Fiveteen Months Prorogued and were we but assured of having such another the Press had never been pestered for the calling one with their impertinnent prints nor any Petitions prefer'd for their Frequency Would you perswade the World your purses are so full so free too that you long for a Subsidy to fill up the Kings Dissembling Souls the Parliament they clamour for can proceed from nothing else but a presumption of one to be their Patrons to patronize all their Irregularities and Refractoryness to the State to countenance all those gross abuses they put upon the Government they told us this to our faces and Menaced men to make them fear them Is this the way to have them Convened to make them formidable For Gods sake can you credit that honorable Assembly with making them the pretended Abettors of all your Scandalous Actions The only felicity we have in such a Senate 's sitting is That the King must summon them to sit they are Rebels by a ‖ 35. Ed. 3. Law if they convene without they must meet and Associate and the Kings happiness consists in his being able to Dissolve and Discontinue And this furious and indefatigable Scribler might have omitted the mentioning of those †4. Ed. 3. c. 14. Statutes they have beaten so bare been baffled in so much and may now blush to bring upon the Stage but he shall have his answer here to this too That nothing of Mr. Hunt's like his managed Mungrel * Vid. Courantier 4. Volum Numb 30. Julian may be call'd Vnanswerable For the First it is the 4th of this ‖ 4. Ed. 3. c. 3. 14. Edward And I confess in as few words That a Parliament be holden once every year and more often if NEED BE. It is all the Letter of the Law and every Line of it But they might as well tell us too that before the Conquest and for some time after Parliaments were held three times in one year They had then their Easter Parliaments their Whit-sunday Parliaments their Christmas Parliaments but they know then that they were but so many Conventions of that Nobility and Clergy their King should please to call And which they did Arbitrary at their Will more frequently or less as they thought convenient and the †Mirror C. 1. Lib. 3. Books tell us they many times were held but twice a year now if these Gentlemen will tell us so much of old Statute Laws why should not Custom which is Resolved by the very Books to be the * Le common Ley est common Usage Plowdens Com. 195. Common decide the case too for the King as well as the other which is their own must for the People and then we find Our Kings had the sole power of Convening Parliaments by a long prescription of whom where and as often as they pleased Are not all our Judicial Records Acts of Parliament Resolved to be but so many Declarations of the Common Law and that by all our Lawyers even concerning the Royal Government which they make the very Fundamental Law of the Land and tell us ‖ Dr. and Stud. 2. c. 2. lib. That by Common Law is understood such things as were Law before any Statute by general and particular Customs and Maxims of the Realm Now if Statute must be but Declaratory of these Customs of the Kingdom how can it be concluded but that such Acts as directly contradict any of them must be absolutely void for by the same Reason that they can with a Be it enacted void any part of it they may the whole With the same Reason that they can invade any part of the Prerogative of their Prince which the * 2d part Inst 496. tells us so in terminis By the Common Law it is the Kings Prerogative quod nullum Tempus occurret L. Coke Lit. p. 344. Book tells us is the principal part of the Common Law they may abolish the whole make Killing no Murder and except Persons from the Punishment of Treason Does not this Common Law it self void any Statutes that are made against the Prerogative of their King Was it not in this very ‖ Stanfor l. 2. 101. Edward the 3ds time that it was so Resolved even to the nulling three several Acts that put Pardons out of the Princes power The boldest of these Anti-monarchical Zealots cannot deny but that by the Common Customs of the Realm it always was Our Kings undoubted Prerogative to call and dissolve their Parliament when they pleased Chronicle confirms it * Speed 645. Inst 27. 2. Law Resolves it may practice for ever maintain it Now I cannot see why these Statutes that contradict the Customs of the Realm in determining their King to call Parliaments which the Common Law hath left at his Liberty should not be as much void as †2. Ed. 3. c. 2. of King's not pardoning Felons so Also 4. Ed. 3. c. 13. The Conffrmation of that other others that upon the like Reasons have been Resolved so And if the Common Law can avoid any particular Act of Parliament against the Prerogative of the Prince as we see it did more than one If Stanfords Authoty be Law then the Conclusion is unavoidable That for the same Reason it can any or all And in my poor apprehension that Act it self of the late Kings which reasonably repeals that of his * 16. Cap. 2. c. 1. that repeals 16. Car. 1. c. 1. Martyred Fathers that Act with which these reproachful fellows upbraided in their prints their deceased King is so far from countenanceing their clamorous Cause that it corroborates and confirms our own Case for it tells us the very Reason of repealing those Statutes To prevent intermission of Parliaments And what is that but what we say the Common Law would of it self void ‖ Vid. Preamble to 16. Car. 2. c. 1. an Act as they say in derogation of his Majestys just Rights and Prerogative inherent in the Imperial Crown of this Realm for the Calling and Assembling of Parliaments Nay they tell us
forsook the Lancastrians and set the House of York in the Throne shall the being declar'd but an Heir Apparent purge an Attainder And shall not an actual discent of the Crown take away the same defects shall here be thought the bare opinion of a Parliament sufficient to clear a Corrupted Blood And shall It was resolv'd so by all the Judges in the Chequer Chamber 1. H. 7. and so not extrajudicial but that which troubles them is that these the Kings Judges shou'd have the re-resolution of what is law which when we come to Mr. Sidney's paper that complains of it too we shall prove to be pretty reasonable Vid. Stows Ann. page 409. 406. not for the same the resolution of all the Judges suffice But as this contradicts all right and reason so the very next Line all History and Truth for it appears from all the Chronicles that can be consulted that the house of York was rather own'd by the Parliament for fear of the People then that the People were prevail'd upon by the Parliaments opinion for this Parliament of his had not above half a year before at Coventry declar'd the Duke and all his Adherents Traytors Disinherited and Excluded him and his Heirs Ludlow a Town that belong'd to him sack't to the bare Walls and as a Member in the late Houses moved for the banishment of Popish Women too so did the Parliamentary rigor of those Times extend also to that Sex and the Dutchess suffer'd then the same severe Exile with the Duke and as our Author says was spoiled of all her Goods yet as rigorous as they show'd themselves in their violent Votes against him and all that was his his Hereditary right was so rooted in the Peoples Hearts that it form'd for him an Army fought for him at Northampton and brought both the Usurper and his Parliament to a Composition for the Crown Thus much for the refuting of his little Reason and his less Law upon the Case And his Historical Inference that Brief History fol. 18. follows for its Justification fails him as much too for he tells us the Tale of Richard the Thirds letting the Children of his Brother Clarence live because their Father was attainted in Edward the 17. Edw. 4. Fourths time and that it was the Resolution of his Parliament that his Issue was thereby disabl'd to Challenge the 1. Rich. 3. Crown And truly the Case will admit of no better defence the badness of his cause can never be made good but with such a Justification as is much worse He verifies that Aphorism of the Tragedian that to secure your self in your Villanies you must commit more and 't is the Politicks too of a Matchiavel as well as a Seneca and Seneca in Traged this the practise now of our present Republican who first lays you down a Position perhaps truly Treasonable and then is forc't to fly to the Resolution of Traytors for the defence of the Treason and proves that the Crowns Discent does not purge Attainder because this Parliament of an absolute Usurper rather a pack of Rebels then a convention of States resolv'd it so Could it be imagin'd that those that had Bastardiz'd the Blood of their late Soveraign for him already would Boggle to Declare that of a Clarence and but their Kings Brother corrupt would those that promoted the spilling of the Blood of the two Nephews stick to Resolve that of the rest attainted the Malicious Impostor knows that they were then treating with a Tyrant that they themselves had advanc'd to the Throne and would he have had those demurred upon a point in Law to have argued of his Crown again which themselves knew against all the Laws of the Land they had plac't upon his head But this President if allow'd would still to the present purpose be as Impertinent as 't is Treasonable for the Question is what was Law since H. 7. time and he Labours to Confute it with what was said some three years before and to Baffle the Resolution of all the Judges of the Kingdom with the Suffrages of the Parliament that even of their own Laws have no right to Judge much less by any Preceding determinations of their house to Bind all the Succeeding Judges of the Realm let him first prove a even Vsurper's Parliaments opinion Law and then proceed to refute the resolutions of the Judges of a Lawful King In short nothing can be Law there but what is Enacted if Clarence his Attainder did not take away the Discent the resolution of the Judges since is certainly the more just if it did then yet still their opinion never the less Justifiable now for the opinion of that Parliament neither was or could be made Law for if they would have made it an Act it must have been done before Richard was in the Throne and then void for want of Royal Assent if after they had Crown'd their Usurper then sure too late to be enacted unless they would have made the Tyrant his own Judge And himself to have Attainted the second Pair of Nephrews as well as he Butcher'd the First But as fearless as he says the Monster was from the pretensions of the D. of Clarence his Children whose Minority might well make the poor Infants not very formidable yet he did not think the Duke himself so Barr'd with his Attainder but that he might still have been a Bar against his Horrid Usurpation that truly sent the poor Prince to the Tower and got the Brother of the Vid Baker p. 215. An. 1477. Monstrous Assassin to be suffocated in the Malmsey Butt The discent to Henry the 8 was both by Blood and Entail and so beyond contradiction and with their own concession Hereditary but where that objection to the Birth-right fails them there to be sure some subsequent Act of that Kings Reign shall be sifted and made to Countenance their suggested falsehoods tho the Succession of the Prince himself contradicts it who had all the Consolidated Titles in him that had been so long disputed all that his Mothers Blood and his Fathers Arms and the Law could Invest him with but because his Exorbitant proceedings his Arbitrary power and predominancy which themselves condemn'd him for over Parliaments awd them into an altering the Succession as often as he was pleas'd to Change his bed or chop off a Wife therefore must we conclude Parliaments to have a Power to do that by Right which against all right perhaps they were compell'd to do why does he not prove it a president for Polygamy and Murder because that furious Prince still sacrificed Women to his Lust and Men to his Anger But yet allowing them such a Power of medling with the Succession which certainly does not follow from their having some time Vsurp't it or been put upon that Usurpation by their very Prince for 't is against reason to make that a right only because they can plead Prescription for doing a
should contend for the disordering the Succession of the Crown who still labour for the Lineal Discent of their own Common Inheritance and I will appeal to the breast of the most violent contender for this Power whether an Act made for the disabling one of their own Sons or design'd Successors would not by themselves be look't on as unjust if not utterly defeasible and then 't is sure prodigiously strange where so many Learned Heads tell us of a sort of entail from a power Divine where the common Custom of the Kingdom has been a constant course of Lineal Discent unless as has been shown a perfect Rebellion interven'd And where themselves acknowledg this sort of Succession has been sometimes by Statute entail'd yet still they should think that but Justice to their Kings Successor which they would resent as an Injury to their own But they may vouch for it the common sort of Recoveries from a right Heir with a too Cunning sort of vouching and perhaps too much practis'd but I am sure it no way agrees with the Laws of Forraign Nations and has been a little condemn'd by some learned Heads in our own and some that have brought it into dispute seem to have rais'd a Devil not so soon to be put down in their Dialogues Vid. Dr and Student p. 49 to 58. but however this Objection is nothing analagous nothing of a Parallel Case for here is a Complication of both Parties Concern'd and concluded upon by both their Consents and where shall we find the perfect Proprietor of Crowns and Scepters and when God has told us to that by him they Reign that bear them and they 'l hardly vouch the Almighty for a piece of Injustice But allowing it for once a meer Human Constitution and in their bandied Authority of Saint Peter an Ordinance of Man and the Kings Consent with his Parliaments to determine the Point yet still the great disparity would call for a little longer consideration than a Common Recovery and not presently to cut off the right of an Heir to three Kingdoms only because commonly done at Westminster of one to so many Cottages and besides when that has been practis'd so long and born the test of Time and this their attempt would have been the first President And at last what has silenc'd their Advocates for ever the non-concurrence of the King and his Lords whose consent was by themselves suppos'd to be necessary because requir'd and will like those recognitions of some of our former Parliaments for an Hereditary Succession perpetuate that right in spight of the Laws of others that were made for altering it and should the Commons ever get such a Bill to pass 't is enough to say 't was once rejected by the Peers unless they can prove that the Question was put again Whether the lower House should take advice of the Lords in the Legislative power and that 't was Resolved that the House of 6. Feb. 48. carried in the Neg. p. 15. voices Peers was useless dangerous and ought to be abolish't and Order'd that an Act be brought in for that purpose Queen Mary succeeds her Brother In the very first of her Reign there was an Act made declaring her Succession and Inheritance to be by right of Blood Edward with all the Right of Blood with all the Law of God and Man too on her side for whatever the Parliament pretended they could never Illegitimise that which was begotten in Matrimony celebrated according to the Laws of the Church and the Realm for whatsoever defect there was found subsequent to the Consummation of the Marriage in common reason and equity ought not to have extended to the making that Issue spurious which had all the requisites to the making it truly Legitimate tho perhaps the subsequent discoveries might be sufficient to cause a Divorce and in the too Common Case of Adultery 't would be severe far from Equity to make Bastards of all that were born before the Conviction of the Fact but it may be reply'd to this That these were such Impediments as related to the Contract ab Jnitio and where that 's Invalid there the Children begotten after can't be suppos'd Lawful Heirs when the Contract it self is against Law but tho still I shall look upon that as a rigorous resolution when I think Innocents and Infants ought to be more favour'd especially when there is a Maxim in the Law even in the like Cases that the fact Quod fieri non debet factum valet may be valid tho the doing of it can't be justifi'd and besides there being a Rule that obtains amongst Civilians That Leg. qui in provincia Sect. divs H. de Rit Nup. 1. 4. Marriage contracted without any preconceiv'd Impediment tho it after come to be dissolv'd as unlawful yet Children begotten in such a state are reputed truly Legitimate and tho Appeals to Rome were then Punishable with a Premunire yet the Civil Law then obtain'd much more than it does now that Stat. being very young as well as the Reformation and by the Laws of the Church long before it they were such Latitudinarians in this point that the subsequent Marriage would Legitimate those that were born before the Contract but that I confess was rejected here in 20 Harry the 3d's time 20. H. 3d. because contrary to the common Laws of the Realm which the Parliament resolutely declar'd they would not change But what ever power they had of Nullifying this and making Mary spurious 't is certain another and latter Act 35. H. 8. made her as much Legitimate by making her Hereditary insomuch that what ever Edward her Brother was prevail'd upon a young Prince and a dying one whose forward Understanding might be well disorder'd with an approaching Death and an untimely end and which might be easily prevail'd upon in such Circumstances by the Cruel sollicitations of the designing Northumberland Stow. 609. Vid. Bishop of Hereford's last year of E. 6. whose Son had but just Married Suffolk's Daughter the designed Queen yet even then Cranmer the truly Loyal Bishop and as true a Protestant of which his adbering to the right of the Crown was the best testimony tho now 't is made but a preposterous Emphatical expression of that Religion to invade it that worthy Prelate tho he suffer'd in the Succeeding flames of a real Persecution when demanded by these State Projectors his sense of the setting up of this Testamentary Queen declar'd it was no way agreeable to Equity to disinherit the two Sisters and that the Succession could not be Lawfully alter'd upon any pretence tho Religion then too was the very thing pretended the Bishop of Hereford that was as good a Protestant observes upon the Suffolk men siding with Queen Mary tho they knew she was for setting up of Popery says that our English are in their respects to their Prince so Loyally Constant that no regard no pretext of
Religion Ibid. page 157. can extenuate their Affections to their Prince and Lawful Soveraign And he writ it in a Time when the most malitious can't object it was to flatter a suspected Successor and when most of the Prelates themselves were so far from Rome that there was scarce an Arminian Upon the death of her Sister Doctor Heath Arch-Bishop of Canterbury presently declar'd Queen Elizabeth's right to Stow 635. the Parliament then sitting who did not put it to the Vote as our Republican would insinuate they use to do but however did as much as was usual acknowledg'd that she was right Lawful Inheritor and presently she was proclaimed in Westminster-hall and in the next vote they do declare moreover in full Assembly Lords and Commons That this their Queen Elizabeth is their Lawful 1. Eliz. c. 3. Soveraign by the Laws of God and so not only in relation to 35 H. 8. by the Statutes of the Realm and the Blood-Royal and in this open and generous Recognition they must Implicitly disclaim all power of Election or give themselves the Lye and so must our Impostor put upon them a falsehood if here his Parliamentary Choice must pass for a Truth but where matter fails them before and he can't prove his Election antecedent to the Monarchs right then as in some other places and here at present he can make the Prince tho own'd Hereditary by some subsequent Act of his own to make himself Elective and for this he cites you the 13 of this Queen the purport 13. Eliz. of which is to disable any one even after her Death to inherit the Crown that shall pretend to it during her Life But does not every one know that this was Enacted as all the fore-mention'd irregular Acts of her Father with her own seeking and desire and the bringing this for a president for a Parliamentary Power is just as pertinent as that of palliating the Treason of their late Covenant with the Title and Pretence of an Association made in her Time too with her own Consent and for the same purpose that this Act was past both being contriv'd in opposition to the pretences of the Queen of Scots and must the only thing that has Blacken'd her clear Integrity with Injustice and Blemish't her Virgin Innocency with Blood be brought upon the Stage for an Imitation to our State and because the Grand-mother suffer'd with a Bill of EXCLVSION and an AXE and the Father with the same Fate must the Son too that has experienc'd exile dangers and all but death from this power of Parliament Succeed only in their Misfortune and his Blood be made Hereditary only in being Spilt All that he says of King James is but 1. Jacob. what makes against him and what he might have said of all the rest that they made a Recognition of his right upon his coming to the Crown and truly such an one as must silenc'd all such Historians for they acknowledg him Lineal Lawful Liege Lord by the Laws of God and Man this may suffice for my sense of his History and all honest hearts will concur with my Sentiments his subsequent observations are but the same with the Principles of his ASSOCIATES that follow where I shall reflect upon them together as they are combin'd And here only give him an omitted Instance as pertinent as the Presidents he has propos'd to bring down his Narrative to the Times Charles the first notwithstanding his proximity of Blood his possession of the Crown and his pretended right from God yet the Parliament imprison'd him MVRDERED him and put the Power in the People And now what can any Rational Soul See all the 3 Votes in their Journal Book living infer even from this Authors own Observations but that those Parliaments which he brings us here for Presidents both for disallowing the Discent of the Crown to purge the Defects of the Prince upon whom it descends as also those that concern'd themselves in altering the Lineal Discent it self are so far from warranting the same Practises and proceedings that they stand upon Record are Chronicl'd in History register'd in their own Journals declar'd by Special Coke Ch-Treason 2d Inst resolved by all the Judges of the Land the deposers were all Traytors Acts REBELS and TRAYTORS and then no wonder if the poor People are encourag'd to Rebel when the very Presidents of TREASON shall be publish't as a Parliamentary Practise the deluded filly Souls don't so soon consider that if every Seditious Senate's determination shall decide too the Descent of the Crown that this consequence which even themselves may blush to own must as inevitably follow that from the Vnion of the Seven under Egbert to our present Soveraign the first Born Heir to our Three Vnited Kingdoms there never was or could ever be a REBELLION or ever one USURPER in the whole Catalogue of Kings Henry of Bullingbrook by this unreasonable sort of supposition had as much right to the Crown as that Unfortunate Richard from whom it was rent and torn Edward the Third but a Son Intitl'd to the wearing it before his Father had done with it himself and that Butcher of his Brothers Babes and the Monster of Men as Lawful a King as his Nephew that he Murder'd That Arch-Rebel that of late mounted the Throne Cromwel himself as much right to sit there as a Charles the best of Monarchs they Martyr'd all these were by Parliament acknowledg'd for their Lawful 1. Ed. 3d. 1. Hen. 4. 1. Rich. 3. Soveraigns against the very Fundamental Laws of all the Land Laws that even with the Allowance of one their late most Laborious most popular and pillor'd Advocate for this Power of Parliament Pryn himself have still plac't Prynn's power of Parliament fol. 107. the Discent of the Crown in the right Heirs at Common Law and who himself Confesses that Acts of Parliament have translated it from them to others who had no good Title and then certainly such a translation at best can be but bad and Evidences that there is somewhat else requir'd besides their Power to the making of a King so powerful and prevalent are the Dictates of Truth and reason that they force their Confessions sometimes from the very Mouths of those that Labour to give them the Lye drop from them unawares and steal from their unadvised Lips Lastly 'T is most prodigiously Strange that such Seditious Sycophants as fawn upon this Parliamentary Power for altering the Succession and asserting of an absolute wrong yet are such unreasonable Souls as not to Consider the several Acts of the self-same Powers that have declar'd it unalterable and maintain'd the Monarchs Vnquestionable right Edward the 4th's first Parliament they themselves 1. Edw. 4. know declar'd those that came to the Crown by the Common Consent of the People to be but Vsurpers Kings only de Facto which implys ' its contrary to be just and that some de
jure must be Kings they know the first of James declares his Royal Office an Heritage Inherent in the very Blood of him 1. Jacob. and also that all our Books of Law besides the Fundamental Constitution of the Land do make the Regal Power Hereditary and not Elective and such an Elected Usurpers Laws can no further oblige the Subjects of England then they they 'l submit no more then the Czars of Muscovy a pecuniary mulct must be but a bare oppression and a Capital Punishment MURDER But Will. Prynn I Pryn's That the Parliament and Kingdom are the Sovereign power a piece Printed by Order of the house of Commons Confess in another of his Treatises that he Printed will have all such Acts made by Consent of Vsurping Kings bind the right Heirs of the Crown that Reign by a just Title That all such Acts oblige them is utterly false for one of them is commonly for their Exclusion but that some are admitted to bind is as really True but that is rather upon a Political account of their being serviceable to the Publick and the Country's Good And is it not now an unaccountable boldness that the very same Cases of Usurpers upon the Crown that this Indefatigable piece of Faction publish't against the Father they fought and Murder'd should be retrieved against the Son whom the kind Heavens ev'n by Miracle so lately restor'd But at last allowing those palpable falsehoods they so much Labour for falsehoods so gross that they can be felt to be matter of Fact contradict the true sense of all Chronicle with a Seditious Supposition to be secur'd of Truth give all the Laws of the Land the Lye raze Rolls and Records the better to rise a Rebellion and grant the Kings of England have been all Elected all almost from that Union of the Heptarchy in the Saxon to that of our three Kingdoms in the Scot and sure no Soul living can conclude with them in afairer Concession than in granting the very Postulate they require yet since they then in the End of K. James tho but so lately had settled the Succession and made it Hereditary can with men of Common sense the Presidents of its having been formerly Elective prevail for an utter Subversion of such a Settlement Popery was once in England by Law Establish't and must it therefore again be Establish't by Law Certainly all succeeding Reformation must null and abolish that from which they Reform and a Repealing Act will hardly be made Declaratory of the very Statute it Repeals if these be but their best Arguments the same you see will reason us back into the very Religion of Rome we have seen several Rebellions and some even of late to have lain the Land in Blood and can such sad Sufferance be made to Prescribe for our Misery warrant some such as Bloody to succeed but since all this suppos'd suggestion must vanish like to soft Air since the Succession has been settled for so many several ages to rake every musty Record only for a sad Review of some Time of Confusion is certainly but an Impious Industry to Confound the work of the very God of Order We may as well be discontented at the Frame of his World he so well digested and plead for Prescription the Primitive Chaos CHAP. II. Remarks upon Plato Redivivus THE best Animadversion that I can make on his whole first days Discourse is that it wants none that it's Impertinence has superseded reproof and the fulsome flattering Dialogue as unsit for a serious Answer as a Farce for a Refutation out of a Sermon The great acquaintance these pretending Platonicks would be thought to have with that Sect of Philosophers did not oblige them to be so morosely reserv'd as to know none other and they may remember an Ephesian Sophy I believe as Learned too in his Politicks that was never so much tickl'd as when he saw the dull Animal mumbling of the cross-grain'd unpalatable Thistle the disputing against the Laws of the Land and the Light of Reason they 'l find as uneasie as absurd and the latter as Impious and Profane and which deserves to be assimulated to a more serious sort of Obstinacy that of so many Sauls kicking against the Pricks but the Pleasant and Ridiculous Disputants put in for another pretty Quality of that insensible Brute the length of their sordid and stupid Flattery outdoes their Original Beast and the sad Sophister would force one Smile more to see three of the same sort of Creatures for a whole day clawing one another Certainly whatever they fancy the Dialogues of Plato whatever the Favourers of his Principles can suggest surely they were never fill'd with such Fustian But that good old Philosopher did as plainly cloath his Disputes as well as himself in an honest homely Drugget of Athens Tho I confess they tell us of his rich Bed and his affectation of State which a Soul so sublime could not but Contemn while these Sectaries are such refin'd Academicks so much polish't with Travel and the breeding of the Times That all the Fops of France the Dons of Spain his Adulano of Italy seem melted down into one Mass of Impertinence they can't pass by the thin Apartments of a Page without a Congee Bon-Grace and a formal Salutation upon one anothers Excellencies the Doctor claws the Patient with his Lenitives Frications Emollients of Praise and Adulation and the Patient who in the literal sence must be said to suffer with such a Doctor if not in Body Natural I am sure in the Politick as in Cordial Affection and Common Civility he is obliged returns him the reputation of his Book De Corde for the tickling the very Auricula's of his Heart for Praise must certainly be Pleasant for an Aesculapius that sets up for a Matchiavel confutes Solomon and the Bible as he says for saying the Heart is unsearchable tho but Vid. Argument to the Book an Ordinary Divine without the Criticks Tremellius or a Munster would say that in the Text there is nothing meant but the mind But Cor hominis must not be Inscrutabile now only because the Doctor has handl'd its fibres and thus this Triumvirate of Fulsomness and Faction treat one another with their Fustian and Foppery through the whole piece I seldom care to lard our English with the least scrap of Latin but because 't is the property of such pedantick Scriblers who still most affect what is most ridiculous Foppery and Folly I 'll only give them an Argument out of the Mathematicks fora Demonstration of their agreeable Faction and Foolishness and for his Cor hominis as it relates to this Doctors Pharmacentria let him take one of Euclid's Postulates that has a greater reference to their mighty Three In English thus and if they will have Lattin Quae conveniunt uno Tertio conveniunt inter sâ— 'tis in the Margin Those that agree in one Third must needs agree among themselves The Venetian
even from their own Cook himself and 1. Inst §. 164. p. 110. Magn. Chart. Chart. Forrest Stat. of Ireland made H. 3. the 1. Laws we had from their very words seem all made by the sole power of the King No Commons mentioned in Stat. Merton 20. H. 3. only discreet men mention'd in Stat. of Marlbrigd 52. H. 3. But all the Commonalty is said summon'd in the praeamb to Stat. West 1. 3. E. 1. In Stat. Bigamy 4. Ed. 1. Stat. Mortemain 7. E. 1. Art sup Chart. 28. E. 1. Stat Escheat 29. E. 3. not summon'd 34. E. no Law to be made without Kt. and Burg. their Commons whom this Author would have now so great as to Govern his King far from having the least concern in publick Administrations there being in all Historical Accounts of those Antient times no mention of them in those very Conventions whereas Nobles Bishops and Abbots are expresly nam'd The greatest Colour they have for ' its Conjecture is only from the word Wites or wise-men which Constituted their Witena and the Prefaces or preambles to all their Laws imply that they were with the assistance of the Wise-men made by their King but can any person of sence and Impartial conceive this Term the more applicable to the Common sort of People and meer Laymen than to the Nobles the Bishops the Lords and then as we may well believe the most Learned of the Land their Literature sure was then but little and then I am sure that of the meaner Layity must be less certainly the word Wites will import no more than an Expressive Character of those Qualifications such Nobles were suppos'd to have that are still expressly said to be summon'd and to say that by Wise-men were Vid. also Dr. B. Answer to P. pag. 10. But still left to the King how many of those he wou'd call And per Stat. 7. H. 4. the writ was first fram'd directing a to be chosen for each County Burrough still understood the Commons such an Emphatical denomination could not be so well resented by their Lordships since it would seem in some sence to Exclude them from being so but as a Learned and Labourious Answer of this popular point has observ'd and what will nearly make it Vnanswerable that in thir Laws when the Senate was generally signified and the whole Constitution 〈◊〉 self then Wise-men or Wites expressed â—â— but where any sort of the Constituent Members are Particulariz'd there you 'll find nothing but Nobles nam'd so that such an Assembly and that all of the Nobility depending upon the choice and Election of the Prince was not much more than our present Privy Council But then they were able to make Laws and these now but Orders and Proclamations and Parliaments then were so far from Usurping upon their King that they were in a Literal sence but his own Counsellors But were it granted what the Faction so furiously contend for that Commoners Of Antient time both Houses sate together first sever'd 2. H. 4. 4. Inst p. 2. were understood by the word Wisemen they were still far from Constituting such a Senate as that wherein they now sit only some few sitting joyntly with the Nobility call'd there by their Soveraigns sole Summons and Choice and this is granted by one of their most Virulent Advocates when he tells us Hunts postscr p. 95. the Dr. has only found out what no Historian is unacquainted with that our Parliaments were not always such as now Constituted if so why then all this Labor for the proving them such why so much of the Comâ—â—ns Antiquity Asserted why must theâ—â—ess be pester'd with three or four Volums for the purpose Laborious Drudges of Sedition 't is not Jani Anglorum c. Argument Anti Norman there Antiquity you so much contend for and so little able to defend the pains to prove them Antient is only in order to make them more Exorbitant M. P. must Print their Rights and that at a time when they were even ready to Rebel and with a superfluous piece of Sedition tell them of their Power when all good People thought they Miscel Parl. Usurpt too much Hunt must Harangue upon their Integrity to their Prince and State when some have since suffered been proved Principal Actors for the Destruction of both These like the Roman Velites were fain to Skirmish in the Front and entertain the good Government their Foe with a little light Charge of the Commons power and priviledge faithfulness and sincerity 't is a Plato they permit to bring up the Body to the Battle and assail it with the Subjects supremacy and making the Commons a standing Council for the management of Affairs of State and the better Government of their King poor prejudic'd Souls that to please a party contradict themselves give all History the Lye and then constrain themselves to believe they tell a Truth you say Postscript ut sup Parliaments were not always so powerful as now and won't you be satisfyed then they had once less power All our Chronicles tell us our Kings of old never allowed such Priviledges to the People and cannot this People be contented even with an Usurpation upon their Kings And as it will from those Authors cited before plainly appear that the old Britains the Saxons and Danish Princes were far more absolute than of late our succeeding Sovereigns so was the Conqueror the Norman too for several Successions Consult Alfredus that lived A Priest of Beverley in his time and writ down to it or Gulielm Pictaviens that writ a Treatise of his Life who tho an absolute Prince by Conquest and Arms yet themselves will allow that he governed by Laws and that our English ones too yet those very Laws were then of such a Latitude that they allowed him what his Parliament of Lords would never have allowed had he been obliged to consult them he singly ordeined what of late has been so loudly clamoured for that Vid. Baker no Prelates should have any Jurisdiction in Temporals and disarmed all the common People in general throughout the whole Kingdom the first themselves tho such Sollicitors and Petitioners for the compassing it would not now allow his Majesty alone to exclude from their Votes tho for their own Satisfaction without an Act of Parliament and for the latter they 'll hardly allow tho granted by the Law and tho it be only disarming and securing some Seditious Souls that disturb the Peace William the Second layd his own Taxes on the People a sufferance no Subject Vid. Eadmerus a Monk who writ the Life of William 2d lived in his Time can sustein now but with his own consent and Permission he could forbid his People by Proclamation not to go out of the Kingdom not to be done now but with a ne Exeat a Writ and Process at Law confirmed as all others are by Act of Parliament Henry the First had as
great a power and prerogative and exercised it too punishments Vid. Baker p. 34. vir William 2d before his time which were Mutilation of Members he made pecuniary provisions for his House which were paid in kind he made to be turned into Money an Alteration of Custom and Law not now to be compast but by particular Act Baker makes him first to have So also Florence of Worst instituted the form of an High Court of Parliament and tells us that before only the Nobles and Prelates were called to consult about Affairs of State But he called the Commons too as Burgesses elected by themselves but this can't be gathered from Eadmerus the much better Autority who in the Titles and the Stile of near Nine or Ten Councils of his time not so much as mentions them King Stephen what he wanted and was forc't to spare in Taxations which were not then granted by the suffrages of the Common People tho they commonly bear the greatest burden of it tho he did not according to the Power he was then invested with raise great Sums upon his Subjects and the greatest Reason because he could not the Continual Wars having impoverisht them as well as their Prince and it has the proverbial Authority of necessitated Truth That even where it is not to be got the King himself must foregoe his Right yet this mighty Monarch's power was such that Confiscations supplyed what he could not Tax and as our Historian tells us Baker p. 49. upon light Suggestions not so much as just Suspicions he would seize upon their Goods and as I remember the Bishop of Salisbury's Case in his time confirms But tho the Menace of the threatning King the Text be turned now into the clear Reverse and our Kings Loyns no heavier then the very Finger of some of his Predecessors still we can The wordâ— of a Priâ—â—t lately tryed and convicted of High Treason find those that can preach him down for a Rehoboam or some Son of Nebat that makes Israel to Sin Henry the Second resum'd by his own Act all the Crown Lands that had been sold or given from it by his Predecessors and this without being questioned for it much less deposed or murdered whereas when our Charles the First attempted only to resume the Lands of Religious Houses that by special act of the Parliament in Scotland had been settled on the Crown but by Usurpation were shared among the Lords when 't was only to prevent their Scandalous defrauding of the poor Priest and the very box of the poor to keep them from an Imperious and even a cruel Lording it over the poor Peasant in a miserable Vassallage beyond that of our antiquated Villains and when he endeavoured all this only by the very Law of all the Land by an Act of Renovation Legal Process and a Commission for the just surrendring Superiorities and Tyths so unjustly detain'd from the Crown but our modern Occupants of the Kirks Revenue had far less Reverence for the State chose much rather to Rebel against their Prince for being as they would Phrase it Arbitrary than part with the least power over their poor Peasants which themselves exercised even with Tyranny This was the very beginning of the first Tumults in that Factious Kingdom and 't is too much to tell you in what they ended Richard the First had a trick I am sure would not be born with now he pretends very cunningly to have lost his Signet and puts out a Proclamation that whoever would enjoy what he had under the former must come and have it confirmed by the new and so furnisht himself with a fine fund he could fairly sell and pawn his Lands for the Jerusalem Journey and as fouly upon his return resume them without pay And all this the good peaceable Subject could then brook without breaking into Rebellion and a bloody War and as they had just then none of their Great Charter that made afterward their Kings the less so neither had they such Rebellious Barons that could not be contented even with being too Great as they were then far from having granted so gracious a Petition as that of Right so neither 3 Car. 1. you see so ready to Rebel and that only because they could not put upon their Prince the deepest Indignities the greatest wrong And these warrantable proceedings of our Princes whose power in all probability was unconfin'd before the Subjects Charter of Priviledges was confirm'd must needs be boundless when there were yet no Laws to Limit them yet these two Presidents were as impertinently applyed by the Common Hackney Goose quils whose Pens were put upon by the Parliament to scribble Panegyricks upon a Common-wealth to prove 1648. 49. 51. Mercur Polit. n. 64. 65. all our Kings a Catalogue of Tyrants tho the Presidents they brought from those times were clear Nonsense in the Application and no News to tell us or reproach to them that those Princes were Arbitrary when they had yet given no grant to restrain their Will Here I hope is sufficient Testimony and that too much to Demonstrate that our Kings of old by long Prescription were so far from being guided and governed by a Parliament as our Factious Innovator would have them now that in truth they never had any such Constitution and the People then insisted so little on their own Priviledges that they could not tell what they were and the Princes Prerogative so great that even their property could hardly be called their own But these being but Presidents before their Charters were granted or the Commons came in play tho these preceding Kings might deviate from the common Custom of the Realm in many that some may call irregular Administrations yet the Customs of the Vid. Lex Terrae Kingdom relating to the Royal Government in all those Reigns were never questioned much less altered they never told their Kinge then as this piece of Sedition does now that their Nobles were to manage their Affairs of State as well as he would have even a Council of Commons We come to consider now whether An. Reg. 17 John from the granting them Charters which was done in the next Reign that of King John when the long tugged for Liberties were first allowed or from the Constitution of admitting the Commons to consult which by the greatest Advocates can't be made out handsomely before this Kings time or his Son and Successors who might well be necessitated to Consult the meaner sorts when all the great were in Arms and wisely flatter their Commons into peace when the Lords had rebelled in an open War tho' still good Authorities will Vid Dr. B. Introduct p. 72. 105. c. not allow them to be called in either of their Reigns not so much as to be mentioned in any of their Councils and p. 149. The King calls Parl. per advisam entum Concilii Vid. Bract. Parl. 4. Inst p. 4. and
the Statute and the Law William Writ against Pryn too in one Page proves his King Supream in the other his Parliaments Supremacy the most Mutinous Member would needs be Loyal when it was to late and the most Malitious Miscreant at the Pen Publisht his Memento when his Money with his Membership was sequestred from his own Home as well as his self from the Parliaments House and then palliated it with a piece against his Majesties Murder I the more Liberally enlarge upon this because his party the Presbyter would appropriate to themselves from some of his Papers the Vindication of their King but what I am sure in sincerity was thâ—â— own Reâ—enge They the Scot and the Todpole Spawn of both that Independant made use of unanimously the Defence of their Prince for the Destruction of his Person and then the differing Daemagogues with the very same * Vid. Answer of our English Presbyter to the Scots Commissioners The Scots reply from their Camp at Newark The Members to the Army The Armies Answer to the Members The Scots Remonst to the Army The Armies reply Pretences strove to put upon each other that is both alike full of the same falshood both alike fancyed their own Integrity they seemed to Labor for the two sublimated Vices Hypocrisie and self-conceit whereof the one made them twice Villains the other double Fools And this Confounder of Paper as well as the People Publisht then ∥ the very same An. From 41. to 48. Pamphlets or waste Papers 125. Principles this strach't Republican has proposed now for new Politicks of State Pryn and Plato differ only in this one Labour'd to make Law speak Treason the other Sense Lastly were not the Parliament very tender of this last this present Princes Power and Prerogative when they enacted a new * Act for Regulating Corporations Oath to be taken by all in Office for the Renouncing the Trayterous Position of resisting his Majesty with his own Authority And this Rebellious Proposal of our Republican is to make even the Parliament it self to make use of his †Vid. Plat. Parl. of Commons begun with H. 3. within 400 y. Kings in Caesars time 1000 y. since Authority even for an Usurpation upon his Prerogative and when once they come to Manage that they may be sure they 'll be his Masters too and I hope 't is now in some Measure prov'd even in the several particulars I undertook should be so that our Monarchs had heretofore an absolute Management of Affairs without an Interfering of Parliaments which then had not so much as Being and which were since they had it never called as their very Writs express it but to ‖ Deliberaturi de arduis 4 Inst 2. p. consult that they never offer'd to set a Council over their King much less themselves as this * Plato popular Pedant calls it to Manage his Militia and demonstrated this as was designed from Prescription even beyond Chronicle from the Laws of every Reign and my little Light of Reason All the following Propositions are as much against Reason and Law for the third is that the Judges be nominated by Parliament which as it would divest the King of part of his Supremacy so it would make themselves in effect both Judges and party for those then their own Creatures would have the Exposition of those Laws which themselves had made The ‖ Cook 5. fol. 62. 9. Ed. 4. Cook 8. f. 145. Law allows all the Four Courts at Westminster to be all Courts by Prescription and then let them tell me to whom belongs the power of Electing those that are to preside in it to the Kings of England that can prescribe to their Government even from the very Britains before Caesar ever set Foot in it neer 1700 Years agon and with whom their Courts of Judicature were ever Coeval or the Constitution of a Parliament that first within this four hundred years could be said to have a Being and so that which themselves would now controul had a Priority even in time to their Existence for near 1300 Years It is called the Court of Kings Bench Let them name the Judges it must be no longer His but the Parliaments 'T is Rebellion in them to assume it for they must at the same time too take the Soveraignty the Supremacy and 't is that such Seditious Proposals must aim at and truly do for 't is expresly declared for ‖ 3 El. Dyer 187. Cook 4 Inst c. 7. p. 73. Law that the Justices of the Kings Bench have Supream Authority the King himself sits there in them as the Law intends if the Parliament can chuse their Kings Representatives they can their King too and make the most Hereditary Kingdom Elective before the Reign even of Edward the * Ibid. p. 74. First the Chief Justice of this Court was created by Letters Patent 't is out ever was and will be out of the Parliaments power to create per Patents even a petty Constable 't is the King alone that by these his †32. H. 6. 13. Letters can constitute Courts and grant all Regal Rights He can erect a ‖ Plowden 334. Court of Common pleas in what part of the Kingdom he pleases and shall he that has a power over the very being of the Court not be able to place his Ministers of Justice in it The Chancery is a Court of such Antiquity that long before the Conquest we have several accounts of it tho some that were * Pollid Virg. Foreign to our Laws as well as Land would make it commence with the Conqueror Our very †4 Inst 6. 8. ibid. British Kings are said to have had such a Court and Ethelred the Saxon granted the * Mirror c. 1. §. 12. Fleta l. 12. c. 1. Glanvil l. 12. c. 1. and all the most ancient Lawyers speak of it Chancellorship even in Succession I need not it would be Nonsense to design to prove Parliaments had nothing to do with such Affairs so long before they themselves exsisted and in this Monument of Antiquity fam'd for the Distribution of the most Equal Justice since they cannot pretend without shame to the power of Electing such an Antient Officer of the Crown why what they can't presume to mend must Plato be quite Marr'd and utterly Abolisht Pryn himself could never pretend that this Great Officer was the Peoples tho that popular piece of Absurdity might have prov'd it too as well he did the rest from the paradox of all our Princes being Elected which tho allow'd them from their perverted Histories yet still those whom they say were Chosen had the Liberty of Chusing their own Ministers sure they can't have the least shadow for such a silly Conjecture therefore this ‖ Pâ—yn's Parl. right to elect great Officers and Judges Sophister having just so much sense as to conceive from the begging one false Principle the most Damnable
Liberties and will not that neither with our Licentious Libertines be allowed for Law Is not all the Military power both by Sea and Land declared the undoubted Right of His present Majesty and that by particular ‖ 13. Car. 2 d. Chap 6. Vid. the same repeated 14. Car 2. c. 3. Act in his own Reign does not the very preamble of it seem to provide against this very Proposition of such a Parliament or a Plato when it tells us expresly that all Forts and places of Strength is and ever was by the Laws of England the Kings undoubted Right and of all his Royal Predecessors and that neither both or either Houses can or ought to pretend to the same and declares that all the late Principles and Practices that assumed the same were all Rebellious And could some of our Mutinous Members embrace such Propositions from the Press that presumed to tell them they had of late made two such Impertinent Acts in the House †Plato p. 239. 240. 277. Acts invading the Subjects Property Acts betraying the Liberties of that very People they represent In short and that in his own Words Acts that empower the Prince to invade the Government with Force Acts to destroy and ruin the State hindering the Execution of the Laws and the preventing our Happiness and Settlement had they had but the least Reverence for their own Constitution and that Honorable Assembly wherein they sate sure there would have been some Ordered and Resolved for the sifting out such a Pen-man and sentencing such Papers to the Hangman and the Flames what can be the result of this to sober Sense or Common Reason that such Villanous Authors should appear in publick at such a Session of Parliament to Censure and Arraign the very Acts of their former Representatives but that they thought themselves secure from any Violent Prosecution from those that then were sitting and that it was not the Constitution it self of that most Honorable Assembly the Seditious Sycophants were so Zealous for but only the present Persons its Constituent Members they so much admired The last the Tenth of those pretty Proposals that deserves particular Animadversion for several of them Symbolize with one another and so are by a general asserting of the Kings Supremacy sufficiently refuted is the Parliaments Right to the making Peers the prettiest Paradox that the Abundance of Sedition with the want of Sense could suggest I have heard the Laws declare the King to be the Fountain of Honor as well as Justice but the Commons I think as they are no Court of Judicature so were never yet known to be concerned in the making Lords The King whom only our ‖ 3. Ed. 3. 19. Law declares to have no Peer is sure the only Person that can make Peers has not this Power been unquestionably in the Prince ever since these Realms had one to Rule was not the Title of Baron in Edward the First 's Time confined expresly to such only as by the Kings Writ were sommoned to sit in Parliament And even when there was an Innovation in this Point In †11. Rich. 2 d. Richard the Second's Tumultuous Time this Power was then not taken from the King till they took away his Crown did not he take upon him to confer the Peerage and as the first President per his Letters Patents And Beauchamp Baron of Kederminster the First of that Creation did the Parliament ever pretend to make Peers but when the Body had rebelled against the Head and rejected their Prince But the Creation of Honors might well then be inverted when the State it self was turned Topsie It was then I confess they denyed their King too not only the conferring of Honors for the future but passed an * 4 Feb. 1651. Scob. Col. pag. 178. Act for Voiding all Titles Dignities and Precedencies already given by him But this was done to extinguish the very Remains of Royalty that there might not be left behind him the meer marks the Gracious Dispensations of the very Favor of a King the inveterate Villains labouring with their Monarch to Murder his very Memory And sure none of the Nobility have great Reason to relie upon Parliaments for the maintaining of their Old Honor or creating New for the Privilege of their Peerage or the making Peers when the very First thing that they did when they had got the Power was an †Vid. vote Journal 6. Feb. 1648. Vid. Hist independ pag. 15. perfect Diurnal p. 1250. Ordered and Resolved that the House of Peers was useless dangerous and ought to be Abolisht And all the Kindness their Lordships could be allowed was to be capable of being elected into the Lower House and what an Honourable House of Lords was afterward Establisht even by those that had purged away the Peerage may be seen in the Persons of those that Usurper put up afterward for Peers But under the Name the Notion of that other House when they granted that power of their Nomination to that Arch Rebel which they but so lately denyed their Lawful King why we had there then †See the List of their Lordships in Dugd. view pag. 454. Lords of no quality no worth little Land and less Learning Mr. Hewsons Lordship that Honest Cobler Sir Thomas Pride's Lordship Knight and Dray-man My Lord James Berry Black-Smith My Lord Barksted the Bodkin-Seller and the Cant of their Counterfeit Cromwell their Creator might well tell them from the Text not many Nobl's not many wise were called but a Creation according to the very Notion of the Schools An House like that of the World too out of nothing framed by Him that had Himself * Vid. Engagement and Protectors Oath Sworn to be true to the Government without founded in the Perjury of him that made them Peers and of Persons that would have disgrac'd a Pillory Persons prefer'd for their little Honesty little Quality little Sense Persons whose Lands and Possessions could only qualifie them to be Noble by being purchased with the Blood of our best Nobility Lastly Persons that were only samed for their Villanies Mighty but in Mischief making it an House indeed not of Peers but Correction which the very Law tells us must be made up of Beggars and Malefactors This Gentlemen was the Peerage produced †Their 19th Proposition to the King at York by a Parliament's Rebellion to make Peers of which it was too the most natural Result for that very Act upon a Just Judgment would have Tainted all their Blood but they provided here for the purpose Persons that defied superseded the Work of an Attaindure Persons whose Blood even Treason could not more Corrupt This Gentlemen was the product of that most preposterous Inversion when the * The First Feb. 6. 1648. Commons could make Lords and their Kings House of Peers with their very Titles and Honors ‖ The Second 4. Feb. 51. Abolisht by an House of Commons
besides of Mischiefs and Inconveniences the two main matters the Law labours to avoid might be the Result of such an Act and endanger the safety even of King and Subject And what pray now was this Statute of Charles the First but what some even of these ‖ Vid. Seasonable Question and an useful Answer Printed about 77. by a Bencher of the Temple Factious Fellows themselves confess only a Reinforcement of the two Edwards If it were no more by the same Reason they are gone too as being against the King's Prerogative and in Derogation of his Right But Factious Fools that baffle themselves before they can be confuted by others the Statute they repealed did reinforce indeed those of Edward but it was with a Witness even as they * 16. Car. 2. resolved it with an invading the Rights of the King and endangering the Ruin of the People but still 't is true in that latter clause of their repealing Act they prevail upon their King to grant them a Triennial one how far obliging I leave their Oracles of the Law to Judge For if our Kings have had it by their prerogative indefinitely to call Parliaments by Custom or Common Law 't is as much against both for him to be obliged to convene them in three year as two one or without Intermission And I cannot see how the last enacting Clause is consonant to the Repealing Preamble which is so mighty for the Preservation of the Prerogative and we well know under what Circumstances of State Affairs then stood the People could not have more than so good so gracious a King was even in Policy ready to grant it was within a year or two of his being placed upon the Throne of his Father And a Turbulent Faction as furious again to pull him out A Seditious * Venner and his Fifth Monarchy Men. Sect had but just then alarm'd him that were setting up their Christ's Kingdom before his own was hardly settled Sots that thought their Saviour the great pattern of a Passive Obedience could be pleased with the Sacrifice of Fools and Rebels and an active Resistance unto Blood that has commanded us even to suffer unto it and even in the same Season and Session as damnable a * Vid. Brief Narrative of the Tryal of Tongue Stubs c. Lon. 1661. Conspiracy detected as this Hellish one so lately discovered Arms seiz'd the Tower to be taken and an Insurrection contrived the parting at such a juncture with his Prerogative might be the product of his desire to please the People 't is too much to take the forfeiture in his own wrong when in this very particular the same Law provides so much for the Prince's Right But they 'll tell us the King by his passing such a Bill has parted with his Power and Prerogative But then do not the Laws tell us it cannot be past away Was it not resolved by all the Judges but * 1. Jacob. Term. Hill Coke l. 7. in his Grandfathers time That himself could not grant away the Power of Dispensing with the Forfeitures upon Penal Statutes and why because annext to his Royal Person and the Right of his Soveraignty And shall it not be so much our Soveraign's Right which common Custom the Fundamental Law of all the Land has invested him with the convening of Parliaments at his pleasure But for my part for my Life I cannot apprehend did there lie such a great Obligation upon * 16. Car. 2. his Majesty from this his own very voidable if not void Act how 't is possible to bring him at the same time within the Letter of the Laws of Edward and by them lay a necessity upon him to make all their latter Act an entire Impertinence For if by those Laws â—e be obliged to Call a Parliament at least every Year What signifies the latter that allows him three Years for their Calling And if he has three years for their Calling where can lye the necessity for his Calling them in one for a * Cook himself says it is a Maxim in the Law of Parliament that later Laws Abrogate the former that are contrary to them 4. Inst C. 1. pag. 43. Subsequent Stat. that gives such a larger extent of Time tho it do not actually repeal those Preceding that allow less yet it must at least render them Illusory and Vain And to tell us that the latter is but declaratory of the former Act when it contradicts the very Letter of that Law is as absurd as maintaining an Affirmative may be confirmed with an absolute Negative By all the Rules of Reason I have met with yet and Logick is allowed sure to hold good even in Law unless the Legislators set up for Brutes and Irrationals A Proposition of a larger extent must include that of a less which if it does is in this Case Exclusive For should this Authority suppose to bring the Argument home to their Doors and then they can't say it is far fetcht of the House of Commons command me to dance Attendance at their Bar de Die in Diem for abhorring or so and then with a subsequent Order only demand it every third For my part I cannot apprehend the Obligation there lyes upon me for the performing both but that the former stands still a Cypher in their Journal and by the latter is suspended I could assoon resolve in the Crazyness of the Natural Body when 't is batter'd with an Ague that a Quotidian and a Tertian can at the same time assault it together But Mr. Hunt's Illustrations lying in another Science Number and the Mathematicks he may demonstrate this too * Hunt postscript pag. 46. 48 49. with his Vnite and Triad and tell us One and Two make Three But to be serious and that in a matter that so much concerns the Soveraign tho there be no better way of baffling Buffoons and Arguments of Fools must be answered but with Folly tho some may think there may be somewhat of sound Reason in such pleasant Similes for Sense and Nonsense are become Terms now but merely Relative and every Author an Ass or an Animal of Reason as his Reader stands affected we being become parties in that too as well as in Principles if we would truly know the Sense of a Law it must be collected from an Historical Account of that time wherein it was enacted and I think my Lord Cook ‖ Cardinal of Winchesters Case who came from Flanders to purge himself before Parliament of Treason as only the Roll of Henry the Sixth says but Consult the History it appears he had some of the King 's Jewe's gaged to him which the King stopt from going after him c. 4. Inst 7. p. 42. tell 's us as much too And then turn but to the story of the Times and see there the Reasons of such Provisions and when those fail then must sure the force of such Proviso's too for certainly
part of that general Plot and Conspiracy that has been since discovered and that all sorts of Pens were imployed as well as all Heads Hearts and Hands at work for the carrying on Mr. Sidney's OLD CAVSE as indeed all this Gentlemans Works tended to for which the Almighty was supposed so often to have declared and signaliz'd himself and illustrates only this That there was not any Person qualified for undermining of our Monarchy either from his Wit or Parts Boldness or Courage from his Virulency in Satyr or his Knowledge in History from his skill in any Science or Profession but what some or other of the most eminent was made Serviceable to this Faction and contributed his Talent to the carrying on the Design according to the gift and graces that they had in their several Abilities to promote it neither can this Gentleman think himself libell'd in this Accusation unless he would give his own works the Lye for who but him that had such a Design for the subverting our Monarchy would at a season when the Succession of our Crown was struck at in the Commons Vote a Succession that several Laws of our Land have declared to be Hereditary even by that of God who but one so Seditious would not only have encouraged such unwarrantable Proceedings which was the late Kings Car. 2d Speech to the late Oxford Parliam own Words for 't in such an Assertion of the Commons Right but in that too brought upon the Stage several Arguments from our History several Presidents of our Soveraign's being here Elected by their Subjects when they might as well too tell us That our present Soveraign was so chosen because the Question was put to the People upon his Coronation but yet this elective Kingdom of ours did this Laborious Petyt's Right of the Commons asserted from his Cleri populi consensu drudg of Sedition drive at too Does he not tell us William Rufus and several others were Elected that is Henry the First King Stephen King John tho I am satisfied that consent of the Clergy and People they so much rely upon was nothing more than the Convention of those Persons that appeared upon the solemn Coronation or at least the Proclaiming of the King Themselves are satisfied all our old Statutes clearly confirm'd the sole Legislative Power of the Prince and therefore they won't when they are objected to them allow them to be Statutes at all because made I suppose only by their King but so my Lord Coke says they said of the Statute of Edward the First which notwithstanding he 4. Inst calls an Act of Parliament but yet however we see that the Style of all other Acts of Parliament put all the enacting part in the power of the King so that Mr. Sidney's making his People and Parliament the Supream Judges of their Kings violating the Laws is only a Position that opposes every Act in the Statute Book from the Great CHARTER to the last grant of our late King CHARLES But our Author Triumph'd as he thought over his Adversaries in forcing back their own Argument upon his Foes for says Mr. Sidney if no man must be Judge because he is party then neither the Tryal pag. 24. King and then no man can be try'd for an Offence against him or the Law I confess with such a sort of disputants as are resolv'd to beg the Question and take their Premisses for principles of eternal truth you cannot avoid the Conclusion tho it be the greatest Paradox and an absolute Lye for he presumes the Parity of Reason and then concludes they are both alike Reasonable he takes it for granted the People may judge the King tho party as well as the King the People who must be suppos'd as much partial and that is truly just as if he had said A Sophism Logician call the Petitio principi when we believe as they do and what then Why then we shall be of their mind i. e. that it would follow the King or his Judges could not hang a Fellow for Fellony or this Author himself for a Traytor to the State Nay more as the Gentleman has manag'd the matter it is made an Argument a Fortiori for he supposes the Absurdity to be such that if the King in his own Case must Judge the People and not the People the King in theirs that this Contradictory Consequence would be as much conclusive That the Servant entertain'd by the Master must Judge him but the Master by Page 42. no means must the Servant or in the Metaphor of his own more Blasphemous Sedition The Creature is no way bound to its Creator but the Creator it self to the thing it has Created and now all is out and all the large Volume all his mighty Treatise not to be finisht in many years is founded upon that first Principle of all Republicans The Peoples Supremacy or as Mr. * Vid. Paper at his Execution He has too that Old Seditious Aphorism us'd by Junius Brutus all the rest of the Republicans Singulis Major Tryal p. 23. tho in the next paragraph he is no more than any of his Subjects Sidney says the Soveraign being but a Servant to his Subjects a Creature to these God Almightys of the People the Creators of their King truly this they are resolv'd we shall grant or as resolutely suppose we cannot Contradict and so put upon us their presumptive absurdities for our own and make them the Consequence of those Concessions that were never yeilded who taught this Gentleman who granted him that the Magistrate was the Peoples Creature but a Brutus in his Vindiciae or that as abominable a Book De ‖ This Gentleman seems only to have translated that Authors own words non populus propter Magistratus sed Magistratus propâ—eâ— poâ—ulum fuisse creatos jure Magistratuum and for this must it follow that Filmer is so absurd only because he does not suppose the very pernicious principles of those very Rebels and Republicans he endeavours to refute It is an easy sort of a Conquest and you may soon prove your Foes to be De Jure Magist Quaest 5. p. 10. Edit Francs Fools too if you 'll oblige them to maintain their own positions from the Contradictory Maxims of their Enemies they oppose and this Collonel that once was a Souldier and in Arms for his Common-wealth as well as a Polemical pen man against the Monarchy would soon have remain'd sole Master of the Field had the Measures of his Foe been forc't to be taken from the Rules and Maxims of the Enemy which he fought and many would think the Man a little mad that could imagine two Armies that faced in their Fronts to meet so as to stand upon the same ground It can't be well effected without a penetration of body neither can Mr. Sidney conclude us in that absurdity unless he would make us mingle Principles a thing perhaps
among the Romans and if the People had any Right to this Judicial power those Miscreants more modestly place it among the most eminent whereas our brisker Assertor of this Anarchy makes it out That therefore our more eminent Memberships have this Original Power only because Communicated them from the meanest People so that now we have a Parliament that has an Original Natural Liberty of the People tho their very Constitution it self commenc'd from the very Grant Grace and Favor of the King I could never meet with any Record yet that rehearsed these Privileges of Parliament But we have many extant and Presidents even of the House of Commons themselves that their Privileges and much of their Power proceeds from the Liberalities of their Prince more than this Natural Liberty of the People not to mention that their very being was first the result of such an Act of his Grace for from whom pray had they that freedom of Speech they upon every Session desire by their Speaker but from that King before whom they are to Speak who is it that fills their Chair those that present him or the King that accepts or disapproves whom they have presented who is it that gives them access to his Person the Commons that desire it or he from whom 't is desir'd 2. Lastly who impowers them to consent to a Bill those that supplicate his Majesty would be pleased to enact or his Majesty that says Be it enacted could this Natural Original power of the People be communicated to their Representatives the dispute about the Commons Right would be carried for ever on their side and we need not date their Original from Henry the Third or the Barons Wars or from the Saxon Heptarchy it self to be sure they then had their Representatives assoon as they had this Power and this Power it seems was assoon as they were a People And by this Original Power which they delegate for ought I see they may by the same rule as well retain it suffer no Representatives at all but assemble themselves and exercise the Soveraignty If the People delegate an Original power and a Natural Liberty to this Parliament it cannot certainly be comprehended how these Parliaments as now constituted could commence by the Grants and Concessions of the Prince and yet all will allow tho they disagree in the time that they did begin at first to be so Assembled by the Bounteous Permission of the King and that all the Privileges they claim were the result of an entire Favour of the Soveraign and not the Original freedom of the Subject if they 'll call that an Original Power to send Representatives it must be somewhat like that Author 's Secondary Original we so lately consider'd and that tho they prescribe to it for this seven hundred year as well as they cannot for above four or five 100 still it will recurr to this That this first power was the Grant of the Crown And these prescriptions as themselves allow being whenever they begun the result of the Soveraigns Bounteous Permission I cannot see why those Immunities may not be resign'd to the same Crown from which they were once receiv'd or those Franchises for prescription it self in this case is properly no more may not be Absolutely forfeited by those that at best can but be said to hold them on Condition I know the Common Law Favours a Prescription so far as in Inheritances to let it have the force of a Right when their cannot be made out any other Title but this I look upon to be of another Nature when the Original of what they prescribe too by their own Concessions was the Grant of their King and even this Common Law commonly in all its Customary Rules excepts the Prerogative of the King nay this very Prerogative of his by that very Law is allowed to be the Principal * Case of Usurpation Coke Litt. 344. B. The Prerogative of the King is given by the Common Law and is part of the Laws of the Realm 3. Instit p. 84. Stamf. pl. Cr. 62. a Prerog 5. part of it I urge this because it is both apposite here and a Case upon our late Elections much controverted and to say as some do That such a Prescription cannot be forfeited proceeds from a confounding of the word in this Case with that Prescription by which some of them have a Title to their Estate for their Common Objection about this their Elective power is That the King may as well deprive them of their Birth-right when this their Birth-right might commence by an Original Right but the Power of this Electing must Necessarily and Originally first come from the Crown But yet they know too that this their very Birth-right is in many Cases forfeitable by their own Act to the Crown and for their Burgage it self should we abstract Burgh an Antient Town holden of the King Coke Litt. 164. from that Elective power that attends it nothing else but an Antient tenure of their very King And if in the Saxons time as the popular advocates would persuade us the Commons were call'd to sit in Parliament 't is certain they could not come as Burgesses too for all that Borâ—oe in their Toungue signified if we can â—elieve my Lord ‖ Ibid. Our Neighbours Kingdom of Scotland had Parliaments not above 700. years agon and even their Republicans will allow they had Kings long before that call'd only the Preceres as a worthy Author of theirs observes Sir G. M. Jus. Reg. That their old Laws run just like ours here the Kings only Acts and that their Burgesses did not begin till about 300. year agon Which makes it more likely that our own was not summon'd much long before for tho they were different Kingdoms yet Neighbouring Nations and might nearly follow our Innovations vvhen in a thing that must be lik'd by all Subjects Coke and from which the word Burgh was since deriv'd its signification was only this Those ten Companies or Families that were one anothers pledge and so should they prove it to us as clear as the Sun as well as they have left it much in the dark still those their Commons could never be of those that had any Right to come but only such as the Grace of the King should call and even in Edward the first 's time those very Barons some say that were only most wise were summon'd by the King and their Sons if they were not thought so prudent as their Fathers were not call'd to Parliament after their Fathers death Therefore since Prescription since Parliament it self depended all heretofore upon the pleasure of the Prince I cannot see how the Subject shall ever be able to make it his Original Right and tho some are so bold as to say such a prescription cannot be forfeited or resign'd by the Subject resum'd or restor'd to the Crown for they must maintain those propositions or else they have no reason for their
the Parliament A. D. 1625. Finch then the Lord Keeper as things unwarrantable and unusual they prosecuted too Buckingham with the more violence only because the King had told them That he acted nothing of publick Employ without his special Warrant That he had discharged his trust with fidelity That he had merited it by desert and that it was his express Command for them to desist from such an unparliamentary disquisition And for my part I cannot apprehend how according to common sense and reason both in this case and Strafford's that succeeded they could make those Traytors to their King of whom their King declar'd they had never betray'd their trust It was such a sort of Treason against their King which their King knowing and approving did not think High Treason and the person against whom it could only be committed apprehending no Commission of it at all But those Statesmen were so unhappy as to live in an age that made Treason as unlimited as ever it was before Edward the Third and which for all his * 1. Mâ—â— twenty 25. Ed. 3d. fifth and the first of Mary restrained Treason to conspiring against the King and the Laws of all the World makes it a Crime only of †Lex Julia Inst 4. 18. 3d. Laesae Majestatis they could bring it now to a levying War against the Majesty of the * Merc. Polit. People A hard fate for many Ministers of State that are sacrific'd sometimes only for serving too well But these proceedings against the King were long I hope before the King proceeded only to take Traytors out of an House of Commons this was seditiously done in twenty five the other not lawfully attempted till forty one And judg now malitious Miscreants where when and by whom were the first provocations given to discontent and who were the first Agressors in a barbarous and a bloody Civil War Why don't they tell us too our present Soveraign invaded first the Rebels in Scotland and those that â—anded at Lime The next age may as well be brought to believe this as the present that All that their best Advocates unless absolute Rebellious can urge in their defence is the Parliament seiz'd only upon the King's Forts for fear he should fortify them against the Parliament very good that is they first made War upon him for fear he should make War upon them that 's the English trick of it And I can tell it them in a Spanish one too so Gondamor got Raleigh's Head he told them not for the mischief he had done them but for that which he might do But had not the Laws provided so particularly for the King this would be madness and cruel injustice even among common Subjects reduce us both into Hobs's his state of nature and his fear to kill every one we meet for fear of being kill'd or set our Neighbours House a fire for fear it should catch of it self and consume our own And now be witness even the worst and the most warm Assertor of a Common-wealth in this case be for once what you so much affect Judge between you and your King The King had his Court of Starchamber constituted by a 4 Institutes c. 5. Common Law and confirmed by special b Reg. Hen. 7. Act of Parliament The Commons they send up a c The 9th of June 1641. Vote and Bill for suppressing it The High Commission was establisht by the d 1 El. c. 1. Statute of the Queen the Commons come and would put it down with a e The ninth of June 1641. Vote The Court of Wards and Livery the tenures of which were even f 4 Inst p. 192. before the Conquest and drew Ward and Marriage after it was establisht by particular g 32. H. 8. c. 46. Act the Commons clamour to have it supprest which to please them is done The King had several priviledges that belong to the Clerk of his Market confirm'd by ancient h 4 Inst c. 61 Custom and i Ed. 1. Hen. 8. R. 2. H. 5. several Statutes abolisht by the Parliament in the Year 1641. The k Chart. Forest King had the Courts of his Forests his Judge in it constituted of old by Writ then by l 27. H. 8. c. 24. Letters Pattents This was a grievance which was never before and therefore must and was supprest with the rest The m Magn. â—har â— 29. and their Petition of Right Law required no person was to be Imprisoned or put out of his Lands but by due course and custom None to be adjudged to Death but by the Law establisht they n Dug view p. 68. 19. April confined several of the Kings Subjects send the Bishops by order of the House to the Tower and by special Bill attaint Strafford and Behead Laâ—d o 10. Jan. 1644. with an Ordinance Resolved by all the Judges in Queen Elizabeths time that to levy War â—o remove evil Counsellors â—s High Treason against the King they past a Vote p May. 20. Exact Coll. p. 259. that the King was seduc'd by evil Counsellors against whom they levied War to remove There is a q 12. H. 7. c. 1. special Statute that says expresly that the Subjects that aid the King shall not be molested or questioned They publisht their Declaration r 17. May. Ex. Coll. p. 193. That it was against the Laws and Liberty of the Kingdom to assist the King that the Sherriff of the County ought to suppress them The s Coke Lit. p. 164. Law makes those Delinquents that adhere to the King's Enemies they t 20. May. Vote those that serve him in such Wars Traitors by a Fundamental Law The u Ed. 2. Statute provides that the Parliaments should assemble peaceably they by particular order bring Horse and Foot into the Palace Yard In short The Parliament first seizes the Militia against an express x 7. Ed. 1. Act that setl'd it solely on the King The King sent out after his Comission of Array for which he was impower'd by y 5. H. 4. Act of Parliament The Parliament order the raising an Army against the K. declared Treason by special z 25. E. 3. Act The King then Summons his Subjects to his assistance at a 5 July 42. Exact Coll. York and comes and sets up his Standard at Nottingham for that was warranted by the Laws of the Land and b 1. Ed. 2. de mi. litibus 7. Ed. 1. several Statutes of the Realm I have taken this pains both to prove that bloody War that general Revolt to be a plain Rebellion and that the War it self was begun by those that were the only Rebels the Parliament because you see that both those positions have been laid down among our * Sidney 's Tryal p. 26. Plato Redivivus p. 167. Republicans either of which should it gain credit is enough to run us again
History the best account of that King and he tells us he had no less then three Titles to the Crown whatever that Italian States-man Commines could conceive to the contrary first his Title in right of the Lady Elizabeth whom he was resolv'd to marry secondly that of the Line of Lancasters long disputed both by Plea and Arms thirdly the Conquest by his own But the Learned Historian observes the first was look't on the fairest and Yorks line been always lik't as the best Plea in the Crowns descent and for Confirmation of it the Learned Lord tells us that this Henry knew the Title of Lancaster Condemn'd by Act of Parliament Bacon Hist H. 7. p. 3. Ibid. page 12. and prejudic'd in the Common opinion of the Realm and that the root of all the Mischiefs that befel him was the discountenancing of the house of York whom the General body of the Kingdom still affected and whatever stress and reliance this Prince might place in the PARLIAMENT's power this able states-man observes there is still a great deal of difference 'twixt a King that holds by civil Act of State and him that holds Originally by the Law of NATVRE and DISCENT of BLOOD so that we have here a Person vers'd in our own Laws an excellent and allowed Scholar by the whole World and not only Lauds and Bishops as our bigotted Author would have it allowing a Divine right by the Laws of Nature and who I am sure was so good a Naturalist as best understood her Laws and that Natural discent by blood to be much more preferable than any other Human title given by such Inferiour powers of a Parliament whom the most zealou's adorerssure won't acknowledg more Omnipotent then the God of Nature himself I shall observe another Historical Instance that a true lineal discent was then taken for the best title and even in those times had the greatest Influence which was the Lord Stanley's Case who tho the very Person that plac'd the Crown on this Princes head yet suffer'd the loss of Vid Bacon Hist his own only for saying somewhat that savoured of his kindness to the Succession and that if he was sure the Children of Edward were alive he would not â—ear Arms against them so mightily did the sense of the right blood prevail with him that he sacrified all his own for it and rather than recant what he so well resolv'd seem'd no way sollicitous for his Life But that which this Historian might have observ'd too in this Reign as a discouragement to the designs of some of their popular Patriots then afoot when he pen'd this his presumptuous piece was the ill success that two several impostures met with in their pretensions to a Crown to which they were not born no great Inducement certainly for any one to be persuaded to personate the Royal Heir to set up for a Lambert or a Perkin only for their misfortune and fate Lastly I shall conclude my remarks upon this Kings Reign with an Animadversion upon a Paragraph or two that conclude his piece very pertinent to this place since it relates to the times of which we treat and that is the resolution of the Judges upon the Case of this their King that the Descent of the Crown purged all his defects and attainder This their opinion he refutes Brief Hist p. 17. as Frivolous Extrajudicial and here Impertinent but I hope to show this Point a most material one the Resolution to be a good Judgment and their reply much to the present purpose First sure it was a matter and that of a high Nature to know how he was qualify'd to sit in the House that was to preside in it as the head And tho he might in some sense be said to have won the Crown with Arms yet he knew it would wear much Better sit much Easier if setled and establish't according to Law and tho a Conquerer that has the Sword in his hand can soon capacitate himself to sway the Scepter yet he 'l soon find the most regular Proceedings tend most to the Establishment of his Reign this made Henry the Seventh who had a Triple Plea for the Crown and that one by discent from the Lancasters consult his Oracles of the Law how far an Attainder past in the Reign of the Yorks would still taint his Blood and make it less Inheritable Secondly their Resolution that all preceding defects were purg'd in the discent was a Judgment both equitable and reasonable for 't was sure but equal that an Heir to whom an Inheritance and that of a Crown was allowed to discend should be qualify'd to take too for if he was a King no Bill of Attainder could touch him that was past too when he was none And if he was no King Vid Dyer H. 7. f. 59. The King is the head of the Parliament Lords and Commons but Members So no more Parliament without a King than a body without a head It is no Stat. if a King assent not to it 12. H. 7. 20. all the concurrence of the Lords and Commons cou'd never have made him an Act for his being so there being no Royal Authority to pass it into Law and nothing by the very constitution of our Government can be made a Law without so that such a resolution certainly was highly reasonable and unavoidable that that should purge its own defects which no power had perfection anough to purge wou'd he have a King pass an Act with his two Houses for the reversal of his own Attainder or the two Houses reverse the Attainder of their King If the first the allowing him to pass such an Act supersedes the end for which it should be past and makes him de Facto capable whom they would capacitate if he allows the Latter then he must an Interregnum too extinguish that Monarchy for a while of which the very Maxim says the Monarch can't dye and place that Supream power in the People which all our Fundamental Laws have put in the King Thirdly this Resolution is very pertinent to the present purpose to which 't is commonly now apply'd and that is the Bill of Exclusion But his passion and prejudice would not permit him to Examin the little difference there is between them For certainly that ability that can discharge any attainder is as efficacious for the voiding and nulling any Bill that shall hinder the descent for a Bill of Exclusion would have been but a Bill or an Act of the House for disabling the next Heir And an Attainder can do the same and is as much the Houses Act and to distinguish that in an Exclusion the Discent it self is prevented by a Law makes just no difference for whoever is Attainted has his Discent prevented by a Law too and that antecedently also before the Descent can come to purge him so that they only differ in this formal sort of Insignificancy In an Exclusion the Discents prevention would be
wrong but here those several alterations were all caus'd to be made for the securing of a Lineal â—egitimate and lawful Successor to the Throne for as a Reverend Author says the King Lamented that he should leave Bishp Godwins Histo H. 8. p. 37. the Kingdom to a Woman whose Birth was â—estionable and he willing to settle the Kingdom on his LAWFUL Issue and for this reason he got the 25th to pass against his Daughter Mary And the very Preamble of the Act tells us that it was for the Surety of Title and Succession and Lawful Inheritance Three years are scarce past till the 28 of his Reign repeals almost all that the 25 had Enacted their Protestant Queen Elizabeth made as well as the Popish Mary plain Bastard and tho our prejudic'd Author may make the same Vid. Pulton Stat. matter right and wrong as he stands affected he must think this his powerfuâ— Parliament dealt a little hard with thâ— latter whose Mother was never divorc't but from her Life and she paâ— off for a spurious Off-Spring only upoâ— the pretended suggestions of Anne Boleyn unknown impediments confess 't sine to Canterbury But whatever they were the Canons of the Church tho born bâ—fore Marriage and since after the verâ— Laws of the Land did make her Legitâ—mate But however this greater piece ofâ— justice to this good Protestant Queeâ— which they 'l say now proceeds from the Kings putting the Parlament In 's 31 as incontinency was made impediment in the first Anns Case they declared the suant of concupiscence an Impediment in the 2ds and only upon his sending some of his Lords to the lower house the Lady Cleves was unlawful too Vid Stow p. 581. Baker 288. Stat. 35. H. 8. upon too much Power wâ— palliated all along with the pretence of providing a Legitimâ—â—â— Lawful Successor and so the cleâ—â— Reverse and Contradiction of thâ— proceedings of our late Patrioâ— to whose Privileges those sort presidents were apply'd for those Parliamentary In the 33 the Parliament petition'd to him whom they knew it would please for the Attainder of Kat. Howard his 5th Queen Powers seculded but Bastards to make room for Heirs Lawful and Legitimate with us an Issue truly Legitimate should have been EXCLUDED for the setting up of a SPURIOUS ONE But then at last comes the 35th of his Reign and that like a Gunpowder Plot in the Cellars blows up all the former foundations of the whole House both the two former Stat. for Disabling Illegitimating are null voy'd repeal'd the LADY MARY Sister Elizabeth in those seven years suffered my Lord Bacons transmutation of Bodys and were turned all into new matter and what was Spurious Illegitimate and in Capable with the single Charm of be it enacted was become truly Lawful Lineal Heir of the Crown and Capacitated to succeed in an HEREDITARY DISCENT and so far from Invading the Prerogative so full of giving were the bountiful Parliaments of those times that they Impower their too Powerful Prince to dispose of his Crown by Letters Pattents or an Arbitrary Testamentary disposition an Oblation I think his present Majesty might esteem too great to be accepted who knows his Successor to be the Crown 's Heir scarce his own much less the PARLIAMENTS Edward the Sixth upon his Fathers death succeeded an Heir Lineal Legal and Testamentary yet the first thing this Author observes upon him is the greatest falsehood viz. That he took upon him a power what surely no King ever had to dispose of his Crown by Will When in the very Preceeding president his own Father by his Will manifested he had the Power and left it him by his last But his he 'll say was a Power given him by Parliament But that is not so plain neither both from the Preamble and the purport of both the dissonant Acts of 28 and 35. for the designs of both were only for the settling the Succession and then upon supposition of the failure of Issue from those upon whom it was setled they fairly leave it to his last Will or his Letters Pattents but supposing this Liberty had not been allow'd can he imagin that a King that had got them to alter the succession at his pleasure in his Life time would not upon the failure of the Limited Heirs have dispos'd of it by Will at his death but that none but this Edward of our Kings took this power upon him is utterly false from these several instances First the very first King of his name in the Saxon succession left it so to his Son to succeed And Athelstan Malmsbury Lib. 2. c. 6. fol. 27. Jussu patris in Testamento Athelstonus in Regen acclamatâ—â— est whom above this Gentleman recommended to the City of London for a Mon. and Illegitimate against the sense and silence of all Historians was declar'd King by the Command and last Will of his Father Edward the elder in the Reign of the Danes Canutus did the same bequeath'd Norway to Swain his eldest and England to his youngest Son and for the Norman Succession the very first King and who had the most right to do so from the Sword left to Rufus the right but of an Heir Testamentary tho followed by his Son Henry the first And Richard that had less reason so to do for his Daughter Maud by the Law of the Land would have been his Heir without the Legacy and so would to the latter his Nephew Arthur and tho both were by Rebellion rejected yet still sure their right remain'd But for this Edward the 6th disposing it by Will it was not only against the Customary Discent of the Realm in a right blood but of an Express Entail in several Acts of Parliaments I am so far of this Authors opinion that I believe it was no way warrantable but never the sooner for his Parliaments settlement had it not been at last upon the right Heirs for tho those Princes of ours heretofore took upon them to leave Successors by Will they still nominated those that by Blood were to succeed without such a Nomination so that the bequest was more matter of Form then Adoption only to let the Subjects know whom they look't upon to have the right of Succession rather than to superadd any thing of more right and that 's the reason or ought to be that we properly call the next in Blood the Kings Successor but the Crowns Heir 'T is a little prodigious Paradox to me that it must be such a receiv'd Maxim that a Parliament can do no wrong and that in plain Terms they tell us it can do any thing mollifying it only with an Exception that they can't make a Man a Woman yet that they bid pretty fair for too in these Presidents of Harry the 8th when they made Bastard Females of those that were Legitimate and then Legitimis'd again the same Bastards and 't is as mighty a Miracle to men unprejudic'd that our Parliament Patriots
Secondly I 'll shew that this their confounded principle of perfect Confusion is not only against the Fundamental Law of the Land but against the sense of every Law that ever was made in it Every preamble of an Act and that of every Proviso there runs with A Be it Enacted by the Kings most Excellent Majesty It is no Stat. if the King assent not 12. H. 7. 20. H. 8. by and with the CONSENT of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in the present Parliament Assembled And then let any sober person Judge where lies the Soveraignty would it be suffer'd to be thus exprest were they not satisfy'd they were not all Soveraigns or if they were ought it not according to this Rebel and Republican run We the King Lords and Commons Enact but I 'll let him know how and what the Libertine would again have that Enacting part of an Act of Parliament to be tho the Politick Knave fear'd it was too soon yet to declare plainly for an Usurpation viz. Be it Enacted and ordained An Act. March 1657. Vid. Act of Oblivion 51 by his Highness the Lord Protector Or the Parliament of England having had good Experience of the Affection of the people to this present Government by their ready Assistance in the defence there of against Charles Stewart Son of the Late Tyrant and his Forces invading this Nation do Enact c. That our Kings in the time of the Saxons Danes and some part of the Normans had more absolute Power over their Subjects than some of their Successors since himself can't deny the Charter of Liberties being made but in the Reign of Henry the Third and when the People had less of Priviledges the Kings must be supposed to have had more of Praerogative therefore we shall examine only what and where the Supremacy is at present and where the Laws of the Land not the Will of the Prince do place it In the Parliament that was held at York in Edward the Seconds time The Rebellious Barons that 15. Ed. 2. had violently extorted what Concessions they pleas'd from the Crown in His like those in the three foregoing Reigns when they seal'd almost each Confirmation of their Charter in Blood were all censured and condemn'd and the encroaching Ordinances they made in those Times all repeal'd Because says the Statute The Kings Royal Power Great Stat. Roll. 26. H. 3. to Ed. 3. 1. Ric. 3. Exact Abridg fol. 112. was restrain'd against the Greatness of his Seigniory Royal contrary to the State of the Crown and that by Subjects Provisions over the Power Royal of the Ancestors of our Lord the King Troubles and Wars came upon the Realm I look upon this as an absolute Acknowledgment of a Royal Power which is sure the same with his Soveraign sufficiently distinguisht here from the Parliaments or the Peoples co-ordinate Supremacy for those condemn'd Ordinances were lookt upon as Usurpations upon the Kings Supremacy which they call the Power Royal of his Ancestors and not as our Author would have too of the Sovereign power of Lords and Commons At the Convention of the three Estates first of Richard the Third where 1. R. 3. the Parliament call themselves so themselves expound also what is meant by it And say it is the Lords Spiritual Temporal and Commons of this Land assembled in present Parliament so that we have here the whole three States besides the King owning themselves such without assuming to themselves a Soveraign power recognizing the Right of Richard and acknowledging him the Sovereign And tho I shall for ever condemn as well as all Ages will their allowing his Usurpation a Right which was an absolute wrong yet this is an undeniable Argument that then they did not make their King Co-ordinate with themselves made themselves declared themselves three States without him and acknowledged their King the Sovereign and Supream That Act that punisht appeals to Rome with a premunire in Henry the Eighâ—h's time gives this Reason why 24. H. 8. none should be made to the Pope nor out of the Kingdom because the King alone was only the supream head in it It tells us expressly That England is an Empire that the King the Supream Head has the Dignity and Royal Estate of the Emperial Crown unto whom a body Politick divided into Terms and Names of Spirituality and Temporality been bounden owe next to God humble Obedience c. Who has furnisht him with Plenary Entire Power Preheminence Authority Prerogative and Jurisdiction Here his Body Politick is devided into Spiritual and Temporal here he is called the supreme Head and here I think is a full Recognition of his sole Sovereignty And 't is strange that what a Parliament did in Opposition to Popery should be so zealously contradicted by such Sycophants that pretend so much to oppose it In the next place he tells us of an error he lay under that he thought our Commonalty had not formally assembled in Parliament before Henry the Thirds time but of that now is fully Page 103. convinc'd by the Labours of some learned Lawyers whom he names and lets them know too how much they are obliged to him for the Honor But I suppose he reads but one sort of Books and that such as suit with his Humor and Sedition and of that Nature he can meet with Variety for I dare avow that within the space of six years all that ever was or can be said against the best of Governnent our own all that was or ever will be rak't up for justifying a Rebellion and restoring a Republick from falsifyed Roll and Record from perverted History and Matter of Fact by Pens virulent and Factious with all the Art and Industry and whatever thought could invent for its Ruine and Destruction has been Printed and Publisht such an Universal Conspiration of Men of several Faculties each assisting with what was his Excellency his Talent in Treason which seemed to be the Task-Master of the Town and Monopolizer of Trades But our Politician might return to his old Opinion again did he but consult other Authors I believe as learned Antiquarians I am sure more Loyal Subjects who can shew him that the Saxons Councils call'd the Witena Gemotes had in them no Commons That the Conqueror call'd none of them to his great Councils none in those of his two Sons that succeeded nor none in any of the Parliaments down to Henry the Third my Lord Coke tells us of the Coke first Institutes Lib. 2d C. 10. T. Burgage Names this Parliament had before the Conquest as Sinoth Michel or Witena Gemote which he says implyed the Great Court or Meeting of the King and all his Wise Men And also sometimes of the King with his Council of his Bishops Nobles and the Wisest of the People and unless from the wisest of the People and all his Wise Men they can make up an House of Commons I am sure
from this Authority they can have no proof and from Wise Men can be gathered nothing but such as were Noble or chief of the Realm for the meaner sort and that which we now call the Commonality were then far enough from having any great share of Learning or common Understanding and then besides these Wisest of the People were only such whom the King should think Wise and admit to his Council far from being sent by their Borroughs as elected Senators King Alfred had his Parliament and a great one was held by King Athelstan at Grately ' which only tells us there were Assembled some Bishops Noble-Men and the Wise-Men whom the King called which implies no more then those he had a mind should come But the Antiquity of a Parliament or that of an House of Commons is not so much the thing these Factious Roll and Record Mongers contend for 't is its Superiority Supremacy and there endeavours to make them antient is but in order to the making their Power Exorbitant and not to be controul'd by that of their King whom in the next place this Re-publican can scarce allow the power of calling them at his Pleasure and dissolving them when he pleases But so great is the Power of Truth and the Goodness of the Cause he Opposes that he is forc't to contradict himself to defend his Paradoxes For he tells us the King is obliged with an hear-say Law which his learned in the Faculty and Faction can't find out yet Page 111. to call Parliaments as often as need should be that is they think fit And also not to dissolve them till all their Petitions were answered that is till they are willing to be gone But then will I defie the Gentleman to shew me the difference between this their desired Parliament and a Perpetual sitting do not these industrious Endeavours for such a perpetuity of them plainly tell us 't is that 's the only thing they want and that they are taught experimentally that that alone run the three Kingdoms into absolute Rebellion and ruined the best of Kings and can as certainly compass the Destruction of the present But I 'll tell the lump of Contradiction first the words of our greatest Lawyer and then his own Cooke says none 4. Insti 27. 2. 1. Inst Sect. 164. can begin continue or dissolve a Parliament but by the Kings Authority Himself says that which is undoubtedly the Plato Red. page 105. Kings Right is to call and dissolve Parliaments 'T is impertinent to labour to contradict that which he here so plainly confutes himself the Statesman being so big with his Treasonable Notions so full of his Faction that his Memory fails him makes him forget his own Maxims and makes his subsequent Pages wrangle with the Concessions of those that went before His next Observation is a perfect Comment upon his Text that had in it implicit Treason before he tells us in Justification of the Barons Wars which all our Historians represent as a perfect Page 107. Rebellion That the Peers were fain to use their Power and can he tell me by what Law Subjects are impowred to Rebel He calls it arming of their Vassals for the defence of the Government That Bill by which they would have associated of late that I confess had it past into Act would have made Rebellion Statutable And they themselves must indeed have had the Sovereign power when they had gotten their Sovereign to suffer himself to be sworn out of his Supremacy they might well have armed their Vassals then when they had got his Majesties leave to commence Rebels and Traytors for the Protection of his Person and the Preservation of his Crown and Dignity But these humble Boons were no more than that Bill must have begged and these kind Concessions no more than was expected from the Grant of a King so Gracious a Petition that might well have been answered like that of Bathsheba's by bidding them ask the Kingdom also The Barons standing in open defiance Ibid. page 108. to the Laws tho they stood up too so much for them He calls the Peers keeping their Greatness and this is the Sovereign Power the Rebel would have them again set up for to be great in their Arms as well as Quality and demand with the Sword again the Prerogative of their Kings and the grant of the Regalia which in their preposterous Appellations was abused with the pretence of priviledge and right and which the force of the Field can soon make of the greatest Usurpation and wrong But in the very next Page 't is 109. expounded clearly what has may and must be done in such Conjunctions that is to your Arms. He tells us after they had obtained the framing of their Charters and I think they were as much as the most condescending Monarchs could grant or the most mutinous malecontents require Then arose another grievance unseen and unprovided for This was the Intermission of Parliaments which could not be called but by the Prince and he not doing it they ceast for some years to be Assembled if this had not been speedily remedied The provoking Rebel for certainly he is as much so that Animates a Rebellion as he that is actually engaged in it and is by Law so declared tells us the Barons must have put on their Armour again and 25. Ed. 3. Plat. pag. 109. the brisk Assertors of their Rights not have acquiesc'd in this Omission that ruined the Foundations of the Government After all the kind Concessions of the Prince the putting him upon that which was the taking away of the very remains of Royalty puts me in mind of one of our late Expressions of a popular Representative that could declare in open Assembly as attested by some of the very Members of it that tho this their Bill of Exclusion were past which was more we see than the most mildest Monarch could grant or even our House of Peers sure the better part of our Nation could in Modesty require yet still there was more work to be done and a Reformation to be made in the Church as well as the State The Patriot was prepared to lanch out in such kind of Extravagancies and told the truth of the Plot before his time had not calmer Heads interposed and cool'd his hot one into common Sense Several of the Speeches spoken in Parliament for which its Publisher deserves to be Pillor'd if not Authentick and True and brought before them on his Knees at least for his Presumption if they are it being here as Criminal to Print Truths at all times without an Imprimatur as 't is to tell it without leave even in several of those Speeches Publisht in that Paper I reflected on in the beginning where the Pedantick Author has exposed me in the Tail of his History that lookt like the Narrative of a Rump History of the Association Printed by Janeway there are as bold Expressions of
how vainly he presumes upon his parts and Invention that he is a double Plagiary not only borrow'd this pernicious project against the present Privy Council from these proposals of our Seditious Senate in England but his very Quarantia of Venice was set up long before he could for an Author by those Zealots that were so resolutely resolv'd to Rebel in Scotland and he shall see those Daemagogues too those Devils of Sedition look't upon it even then as a praeparatory project and the best Expedient for their Invading of the Kingdom and the Crown Their Edenburgh their Metroprolis as well as ours here was then the Seat of Sedition Anno 1638. so truly great that it's Faction and Villany was Commensurate even with it's very Walls And those too when Casually fallen were not suffer'd to be built as if they would have let the World known by praediction their Ominous Treason was to extend further 't was here that the Sycophants at the same time they pretended so much for their Kings preservation that they protested against the pious Prince's Proclamation only for the dispersing of that dangerous Rabble that seem'd to denounce with an Omen what too fatally follow'd his Death and Destruction his Majesties sincerity to them and their Religion was repeated in it often with assurances but what was as Sincerely promis'd from a King by these Monsters of the People was as Rebelliously Ridicul'd with scorn and derision and that the Government might be satisfy'd with a sure report of their Sedition they made those Heralds that Vid. Sir Will. Dugdale's short view 45. p. 48 49 50. proclaim'd their Princes pleasure to witness how much it displeas'd his Rebel Subjects and in defiance to their very Faces read their own Protestation Big thus with Rebellion and Labouring with their teeming Treason at last they are fairly deliver'd of the same Rebel Brat this Republican would adop't for his own a QVARANTIA they Covenant and agree and 't was time to Vnite for a Justification of those Villanies which nought but a Combination could defend for erecting four principal Tables and 't was time too to set up their own Councils when they had so Seditiously resisted their Kings To pursue the Contempt of this Proclamation which by his Majesties Council and Command was publish't for a further Violation of the Regal Authority they set up this truly Popular the first of their four Councels to consist of their Nobility the second of the Gentry the third of their Burgesses and the fourth of their Ministry and the Decrees of these their principal and general Tables as they call'd them as if as Universally to be receiv'd as Moses his Two of Stone what they did and was approv'd of by the Baker 406. General one the Choice Flow'r of all the Four was to be forc't as the Peoples Law but far I am sure from the Fundamental one of the Land from this their Rebellious assuming of the Soveraignty in their pretended Councils as they call'd them too but in truth a Convention of Conspirators proceeded presently the Renewing of their Negative Confession their Band their Covenant impos'd on all sorts of People with artifice force and Blood it self And can a Test now establish't by Authority and Law be look't upon an Imposition even by those that impos'd Oaths Vnlawful and Rebel'd against both it being by them expressly declar'd in two several Acts that all Leagues of Subjects amongst 10. Jac. 6. Act 12. Parl. 9. Regn. Mariae Act 75. themselves without their Princes Privity to be Sedition and their Authors and Abetters to be punish't as movers of such And what did this Venetian Government terminate in in Scotland but a plain Confederacy to confound all and tho the Civil and Courteous contriver of our Ruin and Subversion minces the matter with making his Majesty to Exercise his four Magnalia with the consent of these four Councils 't would puzzle his Politicks to tell me the distinction between them and those principal Tables of the Scot what should confine them from Confederating against their King instead of Consulting for him Plato p. 240. what would signifie his Majesties having a president among those of his own placeing when every one of them would be their own Masters and out of his power to displace what should hinder those from protesting with their old Rebellious Assembly in Scotland against all their Kings desires intentions and Inclinations for the publick good while they presume their own Maxims the wisest and their measures the best and to tell us that these are to give Account and to be answerable to such a Parliament who chuses them is to say a Sidney is the best Judge of the Misdemeanor of a Nevil most qualifi'd to answer his Quaere whether this project be not a better Expedient than the Justitia of Arrogan or the Spartan Ephori or to Plato 242. tell us one that has suffer'd for Treason to a Monarchy is the fittest to Try him that would betray it to a Common-wealth The second Proposition in the Parallel is that Affairs of State be managed by the Parliament or by such Councils as they shall appoint The true Spirit the Life the Soul of Sedition that informes and animates the whole Body of the Faction speakes here the Dictates of this Daemon this Devil of a Republick that has possest the Nation for this five years with greater Phrensy then e're he did before the Restoration when by the very Finger of God he was first cast out and would now return too with more worse than himself only because he finds it swept and garnisht For I desie the most diligent Perusers of the most pernicious Libels that were Printed in 1642. the most Pestilent time when Treason was Epidemick and spread as the Plague it self more than once did and that in their Mighty Babylon their Metropolis too I challenge even those to shew me so much Penn'd even then to persuade the setting up a Republick as has so lately been Published in this very piece His Majesty upon the presenting these Vid. Kings Answer to the 19. propositions their Proposals I have parralleld told them they designed him for a Duke of Venice and that they only dared to do when they had bid him defyance to his Face and made him fly for refuge to his Friends when they had a fund for Rebellion in the City A General and an Army in the Field but here we have a single Republican declaring expressly for the good Government of the Venetian Arraigning of our Monarchy condemning of our Courts reforming of our Councils only to set up their Republick for the framing their Decemviral the constituting their Quarantia the making every Member of Parliament but a Noble Man of Venice Rex est principium caput Finis Parl. Vid. Modus tenend Parl. 4. Inst fol. 3. and his Mighty Prince that presides in it by Law as a Principal Head but
for five hundred years before the Conquest and for above two hundred after Bishops and Abbots made up the best part of those petty Parliaments and that so long before these Contenders for their excludeing them their suffrages ever sate in that Assembly as part of the Senate And that antient piece that tells us of the ‖ Modus tenend Parl. manner of holding Parliaments tells us too that such Ecclesiasticks were always summoned Seditious Souls let those that are to take Care of them too have the same Subjects Liberty you so much Labour for Let Bishops be allowed their Birth-Right as well as your Lay-Lord-ships too your †Vid. Magna Charta the 1st thing in the first Chap. Articuli cleri Vid. Cook Com. on both 2. Inst Magna Charta was made for the Loyal Bishops as well as the Rebellious Barons and that expressly declares the Church shall enjoy all her Rights inviolate and tells us as plainly one of them was to sit in Parliament your selves know a discontented * Stratford Arch-bishop Ed. 3. Canterbury and I hope you 'll side with him because he was so claim'd for four hundred years agon his Privilege of Peerage in Opposition to His Prince petitioned for his Right and protested against the wrong for fifteen hundred years for so long our Monarchs can be Chronicl'd can in every Reign the Clergies being concerned in Parliament be proved upon Record and may they with the Monarchy last that with its Christianity commenc'd They seemed always to sympathize in their very sufferings never to cease but by consent and Bishops were never excluded from their Votes but when their King himself had never a voice The Sixth pernicious Principle they propose is for Marriages Alliances Treatises for War and Peace to be put in the power of the two Houses And shall the meanest Subjects be Mightier than their Soveraign Not allow'd the Marrying his Issue when where and to whom he pleases That the Parliament has presumed to intermeddle with this undoubted Prerogative of the Soveraign since the Birth-Right of the poorest Subject can no more be denyed then that the two Houses have also actually Rebell'd too but they never pretended to make Matches for their Monarch but when they were as ready to make War too There was somewhat of that Mutinous Ferment got among the Members in the latter end of King * James's his Reign who tho they mightily 19. Jacob. 1621. soothed their Soveraign with some Inconsiderable subsidies for the recovery of the Palatinate so small that notwithstanding the Preparation for War the poor Prince was forc'd to pursue Peace and to tell the Men at Westminster so much too that he intended to compass the Palatinate with an Allyance with Spain which he was not like to obtain from the smallness of their Subsidy and Aid But tho the Commons did not care much for the maintaining the War they were as much startled with this seeming tendance to Peace they knew their Prince poor and therefore thought that the time to show the Subject bold and so began the Puritan Party to represent in a Remonstrance Popery Power Prerogative and their Averseness forsooth to the Spanish-Match The pious Prince tho none of the boldest to resist an invading People yet took the Courage to tell them they took too much upon themselves very warmly forbad them farther to meddle with his Government ‖ Dudgdale's short View 21. and deep Affairs of State and particularly with the Match of his Son with the Daughter of Spain And this account they 'll surely Credit since it comes from an * Rusworth Col. p. 40. Author a partial and popular Advocate for this power of Parliament And did not the Commons intermeddling with an other Spanish Match of Queen Mary's send their Memberships into the Country to mind their own Business and were presently Dissolv'd for meddling so much with their Soveraign's And this I hope will be as †Burnet's Abridgm 236. Authentick since it comes from an Author that has had the Thanks of the House But this Disposal of the Kings of his own Children and the Marrying them to what Princes he pleases has such an absolute Relation to the making Leagues and Allyances that the Laws which have declared the latter to be solely in the Soveraign are as Declaratory that the other is so too and this power of the Prince of making War and Peace Leagues and Allyances is so settled in him by the Laws of the Land that till they are subverted it can never be taken out In Henry the Fifth's Time a Prince under whose Courage and Conduct the Nation I think was as Flourishing at Home as it was formidable Abroad A Prince that kept a good Sway over his Subjects and wanted nothing to the making him a good Monarch but a better Title though his Expensive War in France cost his People a great deal of Money as well as Blood yet they were far from being animated into an Invading this part of Prerogative but declared as appears by the Law of his Time that to their King belonged only to make Leagues with Foreign Princes and so fully does this Fundamental Law of the Land place this power in the Prince that it absolutely excludes all the Pretences of the People for it tells us ‖ 2. H. 5. c. 6. expressly that if all the Subjects of England should break ‖ 22. Edw. 4. Fitz. Jurisd a League made with a Foreign Prince if without the King's Consent it shall still hold and not be broken And must the Laws of our own as well as those of all Nations be subverted for the setting up a Supremacy of the People which both declare is absolutely in the King The Seventh Proposal about the Militia is the most Impudent because it has been the most confuted of any by Reason and baffled above all parts of the Prerogative Establisht by Law History tells us ever since Chronicle can Compute and that is for almost Fifteen Hundred Years that the Power of the Sword was ever in him that sway'd the Scepter and Statute tells us even the very First * Magna Charta that was ever reckoned among Acts of Parliament That if the King lead or send his Subject to do him Service in his Wars that he shall be freed from such other Services as Castle-guard and the like so that you see that extorted Instrument the result of a REBELLION reserved this piece of Prerogative of the Soveraigns Sole Right That the Members of the two Houses should have the Management of the Militia was undertaken to be proved too by that Plague of the Press Pryn himself who proceeds upon his own false Principle and Premises which he beggs and then may well draw from them a Conclusion of an absolute Lye for he takes it for granted that by the Kingdoms Suffrages they made their King and then he could not as he says have this * Pryn's Parliam
they seemed to be ashamed of that very Bastard Honor of which they were brought to Bed and could not tell how to Christen the base Bantling they had begot till at last some simpering Gossips stept up and Named it an other House i. e. an House without a Name Distracted Dolts the Compounds of Madness and Folly did you for this destroy your Kings Nobility created by Law to dignifie the meanest Men the Vilest Villains against the †17. Ed. 4. an Act for degrading Nevil Marquess Montague Because not sufficient for the maintaining the Dignity adding that Men of mean Birth preferred to Honor promote all manner of Injustice Statutes of the Land did not you confess that of the Kings Lords to be a Lawful Government and the best by recalling it tho compounded of Wretches the very worst poor Prodigals whose Repentance only rendered you more Miserable and reverst the Fate of him that fed on Husks who returned to Herd with Swine Have we not had heretofore Peers by particular †Act degraded for being a disgrace to their Peerage Lords whom the Kings Law made Honorable only their Lands could not maintain their Lordships Honors and that tho Blood and Descent had entitled them to it whereas many of these their Parliament Peers had neither Law Land Blood or Money to make them so Did not the Parliament that very Parliament that Abolisht afterward our English Peers Petition the ‖ 2. Car. 1. King against Scots and Irish Titles and told him to this purpose that it was Novelty without president that persons should possess Honor where they possess nothing else and have a Vote for the making Laws where they have not a Foot of Land had their own Objection been afterward applyed to some of their own Country and that pitiful Peerage of their own chusing they must have Blusht upon the Reflection of their own Thoughts when they remember'd with what they upbraided their King The possessions of their Noble Peers being Just none at all or what was worse than nothing the purchase of their Villanies It is recorded I remember in the Conqueror's Time that Hugh Lupus Earl of Chester upon special Favor of his Prince being the Son of his own Mother by a Second Husband Arlott having Marryed Harlowin a Noble-Man of Normandy that his Earldom was granted him by William the First with as ample Jurisdiction as himself held the Crown A power I think beyond any of our present Palatinates upon which he presumed to make three or four Barons but Historians observe it was such an Honorable Concession as never any Subject before or since enjoyed and how they can presume to pretend to it now I cannot Apprehend It was alway a particular piece of Providence amongst all Nations not to render that pitiful and Contemptible to the People which they resolved should be Reverenced and Esteemed and unless we can imagine our Idolaters of the Peoples Peers would like some Infidels adore their Wooden Deities only for beeing Ugly and Deform'd or like the Israelites Worship Calves of their own Rearing I am sure that empty Title with which their Honors of that other House were only full could draw no other Reverence and Respect than that Ass in the Apologue from an Image that it carried This I remember was the result of the Petition of the Portugals to Philip the Second of Spain and he I think obtained that Kingdom too as our Republicans did once and would again ours with the Subversion of its Laws and the Force of Arms it was their request that he would not make their Nobility of which they are not a little proud pitiful and contemptible by preferring such to that Degree whose Quality could not deserve it what Peers we had when pickt by the Council of State What Lords when cullyed out by the Commons let those remember who are so ready to forget it Seditious Sots have not the Laws of all Nations as well as our own provided that this power be the peculiar prerogative of the Prince and must these Politicks would Be 's be wiser now than the wide World Do not the Digests declare those Civil Sanctions whose Authority obtain with all Civiliz'd Subjects i. e. with almost all besides our own and whose Reason can't be refuted by the best of the Rebellious Republicans that so little regard those that their so much admired Legislators their Solon or Licurgus never saw the like Laws that must be allowed the most Rational by being so generally received those †Postquam ad Curam Principis Magistratuum creatio pertinere cepit c. D. 48. 141. Ordinis vero cujusque arbitrium primo Penes Imperatorem Zouch de jure milit nobilitat pars 2. Sect. 2. tell us and the World that the conferring of Dignities depends upon the Sole care of the Soveraign that the Subjects ought not to dispute it and such a Religious Observance of this settled Soveraignty do those sacred Sanctions recommend that they Censure it for a Crime as great as †Sacrilegii instar sit dubitare An is Dignus sit quem Princeps elegit C. 19. 20. 3. Sacrilege it self to suspect his insufficiency whom the Prince should prefer some of those Laws were the Constitutions of Heathens as well as other of those that afterward learnt Christ and had not the Doctrine of his Disciples declared Kings even an Ordinance of God the pious Pagans always esteemed their Princes Sacred and such a source of Honor was in their Soveraign Emperors that even against their very Laws they could allow them to continue those Noble whom the Marriage with a Plebeian had degraded from their Nobility as Antonius Augustus did for his Neece Julia. 'T is Nonsense I confess to talk of the Laws of all Nations to those that cannot obey their own or the Decrees of Emperors for the Preservation of their Majesty to those that will break Statutes to Libel their King yet still it serves to shew that even in this very point the Laws so long before ours †Vid. Coke Calv. Case fol. 15. Coke 7. fol. 33. None but Peers of the Realm to sit In House of Peers no Peer to be made but by the King allowed this power to be the peculiar prerogative of the Prince and tho we are bound only to submit to the Singular Laws and Customs of our little Land yet still if in our Senses we must be Subject to such Laws as are founded upon an Universal Reason and for these Republicks that have revolted from that Regal Government from whence they must derive their Honors we find the best of their Nobility to be but Burghers And the very Nobleman of Venice this Courteous Author so much Caresses and Admires one that must make himself so and at best but equivalent if such great things according to the Latin Aphorism may be compared with small to a Gentleman of England who wears only a shorter Coat while the other a longer Gown 'T
ensued a discovered Assassination of their Soveraign and was there no danger of a Parliament no sign of a Protestant Plot Only because the King did not leave Whitehall and go down to Hampton Court because there was no Essex in the Field as well as the Plot no King secured at Oxford as well as in the Isle of Wight that there was no High-Court erected at Westminster but only a better expedient found out at the Rye If these are Arguments to render an House of Commons unsuspected and a Plot of the Protestants unimaginable if because here are perfect Parallels of Proceedings as even as if drawn with a Compass Mathematical and which according to their proper Definition I could draw to infinity yet still there must be presumed a great Disparity between the Subversion of the Government that was actually compast and the Destruction of it now that was so lately intended If there be the least Difference between what led to the last setting up an Usurper an Arch-Rebel in the Throne and these late Machinations of Hell to retrieve the same Usurpation bating but the Providence that interposed against its Accomplishment Then will I own what this Villanous Author will have taken for granted That those that have the least Suspicion of any sort of Parliaments are the greatest Villains that a Plot of Protestants proved by Confession is still a Paradox and that my self deserve what he has merited a PILLORY The Pages that he spends in declaiming against trifling Wit supersedes all answer and Animadversion which himself has prevented in being Impertinently Witty upon the very thing he condemns The stress of his Ingenuity is even strained in the very declaiming against it And Settle has not so much answer'd Himself as Hunt here his own Harangue That Gentleman sate down a while for his second Thoughts but this preposterous Prigg sets himself in his own glass at the same time a Contradiction to his own Writings His * pag. 39. Observations upon the perjuries as he calls them of the Popish Priests that dy'd is so severe that the absolute Argument of their Guilt is drawn from their very denial and their equivocations he suspects from those very dispensations they renounc'd to dying words certainly such an inhumanity is hard which unless he had reveal'd Assurance by Christians must be blamed I confess there is not a Criminal of our latter Conspiracy I will declare Guilty beyond his own Confession and then there is not one that dyed but whom I can well think Guilty His next †pag. 59. Observation that is worth Ours Is that upon the Legislative Power and there he makes each of the two Houses to have as much of it as the King and that I deny with better Reason than he can assert that the two Houses are concurrent in their Assents that Bills be preferr'd to be made Laws I 'll willingly grant 't is my Interest 't is my Birth-Right But that which I look upon to be truly Legislative is the Sanction of the Law and that still lies in the breast of our Sovereign If Mr. Hunt that in many places is truly Pedantick will rub up his Priscian the Grammatical Etymology will make it but Legem ferre and then I believe his House of Commons will be most Legislative 't is their Duty their Privilege rather to bring and offer up all Bills fit for Laws and the King still I hope will have his Negative in passing them the Commons pray petition to have them past and that implies a consent Superiour to be required that can absolutely refuse ‖ Vid. quel Impositions le Roy poit grant sans Parlm Roll. Abr. 171. Le Roy poit Charge le sujet lo◠per benefit del Sujet sans Parl. 1. H. 4. 14. Roll. 2d Abr. 171. Les Commons Priont was wont to be a Form Croke 2d part 37. the King can with out Parliament charge the Subject where 't is thought for their Benefit and allowed to dispence with a Statute that concerns his own resolv'd by all the Justices the King by himself might make Orders and Laws for the regulating Church Government in the Clergy and deprive them if they did not obey 22. Ed. 3. says the King makes the Laws by the Assent of the Lords and Commons and so in truth does every Act that is made and every clause in it * Bract. Lib. 1. C. 2. Bracton says the Laws of England by the Kings Authority enjoyn a thing to be done or forbid the doing These are Arguments that our King sure has somewhat more than a bare Concurrence in the Legislative If not he must be co-ordinate and then we have three Kings which is what they would have and then as well may three hundred I love my Liberty better than our Author who has forfeited his yet I remember when too much freedom made us all Slaves The Extent of the Legislative Power is great but then I hope 't is no greater than the King shall be graciously pleased to grant it shall extend And then I hope it must be allowed that Equity and Justice must always determine the Royal Sanction too which cannot of it self make all things Equal and Just should it stamp a Le Roy vult at the same time upon Acts inconsistent and contradictory upon such as were against the Law of Nature and all Reason such would be de facto void 'T is hard to be imagined such Error and Ignorance in so wise an Assembly but what has but bare possibility in Argument must still be supposed but that it has actually been done will I prove possitively and not with some of their illogical Inferrences suggest that a thing must be so only from a bare possibility of Being Be it therefore enacted by the Kings most excellent Majesty and by the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament Assembled 't was then first those that were by special Act since declared Traytors made their King * Lords Spiritual Lords Temporal and Com. the three Estates Cook 4. Inst of Par. the very first Leaf and Line and won't they believe their own Oracle co-ordinate assumed to themselves so much of the Legislative that they left out the Fundamental form by and with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons that the said Earl of ‖ Strafford's Bill of Attainder Strafford be adjudged and attainted of high Treason provided that no Judge or Judges shall adjudge or interpret any Act or thing to be Treason then as he or they should or ought to have done before the making of this Act as if this Act had never been made This piece of Paradox the Contradiction to Common Law Common Sense and Reason had all the Consents all the Concurrences that could if possible have made it truly Law and even his unhappy Majesties forc'd extorted Complyance But will any Creature that is barely distinguish'd from a Brute that can only offer at the mere privilege of his
being Rational debase his very Nature so much as to call it Justice Would they ascribe an Omnipotency to this their power of Parliaments beyond that of the Almighty and blasphemously allow to this their Created God what the Schools would not the Divinity it self to reconcile Contradiction but still these Statute Mongers that can make any Miscellanies of Parliament for their turn this they will defend to be Legal only because it was past into a Law Let it be so but still there must be much difference between this their Legality which now in their Sense can be nothing but the power of making Laws and common Justice which must be the Reason for which they are made and what is contrary to that and all Reason by the Laws of God and all Nations must be null and void otherways the most Barbarous Immoralities that an Heathen would blush at by such an indefinite Legislative would be truly Legal only because they are past into a Law Murder it self made Statutable as soon as ever those that have the power have Sign'd it for an Act. These Suggestions of Consequences are far from being extravagant because at present the Principles that lead to them are what but very lately have been Printed and Publish'd and the very Practices themselves not long since put in Execution This * Postscr p. 55. Author I am handling has made his Legislative not to be confin'd and that Plato we have pretty well examined allows his People can pass any thing for the good of the Common-wealth and then it may Polygamy too because it was practis'd in his Republick and is now tolerated amongst the Turks and what some Waggs tell us an indiscreet Member was once moving for here But that we can have hard measure for our Lives upon the pretence of a Parliamentary Power the Case of Strafford will attest and that with the pretext of a Parliament a Monarch may be murder'd The Martyrdome of our King these are too terrible Testimonies that our Legislative has been strein'd to make the greatest Injury Law and ‖ By Parl. 12. Car. 2d C. 12. That Session declar'd Traiterous Treason it self the Statute of the Land for they past an Act for the Tryal of their Soveraign and then declar'd it Legal because it was past Their God Almighty of the Law †Cook 4. Inst C. 1. p. 36 huic nec metas rerum nec tempora pono Cook himself whose Words with them is all Gospel too tho' he in his Pedantick Phraseology puts no period to this Power of Parliament yet in the very * Pag. 36. next Page condemns the self same sort of Proceeding and that was in the Case that hard Fate too of another Earl as Innocent perhaps also and as unfortunate ‖ Earl of Essex 35. H. 8. Cromwell was attainted in Henry the Eighth's time much after the same manner my Lord Strafford was in Charles the First but only if so great Injustice can be extenuated the latter was more Inhumane For tho' the First was Sentenc'd and suffer'd by Parliament without being admitted to Answer A Proceeding against our * Magna Charta C. 29. 5 Edw. 3. C. 9. 28 Edw. 3. C. 5. own Laws those of all ‖ The Manner of the Romans was to see Accusers Face to Face and Answer if you believe the Bible Acts 25. v. 16. Matt. Paris vita Reg. Johan 275. incivile videtur contra Canones in absentem ferre Sententiam Nations and of †Deuteronomy Chap. xix Verse iv The Almighty provides for the Prisoner's Defence Heaven it self against all that was Humane or Divine yet Wentworth's Measure was more hard whom they made to suffer with an Attainder after he had argued for his Life confounded his Accusers and convicted some of his own * My Lord Digby with several others Judges The same sort of Severity Sir John Mortimer met with from this Parliamentary Power upon whom they past a Judgment without so much as permitting him to be arraigned but these Barbarities of Mr. Vid. Rot. Parl. 2d H. 6. num 18. Hunt's unlimited Legislative were condemn'd even by this their learn'd Lawyer tho' he would not did not or dared not question their Authority yet damned them in his own Words * But of these says he Auferat Oblivio si potest si non ut câ—nque silentium tegat 4 Inst p. 37. Postscript p. 74. if it were possible to dark Oblivion if not to be buried in Silence but this more Dogmatical Judge with his Postscript has rather Encouraged such Injustice and Severity and represented to his Parliament a power they have of Proceeding more unwarrantably when he tells them tho the Succession of our Crown be Hereditary they can alter the whole Line and Monarchy it self by their unlimited power of their Legislative Authority But I shall also shew him that his Legislative power as it cannot justly extend to such great and impious Extravagancies yet but what we see it has been actually stretch'd to so neither can it to some other things that are less so In King Edward the Third's Time there were several Acts past that took away the power of Pardons from the Prince yet all these made void by the Common ‖ Stanford 2. 101. Law because against the Prerogative of their King And it was resolved by the Judges in King James †2. Jacob. Term. Hill Cook Lib. 7. his Reign that Himself could not grant away the power of Dispensation with the Forfeitures upon the Penal Laws because annext to his Royal Person and the Right of his Soveraignty And if what is only Derogatory from the Crown 's Right and King's Prerogative shall be actually voided by the Common Law as we see it did to the nulling three several Statutes I cannot see how this Bill of Exclusion had it past into an Act would not have been as much null and void unless it can be proved that our Hereditary Descent of the Crown is not so much the King's Prerogative that wears it as the Pardoning of a Felon or the remitting a Fine And that I believe will be difficult to be cleared by those that have spent so much Pains and Paper for its Justification and our Author himself so much Labors for so that even the Common Law it self will anticipate the Work of the Statute and perhaps his Highness need not have stayed till that of Henry the ‖ 1. Henry the Seventh Fol. 4. Que Le Roy est Person dis charge D'ascun Attainder quil prist sur luy le Reign estre Roy. Seventh had taken away his Exclusion as well as Attainder and purged away all his Defects and framed in capacities by his coming to the Crown I have but two Cases more with which I 'll conclude Mr. Hunts great point of Legislative In †5. Ed. 3. Edward the Third's Time an Act was purposely declared void that was past and the King had
trump'd up his Treatise That his Majesty 's had not an absolute Negative Voice to deny Bills of Common Right For this ‖ Plato Red. Plato tells us That His Majesty having it evacuated the very ends of Government For this Hunt Harangues and says He is so bold to say That never any Bill in Parliament Hunt p. 50. wanted the Royal Assent that was presented by the Desires of the People And I think 't is bold enough said with a Witness For is not this King left at last by the Laws of all the Land Sole Soveraign Judge what is really fit for his Peoples good to be past whereas he presumes that their bare presenting signifies the Desires of the People and that must absolutely determine the Jurisdiction of the Prince * pag. 47. He tells us when a matter is moved in Parliament by the King the Commons consent last and are therefore the Commons Co-ordinate with their King Or does that only signifie the Candid Custom of the Proceedings in Parliament The King is presumed upon his own Proposal of any matter the Party and they being consulted is only for their ‖ Consilium impensuri the Words of the Barons Writ 4. Inst p. 4. Advice as the very Words of the Writ expresly have it by which they are called and the very Etymology of their very Name the great Council expresses Controversies in such Cases will be Eternal until the Disputants agree in the same Notion of the Thing they so much dispute For otherways it is but making of Words instead of Arguments if they mean by the Legislative of the two Houses a power of Concurrence with their King in the making Laws and that their Consent is to be required they labor to prove just nothing or what they may have without so much pains and to so little purpose If they will insist upon the Natural Etymology of the very Word they will find the Derivative Legislative to be deduced as above from the Latinism Legem ferre and then in God's Name let the two Houses enjoy even of that an Arbitrary power and bring in what Bills they please so long as they will not again force upon us an Ordinance or Vote for Law and the Statute of the Land but if their Sense of this Legislative power must signifie That their Commons have as much of it as their King and That 't is that which makes their King Co-ordinate with his Commons as is sufficiently clear from their Writings that it is then I affirm 't is against Law against Reason and a Lye For the King by the very Law it self hath power to dispence with Statutes his Proclamation is a Law and an Edict and as much as any of the Decrees of the Roman Emperor's with the Advice of his Judges he will dispence with the rigor of the Laws if too severe and resolve their meaning if Ambiguous Have their two Houses whom they would have these mighty Law makers the power of repealing or so much as altering those very Laws they make without their Kings consent And tho this Laborious Lawyer observes That neither their King can pass any thing he proposes without theirs yet this his power and that when they have not so much as a Being Evinces the Prince at least supream in the Legislative The Learned in other Laws besides our own tell us a Legislative power may partly be delegated to other Persons tho Subjects and yet remain in the Prince even entirely notwithstanding such a Communication I confess the Opinion of Canonists and Civilians may not be so Authentick with some that abhor their very Names yet Grotius himself is of that Opinion and he a Person that our ‖ Plato Redivivus Republicans can cite even on their own Side but our own * Vid. Brit. Fol. 1. 4. Inst 70. Laws allow it or else I think our Judges too might make themselves Co-ordinate because their King's Commission communicates to them all the power of destributive Justice that is in the King We are told the King has committed all his power Judicial some in one Court some in another and therefore the Judgements run Consideratum est per Curiam c. and ‖ 8. H. 4. 19. 'T is resolved That if one should render himself to the King 's own Judgement it would be of none effect yet for all this it would be false to affirm That he does not do justice because he has delegated it to others to be done The King does not put in Members of Parliament as he does Judges yet Peers he makes and calls them to Sit and Commons cannot come without his Writs for Election but certain it is that our Kings once had a more absolute Legislative for they all know their Lower House commenced but so late and heretofore their Nobles and Bishops but such as the King should be pleased to call And I cannot imagine that when our Princes admitted the Commonalty to be concerned in the making Laws they then designed he should lay aside his own Legislative or put it in Common as they do their Land in Coparcenary or in their great * Coke 1st Inst Corp. Coke's the learned Lawyers Language make an Hotchpotch a Pudding of his Prerogative If every Politick Body that has but a share in this Legislative must also be presum'd to participate as much of it as the King I can prove to them every petty Corporation Co-ordinate with their great Convention of States and even a poor Parish as great Legislators as an House of Parliament for by the Laws of the Land even those can make their by-By-Laws without Custom or Prescription if they be but for the good of the * Pour Reparation del ' Eglise d'an haut voy c. 44. Edw. 3. 19. Publick and if they can but prescribe to it may pass any private Acts for their own The Civilians make their Law to be the Will and pleasure of their Prince But tho our ‖ Bracton l. 1. c. 9. Antient Lawyers would not expound that absolutely for our †Fleta l. 1 c. 17. own yet they seem to make it but little less only say it must not be meant with us of his unadvised Will but such an one as is determined upon the Deliberation and Advice of His Council Pryn that preposterous Assertor of this their Legislative has furnished them sufficiently with as contradictory Arguments as absurd as irrational Inferrences for its defence He tells us in his Treatise * Pryn's Treatise for the Peoples Legislative that Kingdoms were before Kings and then the People must needs make Laws that I confess setting aside the very Contradiction that there is in Terms For certainly the Word Kingdom was never heard of till there were Kings to Govern He might as well have told us of a Derivative that was a long time before the Primitive but bating this Solecism in Sense and Speech well meaning Will designed it perhaps for
against some Persons of that Perswasion that he acted as if he would have executed their very Religion * Vid. Burnet's Abr. hanging up some Carthusians even in their Habits and immured nine Monks in their own Monastery where they dyed This was it that so settled what they call Superstitious Worship that it survived the short liv'd Reign of the pious Edward and in Spight of all his providential care for it's exterpation run only like the Guaronne that Miracle of a River in one of their Climates of Popery if their Histories of their Country be not Legends too only through a little Province in silent darkness underground but rose again and that with greater rage in the next Region This good Kings Laws about Religion would never have been so soon repealed the Commons House never have been so forward as the * Barnet's Abridgm Cl 3. 229. Divine Doctor whom themselves have thankt for it does make them for the sending up a Bill for the punishing all such as would not return to the Sacraments after the old Service Had the Six Articles been but past by instead of being past into an Act they would have had no such Service to return to they would have been Strangers to Rome and it's Religion and tho they were repealed in Edward the Sixth's time his Fathers ratifying them made them take such root that his short Reign could never Eradicate that left so many Catholicks in the Kingdom that Commendone the Popes Legate might well come over to reconcile her Highness's Crown to his Holyness's See And here had not the Queen if such a thing could have been expected from a Sister of that Church so Zealous done much better had she refused the Bills of both Houses brought her for introducing the Pope's power and Supremacy your selves Seditious Souls reproach this Royal Assent with Reflections so scurrilous upon her Memory that the worst of Monarchs could never Merit and then only give but Loyal Ones leave to think that your Excluding Bill tho never so much the General Desires might have been as much cursed by posterity when it had entailed upon it Misery and Blood the common Consequences of a debar'd Right To come now after this Ecclesiastical point of the Church to that Civil one of the State that other thing this Lawyer Labors for the Descent of the Crown Shall the Peoples general Desires in this too terminate the Will of the Prince why then that Monster of Mankind as well as Monarchs did mighty well too to pass that Murdering * 1 Rich. 3. Bill presented by both Houses of Parliament to make good his own Title to the Crown by the Butchering of those Babes in the Tower for no less could be expected when it was once taken up by the Tyrant than their Destruction for the Maintaining it so that this Peoples Desires dispatch'd them in the Senate before ever they were strangled by Tyrril in the Tower Had it not been a much greater Honor to the Prince to have refused such a Barbarous Bill than turned Usurper and a Butcher for it's acceptance Had it not left a less Blot in our English Chronicle as well as upon the Nation less Blood ‖ 28. H. c. 7. Rast 4. Did not both Houses exhibite a Bill even for the making Elizabeth the best of their Queens a Bastard And does Mr. Hunt say this desire of the People too did mighty well to prevail as it always ought upon the King Did not that Royal Assent so blacken his Person and brought the Nations repute so low that the very Protestant Princes left him out of their League whom they had designed for its Head and look'd upon our England as a lump of Inconsistancy whom such Vnanimous Leaguers could not Trust And was it not in his Reign That a Zealous * This was the Opinion of Sir Thomas Moor too and the Brief History might have cited this too as he does another Opinion of this prevaricating Papist for his purpose Papist said It was the Parliaments Power to make a King or deprive him a fortiori then a Popish Principle to destroy or exclude his Successor But as bold as this Gentleman thinks himself when he dares to say Never any †Vid. Brief History p. 18. Burnets Abrig p. 313. King denyed to pass those Bills which the People pitcht upon to present 'T is none of his own Politick asseveration tho it be but a piece of Sedition It is no more than what a Seditious Senate ‖ Page 50. Vid. Declaration of Lords and Commons about the Kings Coronation Oath Parl. 41. told their King long agon A Senate that sate brooding on the pure Elements of Treason and of which Pryn himself was a principal Member A Senate that sowed so much Sedition in one age that all the Succeeding will hardly eradicate A Senate that sate drawing out the Scheams and Platforms of a Common-wealth A Senate that assumed to themselves indeed the Legislative the Nomothetical Disposition of the Law but they proved such a Confounded sort of Architects in the State that they drew a perfect plan a confus'd Ichonography for Rebels to build upon their Babel Those told us in plain Terms what * Hunt and Pryn. these more cautious Coxcombs insinuate with a silly Circumlocution That the King is bound by His Coronation Oath to grant them all those Bills their Parliament shall prefer And that they gather from their contradictory conclusion that bandy'd Banter they have Box'd about in both Reigns for almost these two Ages the ‖ Concedas justas legis esse tenendas c. Quas Vulgus elegerit Rot. Parl. H. 4. VVLGVS ELEGERIT I am sorry to find these Seditious Souls not only to want Sense but Grammar Lilly would have told them more of the Law and his Constrctuion and Concord made a better Resolution than their Coke upon the Case But as the People when they have got the Power will soon decide on their side the Supremacy so these Times did here assoon turn the Tenses and transfer the past Laws into the Future and 't is no wonder that those that did the Statutes of their Prince could dare to break the Head of a Priscian Is not the perfect Tense much more agreeable to Sense and Reason here than the Future The question is Whether it shall be meant of those Laws the People shall Chuse or have Chosen I won't object here Our Kings being absolute and compleat Monarchs without so much as taking such an Oath without so much as being * Coke 7. 106. 11. Calvin 's Case Watson Clarks 1. Jac. Coâ—e 7. fol. 30. Crowned which is the Time it is to be taken tho of that the Law has in several Cases satisfied the most Seditious and so resolved their silly Suggestion The resolution I shall give is the Strength of Reason and that must at least be as Strong as the Law Let it be but once allow'd That their
People that is to Rebel most Religiously Tell me Mighty Murmerer why must this Bugbear of Arbitrary this Monster of Absoluteness and * Posts p. 88. Bloody War be the Consequences of this Doctrine of Peace Is your King bound to turn Cruel only because he Rules by a Right from the very God of Mercy and a King too de facto not long since almost merciful to a Crime If you talk only in Theory of what another may be then perhaps your Fears are as Panick as the Objection is nothing to the purpose For Usurpers commonly of the People's Choice as appears even in our ‖ H. 4. R. 3. own History have always been the greatest Tyrants too who were so far from having the Jus Divinum that they had no Right at all And tho * Vid. Paper at his Execution Sidney suggests this Doctrine would attribute to any sort of Usurper the same Right I shall consider him in his proper place and this may suffice for Mr. Hunt whose larger Comment upon this Text I shall enlarge upon too when I come to that Gentleman's Papers with whom they so much agree and 't is pity but his Fate should do so too It may suffice I have here attempted his Bulwark and upon which they would build their Babel tho in the Burlesque of the best of Books as if neither the Bible had its Jus Divinum and will close with him since he is so pleased with St. Peter with a * Verse 15. Neighbouring Text not so much turned and misapplyed Mr. Hunt has done his worst and I hope we with well doing may put to silence the Ignorance of such Foolish Men. The third Doctrinal Case of this Divine Lawyer or what is drawn from the other two is the Parliament's Power upon the Succession and that he has proved he presumes beyond Answer and Reply when the two Preliminary points The Parliaments Legislative and The Peoples Divinity by his mighty Performances are made unquestionable But when he has begged the other two he may expect to have this third for asking and the first Presumption that must so proposterously warrant even that most Vnwarrantable Proceedings is the Gorgon of the Party that for this forty year has frightned the Nation The fear of Popery And like that Monstrous Head of Medusa been represented gastly full of Venom and Viper only not to charm us into Stones and Stupidity but the setting all in Combustion and a Flame Therefore he tells us if this can be but kept out which the Lord knows has been I don't know how long coming in We ought Page 50. to admit of any Law for the purpose And have we not Laws sufficient in force and that for the keeping out all the powers of the Pope tho His Pilgrims landed here with a Legion Have we not Oaths Tests two several Acts of Parliaments against Priest proselytes and Recusants Have we not the best Bulwark the Bishops and the greatest assurance the word of a King But in short the danger was then a Successor and nothing could serve less than a new Law And what was that why for Excluding an Heir to a Crown for Fifteen Hundred years Hereditary That Parliaments have presumed to alter the discent of the Crown is as true as that the same Convention of States have Rebel'd against the Crown it self And scarce one Instant of the Presidents he has giv'n us but serve to prove my purpose as well as his own that they either actually Rebel'd when they medled with the Succession or else that it was for settling it on the Right Heirs after such a Rebellion It was * Postscript p. 52. all the following Casesmost absurdly apply'd and all make against his own Cause Richard the Second 's that was a Parliament indeed that did more than meddle with the Succession when they actually deposed their Sovereign That of ‖ 7. H. 4. c. 2. Hen. 4th entails declar'd void viz. upon the Claim of Richard Duke of York Henry the Fourth so far from a Parliament that they had no King And that was told them to their faces by the Loyal Prelate of †Vid. B. Carlisles Speech H. 4. in Baker and Trussel H. 4ths Deposers Traytors within 25 Coke Treason Carlisle Henry the Sixth the Successor of one that had no Right and to whose Heir then they could never do any wrong Edward the * Vid. 1. Ed. 4. Rot. par 9. 10 11 12. Fourth was for securing the Descent in the Right Line and declaring all that of the Lancasters Rebels and that in spight of all those Entails this Lawyer lies his mighty stress upon and which even in his Fathers claim tho he never lived to enjoy the benefit of his Right The ‖ Vid. Rot. par 39. H. 6. n. 11. Parliament of the Usurper himself did with blushes and shame acknowledge That his Title could not be defeated that those Entails were only made for want of a better Title and very fairly made their Vsurper a enant for Life and that to an Excluded Duke of York and further did they force their Loyalty when his Son their Lawful Soveraign came to the Crown they tell him in the first of his Reign as appears in the * 1. Ed. 4. Rot. ut supra Roll That this Henry the Fourth upon whom Mr. Hunt triumphs that an Entail was made was an Vsurper Traytor and Murderer of his Soveraign And for his next Instance of Richard Rich. the 3d and deposers of Ed. 5. Traitors by Law within Stat. 25. Ed 3d Inst c. 1. Treason the Third would any one besides a Butcher and as Barbarous a Beast as the Precedent he brings tell us of an Entail they made upon his Heirs which was only a Settlement of Blood so much and Treason upon them and their posterity Bless me that men of Sense should be so inconsiderately besotted so Foolishly wicked sure Mr. Hunt knows that that Bloody Senate could never have boggled to settle a Crown upon the posterity of a Tyrant that they themselves had advanced to the Throne in the Blood of his Nephews They might well settle the Crown on Henry the Seventh that came to it by three several pleas Blood Arms and the Law and is the Settling it upon a Lawful Soveraign a President for Excluding another against All Law and those Entailments were but so many Recognitions Officious affirmatory Kindnesses to the Crown whereas their Exclusion must have been an Invading it His Acts of Henry the Eighth were such as all the World blusht at and any English-man may be ashamed to own Inconsistent contradictory Fruitless and illusory that made Protestants desert us that designed us for their Leaders in a League the shame of Europe and the Opprobrium of our Nation Did not his 25th on default of Male Entail the Crown on the Lady Elizabeth and made Mary Spurious Did not his 28th make the same Lady the Protestant Princess Illegitimate
on whom it was Entailed before and with his 35th reinstated them both again and that both in Birth and Tail And lastly that of Queen Mary's Entail was by a biggoted House of Commons that brought in that very Popery they now so much and so vainly fear and were like to have Entailed their Religion and Laws to the Vassalage of Rome as well as the Crown to the Heirs of Spain And is this thy Loyalty Seditious Sycophant this thy Religion to bring us presidents for Rebellion from Acts of Parliament and the Statutes of Apostates for the Establishing Popery The ‖ 13. Eliz. 13. of Elizabeth is such an one too as none but a †Hunt's Postscript page 51. Defier of Sense could have design'd for Application It is apparent that it was a Design to Secure the Crown to Her the Right Heir and that tho by an Indirect means An Act which she doubted her self whether with all her Parliament she could pass but was assured all her Subjects would like it when it was done upon a double Design to Secure her Title against the Pope and the Pretensions of the Queen of Scots * Cambd. vit Eliz. Cambden the best Account of her Life makes it a Trick of Leicester's ‖ Besides had he Consulted other Books before he writ his own by what appears by Keeble Stat. that very Act is expir'd of no Force and so he has made himself a Knave in Fact as well as Fool in Application but let them Lye for it for once and raze the Sacred Truth of History and Record which the Law makes Felony even in their own sense it was enacted for securing a Lineal Descent to those that they thought the Right Heir But theirs would have been a Disinheriting of one they knew to be so It is Prodigiously strange to me that those that contend so much for this Parliamentary Power over the Succession of the Crown that this Judge Advocate for the Parliament * Postscript p. 71 72. Hunt himself that tells us plainly 't is not establisht by any Divine Right but is governed according to the presumed Will of the People that these Sycophants do not consider they do the greatest Disservice to that Honorable Assembly put the greatest abuse upon that Ancient and truly venerable Constitution they give the Lye to several Acts of Parliament made in the best of times and make those Legislators the worst of Villains or the greatest Fools or in his own phraseology Wicked Impious Sacrilegious for have not they in several Reigns by Special Act recognized even a Divine Right as well as an Hereditary In the first of ‖ 1. Ed. 4. Rot. p. n. 9 10 c. Edward did they not declare that their Soveraigns Title to the Crown was by Gods Law and the Law of Nature Did they not even to a Tyrant a Murderer one fit only to be the Peoples Creature whom no Nature or God did design for the Throne Did they not resolve his Right to be both by God and Nature ‖ Exact Abridg. fol. 713. Rot. R. 3. Tell me was it thought so Divine so natural so Sacred THEN even in the worst of Men and must it be impious Sacriligious in the best of Princes Did not their best of * 1. Elz. c. 3. Queens receive her Crown with a Recognition of it's Descent to be by the Laws of God And lastly look upon that of King †1. Jac. c. 1. James where with unspeakable Joy they acknowledge he Reign'd by the Laws of God And as * Posts p. 87. new as he calls the Doctrine for five hundred year agon both by Divines and Lawyers it was allowed of and maintained ‖ Gervasius Doroberbensis Coll. 133. 30. Gervase the Monk tells us it is manifest the Kings of England are obliged to none but GOD and †Bracton l. 4. c. 24. Sect. 5. Bracton that lived and wrote in the same Reign of Henry tells us their King was then only under God and will neither Law nor Gospel History Ancient and Modern Rolls Acts and Acknowledgements of Parliaments themselves satisfy them that they have nothing to do with the * Dr. Burnet tells us H. 8. declared upon a dispute about Ecclesiastical Immunity very warmly that by the Ordinance of God he was King Hist Reform l. 1. pt 1. fol. 17. Either the Dr. lyes or Harry the 8th or this Doctrine is not so new but 200. year old SUCCESSION Never could any Person that had not Proclaimed open War with Reason and broke all Truce with Sense suggest as he does that the difference between the Descent of the Crown and that of a Private Estate are Reasons for altering the Succession which is one of the best Arguments for it's being Vnalterable Does not the Law provide that but one Daughter shall succeed to the Crown and that for the Preservation of the Monarchy which must be but of one and no Co-partners of a Kingdom And so also the Son of a Second Venter to prevent the want of Succession shall be admitted to the Throne when he shall be Excluded an Estate His fancy of the Royal Families being Extinct and that then the Majesty of the People commences was long since the pretty conceit of Will. Pryn too In which they tell us as Pryn's Parl. right c. I 've told them before just as much as an old Aphorism When the Sky falls and spoil another good Proverb that No man dyes without an Heir But suppose what can be may be Would not all this mighty Constitution of Parliament be gone too when there was no Successor of a King to Summon it His * Postscr pag. 73. Majesty of the People might set up another Policy of Government they think if it pleased But would not their Majesty of the People find it more agreeable to Divine Institution to agree upon the same Government in another person in an Extremity for would it not be more agreable even to their own Interest to prefer that under which they had enjoyed so long such an Experienced Happiness since the Almighty does not Reveal himself as he did of old to Moses and the Prophets and bid them arise and Anoint him a King over his Israel But as Mr. Hunt's private Estates tho I know not with what equity a mere Fiction in Law robs a man of so much Realty are frequently recovered with fine at Common Law against the Right Heirs he won't pretend therefore sure a Parliament shall a Kingdom and a Crown against a Royal Successor His own Reason for it is the best Refutation for I say too the Crown is ‖ Postscr l. p. 72. Governed by other Rules than a private Estate and the Romans who were Governed by those Civil Sanctions that have since the whole World tho by those they had a Dominion over their Issues Heirs and Estates yet those will not grant even to Kings the power of Disenheriting their own
Heaven because he had his Clergy allowed here upon Earth can he Prescribe with the Laws of the Land to impunity from the Decalogue and tell the Almighty some Killing is mâ— Murder Here his God his Saviour is invoked in a Solemn and Sacred Oath upon the Gospel and one that should be a Divine Expositor of both consults upon it the Readings of Mr. Hunt and a Resolution of the Common Law here he Swears to the Vid. Form of Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy plain meaning of the Words without any Mental Reservation whatsoever and yet thâ—â— Mungrel in Divinity means now to taken in his mind according to a ereiv'd Maxim in the Law And this Libeller of the Primitive Christians looks like an Apostate that was as Primitive who kept pointing to the papers he put upon his Breast while he was Swearing to others that he held in his hand But yet I dare Appeal even to his own Breast who without doubt had often taken these Oaths being graduated in an University and Ordain'd a Divine tho unworthy of both whether the Words Heirs and Successors were not understood by himself of such as were to Succeed by an Hereditary Right by Birth and Blood to the Crown and whether that he did then Reserve to himself only such as did Actually succeed by Consent of Parliament and whether he did not think that by them he was not only obliged to obey those Heirs when they came to the Crown but also to do all that in him lay to promote in the due time their coming to wear it certainly to confine their Sense only to those that shall de facto succeed is but Swearing an Implyed Allegiance to any Rebel or Vsurper and the word Lawful that still accompanys Successors will not mend the Matter with such men for all is presently Legal and just with them that has but the shadow of a Parliamentary power for it's pretence And I am well assured That those that would have thought such an Exclusion just and equal with their King 's passing it would have thought it as Legal could they have sate till they had made it pass without The good old King at first disputed his Militia as hard with them and who could have believed any sort of men could have thought it the Parliament's without his Consent But assoon as the Rebel House had made their Ordinance for the Seizing it which of those Miscreants did not think it as much Law And the more than probable project at Oxford shrewdly Insinuates they would have warranted an EXCLVSION without their Kings leave Legal had they been allo'w but a further progress in their ‖ Vid. King's Speech to the Parliament there Vnwarrantable Proceedings But as much as Mr. Johnson Triumph 's with this his Maxim of the Law * Julian pag. 19 20. as if he were the first Divine that had discover'd this deceitful Evasion this Jesuitical interpretation of his Protestant Oath Tho he and his Hunt and all his Lawyers in the Hall should tell us Ten Thousand times of this Seditious sort of Construction this Senseless Sophistry upon the plain word Heir as well as he Page 19. says they do an Hundred still all their Noise and Nonsense about Presumptive Apparent Actual possible will be nothing more than what the late Rebels that had Actually Murder'd the best of Monarchs made their defence to Justifie Treason and Sacrilege it self so that all this Divine's Sophistry savours not only of Nonsense and Sedition but of an old odious rank Rebellion and for to satisfie him that the Suggestion is serious and founded upon Matter of Fact if he can find among all his Seditious Papers he has habituated himself to peruse and what if he pleases I can lond him for his perusal such an old obsolete piece as was publisht after they had Butcher'd the best of Kings * A Treatise perswading Obedience in Lawful things to Authority tho unlawful Printed London about 1649 Ibid. wherein they endeavour'd to persuade the people to be subject to their Tyrannous Usurpation there will he find the very two Pages that he spends to promote the Quaint Conceptions of his Noddle about nothing or what is worse Faction and Folly for tho he tells us these tales Fifteen Hundred times over they told us so much for Forty years agon and that to satisfie Tender and Malignant Consciences that there lay no Obligation from their Oath of Allegiance upon them to adhere to the right Heirs of Charles Stewart because that those Branches Page 10. of the Oath which the Providence of Ibid. God had made Impossible to be observed must be lay'd aside and then they go on to shew that Heirs and Successors must Page 12. be taken Copulatively and so the word Heirs must be meant only of those that do Actually succeed But the Providence of God * Vid. Also a Religious Demurrer about submission to the present Power Printed London 1649. as they call'd it having kept the Heir of Charles Stewart from succeeding his Father had made say they that part of the Oath Impossible to be Observ'd and so the power must now be Obey'd Actively in what hands soever it be Seditious Soul 'T is too much to be Senseless too Consider but upon this Occasion a Case your self have * Julian pag. 12. Cited 't is that of the Lady Jane Did not the Laws adjudge it Treason in that poor imposed Princess for endeavouring to hinder the True Heir from being the Actual Successor and to say Queen Anno Mariae 1. Mary was then already Succeeded will not salve the Matter for it was resolv'd Treason too in her Father Northumberland his Contrivance of the Will for the Queens Exclusion which confirm'd as it was by the Privy-Council was as much an Act of State as the Bill by which our present Heir was to be Excluded and then what they did was but in pursuance of that Will after Edward's Death and as the Duke told Arundel that Arrested him that he had Acted only by the Council and Commission of King Edward Yet all was adjudg'd a defence Insufficient and I cannot see why the same Law would not have made those Traytors had the Bill past that rebell'd upon pretence of such an Act of Parliament as well as it did others that resisted upon the pretext of a Will Confirm'd in Council and which * themselves would Julian p. 12. have a sort of Exclusion and is almost as much an Act of state 'T is strange that men that would be thought so mighty Rational should not only argue against the known Rules in all Logick but against the very Inferences of Common Reason a man of Ordinary Sense without the help of his Hereboord will allow that any Vniversal and General Assertion in includes all Particulars And shall vve vvhen vve svvear Faith and Obedience to the Kings Heirs and Successors Generally Reserve an Exception of such whom the
est Condere and * Quod principi placuit Dig. 1. 4. 1. Pleasure of the Prince only qualifies it with this Insignificant Restriction That it must not be understood of an Absolute Will and Ungovernable but such as is guided and regulated by good advice and the Rules of Equity and Reason and if this be a Warrantable Resolution and I warrant you the rankest Republican will take his Authority to be good should it in any place favour their Anarchy then it must be unavoidably concluded that where the Law is the Princes ‖ Britton that Bishop of Hereford by order of Ed. 1. pen'd a Book of Laws tells us 't is the Kings will that his jurisdiction and Judgment be above all in the Realm Will none of his People neither as aggregate or Jndividuals can be Judges of its Violation neither can it according to common Sense without the greatest Solecism and Absurdity be said by him to be violated at all for where the Custom of the Kingdom as it must be in all absolute Monarchies has plac'd the sole Legislative Power in that which is Supream There the same Will or Moral Action of the Sovereign that breaks an old Edict is nothing else but an Enacting of a new and the Common Objection that our Republicans Flourish withal against this is That then Murder and Sacrilege might be the Laws of the Land because perhaps it has been heretofore the pleasure of our own * Hen. 8. Prince But as such Observations are full of Venom and Spight so they are as much impertinent and nothing to the purpose for whether our own old English Lawyers had restrain'd the meaning Britton Bract. of the Word WILL to a WILL guided by right Reason and Judgment no Person of sober Sense but must Imagine that the very Principi placuit of the Romans was as much restrain'd to the Rules of Reason and Equity and therefore their Tiberius Caligula Nero and Domitian were as much Tyrants and by their own Authors so are term'd as Vid. Sucron In. vitas if they had been bound by the strictest municipal Laws of a mixt Monarchy and as the People themselves to the very Penal Statutes of the Land and therefore for that Reason the very same Civil Sanctions of their Imperial Law that allow such a Latitude to their boundless Prince abound too with this Restriction that still it becomes him to observe those very Laws to which he is not oblig'd Decet tamen Principem inquit Paulus Leges servare quibus ipse solutus D. 32. 1. 23. And for the spilling of Blood or Robbing of Churches and the like unnatural enormities which they say by the Soveraigns being thus absolv'd might become Lawful did not the very Directive part of some of their Municipal Laws forbid them in it the precepts of God and Nature the Unresistable Impulse of Eternal Equity and Reason to which the Mightiest Monarch must ever submit and themselves did ever own a Subjection those will always tye the hands of the most Absolute from Committing such Crimes as well as the Common Lictors do the meanests people for being by them perpetrated and Committed and 't is a great Moral Truth grounded upon as much Reason and Experience That those dissolute Princes that did Indulge themselves in the Violating the Divine Laws of God and Nature could never have been constrain'd to the Observance of our Human Inventions the Municipal Acts of any Kingdom or Country And therefore I cannot but smile to see the Ridiculous Insinuations of some of our Republicans endeavouring to maintain that by such silly suggestions which they can't defend with Sense and Reason for rather than want an Objection they 'll put us too suppose some Kings endeavouring to destroy their Subjects and alienating of their Kingdoms and then put their Question Whether the People shall not Judge and Punish them for it but in this they deal in their Argumentation against their King as some Seditious Senates of late indeavoured to Impose upon him to pass Bills by tacking two together A popular encroachment with an Asserting the Prerogative Just such another business was bandied about by that baffler of himself that pretious piece of Contradiction Will. Prin. Who tells us out of Bracton That GOD the Law and the Kings Courts are above the King where if you take all the Connexion Copulatively 't is not to be contradicted because no King but will allow his God to be above him under whom he Rules yet even there it may be observ'd that the Lower House he so much Labour'd for is not so much as mention'd So do these Sophâ—sters in the Politick's here proceed just like those Jugglers in the House they couple a suppositious piece of Premis'd Nonsense and then draw with it a pretty plausible Conclusion for what man can Imagin if he be but in his Wits that his Monarch unless he be quite out of them and Mad would destroy those over whom he is to Reign none but the Bosan in the Tempest with his Bottle of Brandy was so besotted as to think of Ruling alone and setting up for a Soveraign without so much as a single Subject so that should these peevish Ideots have their silly Supposition granted still they would be prevented from obtaining their end at which they aim for first if we must suppose all the Subjects to be destroy'd where would there be any left to judge this Author of their Destruction if they 'll suffer us only to suppose the Major part or some few certain Persons to be sacrific'd to his Fury then still that Soveraign that would destroy the most part or some certain number of his Subjects without Sense or Reason must at the same time be suppos'd to be out of his Senses and then no Law of any Land will allow the People to punish a Lunatick But if a King must be call'd a Destroyer of his People only for letting the Laws pass upon such Seditious Subjects that would destroy him which is all the Ground they can have here for branding with it their present Princes and for which these exasperated rebels really suggest it then in Gods name let the Latin * Fiat Justitia ruat Coelum Aphorism take place too Then let such Justice for ever be done upon Earth and trust the Judgments of Heaven for their falling Then let them deprecate as a late ‖ Vid. Paper of the Proceedings upon Armstrong his Outlawry Lady did the Vengance of the Almighty upon the Head of the Chief Minister of the Kings but let there be more such Hearts to administer as much Justice and the hands will hardly receive much harm for holding of the Scales And for that others silly supposition of these Seditious Simpletons of a Kings Alienating of his Kingdom * 'T is a receiv'd rule among civil Lawyers and may be well among our own That a King can't in Law alienate his Crown and that if it were
runs all in the sole Wil of the King Charter it self their Act of Liberty they so much Labour in that not the meanest Subject can be Try'd or Judg'd unless it be by his Peers Equals much less so mighty a Monarch that has none and a Fortiori then with lesser Reason by those that are his own Subjects so far from being his Peers or Equals that they are together his Inferiors which has made me think many times these preposterous Asserters of so much Nonsense these Seditious Defenders of those Liberties they never understood did apprehend by the word Pares in the Law not the common Acceptation of it in the Latin but only the abused Application of it of our own English only to our House of Lords And conclude the King might be Judg'd by those we commonly call PEERS because they sit in that Honorable House and at the same to be Judg'd according to Magna Charta that all Judgements be per pares But does not each Dunce and every Dolt understand that the very Letter of the Law looks after this only that every Person be tryed at the least by those that are of his own Condition and that in the Legal Acceptation of the Word every Commoner of the Lower House nay every one of their Electors is as much a Peer as the greatest Person of the House of Lords In short they must put some such silly Seditious Exposition upon the plainest Letter when they pretend to Judge their King or else from the very Law of their own Liberty they labor in allow that their King has no Judges In that Act against Appeals that was enacted in the time of Henry the 8th 24. H. 8. c. 12. the very Parliament upon whom the People and even these Republicans so much depend tells us even in the very Letter of that Law That it is Manifest from Authentick History and Chronicle That the Realm of England is an Empire That its Crown is an Imperial one That therefore their King is furnish'd by the goodness of Almighty God with an intire Power and Prerogative to render and yield Justice to all manner of Folk in all Causes and Contentions This by solemn Act is declared of their King this Excludes the People from Judging of themselves much more their Soveraigns This the Resolution of a popular Parliament they would make even the Supream and this by them resolved even in Opposition to that Popery these Panick Fools so much and so vainly fear Do not the Books the best Declarations of the Law let us understand that which they against the Resolutions of all the Law it self would so foolishly maintain that it was resolved in Edward the 4th's time That the King cannot be said to do any wrong and then surely can't be Judg'd by his very People for doing it when impossible to be done and was not this the Sense of †Vid. 1. Ed. 5. fol. 2. all the Judges and Serjeants of the time to whose Opinion it was submitted was it not upon the same Reason a Resolution of Si Le Roy moy disseisit pur ceo que Le Roy en le ley ne poit moy disseisir il né serrá appell disseisor mes jeo sue mis a petition à Roy. 4. Ed. 4. 25. 13. the Law in Edward the 4th's time that because the Soveraign could not be said to injure any Subject therefore the Law never looks upon him as a disseisor a disposesser of any Man 's Right and all the remedy it will allow you is only Plaint and Petition Does not my Lord Coke himself that in several places is none of the greatest Assertor of the Right of the Soveraign fairly tell us * Coke Comon West 1. 2. Inst p. 158. least it should be vainly fear'd they should reflect upon the King 's own Misgovernment all the fault should rest upon the Officers and Ministers of his Justice Does it not appear from the ‖ Stat. to pursue suggestious 37. E. 3. c. 18. 38. Ed. 3. c. 9. Statutes of Edward the third that notwithstanding the strict Provision of the Charter for the Tryal by Peers that the King was still look'd upon as a Judge with his Council and Officers to receive Plaints and decide Suggestions and tho that and the subsequent of the next year provide against false ones yet it confirms still the power of the King to hear and determine them whether false or true Have they not heretofore answered touching Freehold even before their King and Council and a Parliament Parl. Glocester 2. Ric. 2. only Petition'd their Soveraign with all Submission that the Subject might not be summon'd for the future by a Chancery Writ or Privy Seal to such an Appearance but this they 'll say was the result of the Soveraigns Usurpations upon the Laws of the Land of a King Richard the 2d That did deserve to be deposed Brief History of Succession p. 7. as well as the Articles of his Depositions to be read †Plato Rediviv p. 116. 234. a King that forfeited the executive Power of his Militia for prefering worthless People and was himself of little worth or as the most Licentious and Lewdest Libel of a longer date has it †a King that found Fuel for his Lust in all Lewd and uncivil Courses Now tho March Needham Merc. Polit n. 65. Sept 4. 1651. we have the Authority of the best of our Historians for the good Qualities of this Excellent tho but an unhappy Prince and who could never have fell so unfortunately had his Subjects served him more faithfully tho Mr. Hollinshed Hollinshed 3d. Vol. Chron. F. 508. N. 50. tells us never any Prince was more unthankfully used never Commons in greater wealth never Nobles more cherish'd or the Church less wrong'd and as Mr. How has it in Beauty Bounty How 's Annals p. 277. and Liberality he surpassed all his Predecessors and Baker the best among our Moderns says there were aparent in him a great many good Inclinations that he was only abused in his Youth but if he had been Guilty afterward in his riper Age of some proceedings these Republicans had reason to reproach I am sure he was Innocent of those foolish Innuendo's those false and frivolous Accusations for which they rejected him viz. for unworthiness and insufficiency Vid. Trussel in vit R. 2. when he never appear'd in all his Reign more worthy of the Government than at the very time they deposed him for being unworthy to Govern But whatever were the vices of that Prince with which our virulent Antimonarchists would blast and blemish his Memory yet we see from the President that is cited the Sense of his Subjects Parl. Glocest did not then savor so much of Sedition as insolently to demand it for their Privilege and Birth-right which without doubt they might have pretended to call so as much as any of those the Commons have since several times so
be their Kings Judges that they can not absolutely Judge of the mere Right of a meum and tuum among themselves Several other Instances both the Books Rolls abound with that Evidence our Kings the only Judges of the Law in all Causes and over all Persons for in the 13th year of the same †13. R. 2. Richard the Second the Commons Petition'd again the King that his Council might not make any Ordinance against the Common Law and the King Graciously granted them but with a salvo to the Regalities of the Crown and the right of his Ancestors The Court of Star Chamber which the worst of times Abolish'd and my Lord Coke makes almost the †It is the most Honorable Court the Parliam excepted that is in the Christian World of Honorable Proceeding just Jurisdiction A Court that kept all England in quiet Coke 4 Inst p. 65. and so it did till abolish'd by the Tumults of a Parliam best of Courts had heretofore Cognizance of property and detèrmin'd a Controversie touching Lands contain'd in the Covenants of a Joynture as appears in the Case of the Audleys Rot. Claus 41. Edward the 3d. There the King heard too a Cause against one Sir Hugh Hastings for with-holding part of the Living of the poor of St. Leonard in York as is Evident from the Roll. 8. Edward 4. p. 3. And tho the Proceedings of this Court were so much decryed by those that clamor'd so long for its Suppression till they left no Court of Justice in the Land unless it were that of Blood and Rebellion their High one tho the King in his giving year was so gracious that he made the very Standard An. 1641. page and rule of his Concessions to be the very request of his People and gratified them in an Abolition of this Court establish'd by the common-Common-Law common-‖ Coke 4. Inst C. 5. and confirm'd afterward per †3. H. 7. c. 1. Act of Parliament yet ‖ Cambden Britt 130. Cambden our Historian as well as our Coke our Lawyer could commend it for the most Honorable as well as the most Ancient of all our Judicatories and if they 'll have the Reason Why it treated of Matters so high as the Resolution even of Common-Law and the Statute it may be told them in the weighty Words of their own Oracle Because the King in Judgement of Law as in the rest also was Coke 4. Inst p. 65. 63. ne dignitas hujus Curiae vilesceret always in that Court and that therefore it did not meddle with Matters of ordinary Moment least the dignity of it should be debased and made contemptible and tho by the gracious consent or rather an extorted Act of Grace the late King was forc'd to forego it yet the Proceedings of some Cases there may serve to show what a power our Kings had and ought to have in all manner of distributive Justice Several other Citations I could here set down to prove the Subjection of the very Common-Law to the Soveraign Power as Henry the Sixth superseding a Criminal Process and staying an Arraignment Verney's Case 34. H. 6. Rot. 37. for Felony Henry the Seventh's that debar'd the Beckets by decree from pursuing their suit for Lands because the merits of the Cause had been heard by the King his Predecessor and also by himself before but these will abundantly suffice to satisfy any sober Person that does not set himself against all assertors of his Soveraigns Supremacy And then if Custom and Common Usage which Plowden in his Commentaries is pleased to call the Common-Law lies in many Cases Subject to the Resolution of the Supream Soveraign no doubt but the Statute the result of his own ‖ 'T is that which gives them Life as I have shown before and makes them any thing besides waste Paper And the Judicious Hooker in his politicks seems to be of the same opinion when he says Laws take their force not from those that devise them but from the power that gives them the strength of Laws Sanction must of necessity submit and acknowledge a subjection to the same Power and that I think we have sufficiently prov'd already upon several occasions both from the Letter of the Laws themselves and our little light of Reason both from Arguments and †The seven Kingdoms of the Saxons had all their Laws made by their 7. several Soveraigns of which confuss'd number the Confessor cull'd out the best and call'd them after his own name St. Edward so did also the other Saxon and Danes Kings their own after theirs as you see in Lambert's Book of Laws Laws that have evidenc'd their own Resolutions to be reserv'd to the King and that we had Kings long before the Commons Commenc'd Conven'd or Concur'd in their assent to such Laws 'T is prodigiously strange to me that these mighty Maintainers of the Peoples Legislative and their Judicial Power eeven over their own Soveraigns cannot be guided by those very Laws they would have to govern their Kings thus you shall see a Needham a Nevil or a Sidney amongst our selves in all their Laborious Libels that the drudges of Sedition who seem to verify the Sacred Text in drawing Sin it self with a Cart-Rope in all that they tugg toil and labour in you seldom see that they cite you so much as a single Statute on their side or if they do only such an one as is either Impertinently apply'd or as Industriously perverted And in the same sort does the Seditious Scot Buchanan and the rest of the Books of their discontented Demagogues that ‖ Omne malum ab aquilone Northern Mischief that threaten'd us always with a Proverbial Omen till averted of late by the Loyalty of their latter Parliaments that have aton'd even for the last age and the perfidiousness and Faction of the former those all in their Libels hardly Name you so much as one single Law of their Nation to countenance the Popular Paradox the pleasing Principle of the Peoples Supremacy which the poor Souls when prescrib'd by those Mountebanks of the State must take too like a Common Pill only because 't is gilded with the pleasant Insinuations of Natural Freedom Free-State Subjection of the Soveraign Power of the People and all the dangerous Delusions that lead them directly to the designs of these devilish Republicans i. e. a damnable Rebelion whereas would they but submit their Senses to the Sanctions of the Laws of their several Lands their Libels they would find to be best baffl'd by the Statute Books as well as their Authors to be punisht by them for their Publication 'T is strange that should not obtain in this Controversy which prevails in all polemical disputes that is some certain Maxims and Aphorisms Postulates and Theorems not to be disputed these determin our Reason even in Philosophy and the Mathematicks and why should not the Laws then in Politicks too and where
they are positive sure 't is Impudence as well as Capital perhaps to oppose And yet we see these Gentlemen of so little Law to Labour so much in a dispute that is only to be decided by it what Authority is the singular assertion of a Republican or a * pag. 21. Plato Redivivus that the House of Commons is the only part of the old Constitution of Parliament that is left us or the single sense of ‖ Tryal p. 23. §. 2. Mr. Sidney that the Senate of England is above its Soveraign against the form of the very first Act of State that remains upon Record the very †Magn. Chart. 9. H. 3. know ye that we of our mere will have given c. Chart. Forest 9. H. 3. begins also with a we will Stat. Hiber 14. H. 3. only a mere Order of the King to the Son of Maurice his Judge there the words we command you Witness my self Note that was even concerning Free-hold and a Case of Co-parcenary The Stat. Bisex 21. H. 3. tho concerning pleading and Common Law but an Order of the King to his Judges for the words are we ordain and Command you Stat. Assiza 51. H. 3. The King to whom all these shall come greeting de scacc the King Commandeth Charter these Democraticks adore against the form of the following one of the Forest and Consult but the Style of the Statute Book and all the Antient Acts down to Richard the Second and you 'll find not so much as one but what expressly points out in its Enacting part the sole power of the Soveraign by which it was Enacted all in these repeated Expressions of Absolute Majesty We the Kings of England of our free will have given and granted it is our Royal Will and Pleasure the King Commands the Kings Wills our Lord the King has establisht the Lord the King hath ordain'd And most of them made in the manner of Edicts or Proclamations as in the Margin will appear and tho 't is thought now such a piece of Illegality to be concluded by an Order of Council and even his Majesties late command for the Continuance of the Tunnage and the Resolution of the Judges about that part of the Excise which expir'd has by some of our murmurers been repin'd at tho by all Loyal ones it was as chearfully assented to and as punctually paid yet they shall see that the People heretofore paid such a deference even to an Edict of the Prince that they nearly rely'd as much upon it as the Romans did upon their Imperial Institutions who as I before shew'd lookt upon it as a crime like to Sacrilege but to disobey And this will appear from an †31. Hen. 8. c. 8. Stat. Mert. 6. The King our Lord providing hath made these Acts 2d Inst p. 101. Westm 1. 3. Ed. 1. 1. The King willeth and commandeth Stat. Gavelet even of altering the writ which they say can't be done but in Parliament Enacted by the King and his Justices 10. E. 2. Stat. E. 3. several say we will we ordain so also several R. 2. Act of Parliament in Henry the Eighth's time which provided H. 8 that the Princes Proclamations should not be contemned by such obstinate Persons and oppos'd by the willfullness of froward Subjects that don't consider what a King by his Royal Power may do and all that disobey'd were to be punisht according to the Penalty exprest in the Proclamation and if any should depart the Realm to decline answering for his Contumacy and Contempt he was to be adjudg'd a Traytor and tho the Statute limited it to such as did not extend to the Prejudice of Inheritance Liberties or Life yet the King was left the Judge Whether they were Prejudicial or not and these Kings Edicts by this very Act were by particular Clause made as binding as if they had been all Acts of Parliaments and that it may not be said to be an Inconsiderate and Vnadvised deed of the Parliament to give the King such a Power tho 't is hard to say so of a Senate whom the * Coke 4. Inst c. 1. Parl. writ that convokes them says they are call'd to deliberate To avoid that imputation I must tell them it was very Solemnly a Second time Confirm'd again within three †34. H. 8. c. 25. years after and by that Power given to nine of the Kings Council to give Judgment against all Offenders of the former and tho this was repeal'd in the following Reign of King ‖ 1. Ed. 4. c. 12. Edward a Minor and almost a Child A time wherein notwithstanding there is such a woe denounc'd against a People that have such a King the Subjects seldom fail of Invading something of the Prerogative yet still we see â—ho the Law be not now in force plain matter of Fact that there was once such a Law that our Kings Proclamations were once by express words of the Statute made as valid as the very Act of State it self that made them so that the Judicial Power of the Prince was heretofore less limited and that their Libels Plato Rediv lye as well as their lewd Tongues when they tell us and would have us believe That none but our late King as tell as the present ever pretended to so â—uch of Prerogative or had more allow'd â—â—em by the Laws And let any one but leisurably examine as I have particularly the several Acts of each King's Reign and he 'll find that from this Richard the Second to whose time the Stile of the Statutes as you see was in a manner absolutely Majestick down to King Charles the Martyr That the form 1. H. 4. H. 5. H. 6. Ed. 4. Rich. 3. even all those are pen'd in such Words as will exclude the Commons from being Co-ordinate and so much concerned in the Legislative as these popular Advocates have pretended to persuade us their People are for even they all run either in this form The * King with the Advice and Assent of his Lords Spiritual Then begins the other 1. H. 7. H. 8. Ed. 6. Q. Mar. Q. El. Jac. 1. and Temporal at the special Instance and Request of the Commons or The King by and with the Assent of his Lords Spiritual Temporal and Commons and as if the past Parliaments themselves would have provided againsâ— the Seditious Sophistry of a future Age which they could hardly be thought to foresee since it savors so much of almost unimaginable Nonsense and Sedition aâ— if our Ancestors had feared least some of their profligate posterity seduceâ— with the Corruptions of a Rebellionâ— Age should impose upon the Prerogative of the Crown with any such Subâ—â— Insinuation of their King 's making be Wil. Pryn's Power of Parliam one of the three States and by Consequence conclude as they actually did that the two being greater than him alone could be his Judges and their own Soveraign's Superiors why to
prevent these very Rebels and Republicans in such Factious Inferences did they for two hundred years agon in the first of Richard the Third Resolve what was â—â—gnified by the three Estates of the Realm for say they That is to say the Lords Exact Abridgem Fol. 117. p. 1. H. 3. â—piritual Temporal and Commons and even long since that much more lately out in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth in that Act of Recognition of her Right where they endeavor to advance her Royalty as much as possible they can and â—â— make the Crown of this Realm as much Imperial there they tell her 'T is WEE your Majesties most faithful and Keeble Stat. 1. El. C. 3. and does not their own Oracle tell them so L. Coke 4 Inst C. 1. Parliam Obedient Subjects that represent the THREE ESTATES of your Realm of England and therefore in King James and Charles the First 's time â—hen the Commons began to be mutiâ—ous and encroach upon the Crown â—hen they having with the help of their â—â—merous Lawyers which were once by â—articular Act excluded the House and H. 6. if less had State in it perhaps it might have been once less Rebellious too those Gentlemen knowing too well the weight â—f Words and what Construction and Sense Sedition and Sophistry can deduct 4. Inst Stat. de Bigamis concordatum per Justiciarios 2. Inst ibid. Stat. West 2. 13. Ed. 1. Dominus Rex in Parlia mento suo Statuta edidit 2. Inst 331. Stat. Circumspectâ— agatis 13. Ed. 1. begius Rex talibus Judicibus Salutem and tho some would not have it an Act of Parliament my Lord Coke says 't is prov'd so by the Books and other Acts 2. Iust page 487. from a single Syllable I am confident it was they contriv'd the Matter and Method so as to foist in the Factious form of this Be it enacted by the King Lords and Commons for that is the General Stile of the Enactive part of most of the Statutes of those Times and this was most agreeable with their mighty Notion of his Majesties making but up one of the THREE that so they might the better conclude from the very Letter of their own Laws That the TWO States which the Law it self implyed now to be Co-ordinate must be mightier and have a Power over their King whom the same Laws confest to be but ONE and the Reason why the forms of their Bill and the draught of the Lawyers and the Lower-House might be past into Act without any Alteration or Amendments of this Clause was I believe from a want of Apprehension that there ever could be such designing Knaves as to put it in to that Intention or such Factious Fools as to have inferred from it the Commons Co-ordinacy For the Nobility and Loyal Gentry that have commonly the more Honesty for having the less Law cannot be presumed so soon to comprehend what Construction can be drawn from the Letter of it by the laborious cavil of a Litigious Lawyer or a cunning Knave and therefore we find that those Acts are the least controverted that have the fewest Words and that among all the multiplicity of Expressions that at present is provided by themselves that have commonly the drawing of our Statutes themselves also still discover as many Objections against it to furnish them with an Argument for the Merits of any Cause and the Defence of the Right of their Clyent at the same time they are satisfied he is in the wrong And for those Enacting forms of our Statutes whatsoever Sense some may think these Suggestions of mine may want That some Seditious Persons got most of them to run in so low so popular a Stile in the latter end of King James and Charles the first 's time such as Enacted only by the Authority of the Parliament 21. Jâ—â—â— by the Kings Majâ—sty Lords and 6. Car. p. 1. C. 1â— 12. Car. 2. C. â—5 Staâ— 2. 13. Car. 2d Commons yet upon the Restauration of Charles the Second the Words With the consent of the Lords and Commons were again reviv'd and afterward 13 14. Car. 2. C. 10. 19. Car. 2. 8. 25. Car. 2. C. 1. 25. Car. C. 9. they bring it into this old agen With the Advice and Assent of Lords Spiritual Temporal and Commons according to the form of Richard the 3d. and Queen Elizabeth that resolv'd them to be the THREE STATES and this runs on through all the Acts of his Reign and even in several of them the Commons humbly beseech the King that it may be so enacted I thought it necessary to bring home Buchanan and his Disciples in Scotland maintain'd the same Doctrine of the King 's Co-ordinacy and therefore their Acts in the Rebellion too ran in the Name of the three States But when the King was returned to his Crowu and they to their Obedience the old form was retrieved The King with advice and consent of to our present tho most profligate time as much Acknowledgement as possible I could of my Kings Prerogative from the Laws of our Land and the very Statutes themselves because that some great Advocates for the power of the People some times pretend to plead for them too from Acts of Parliaments tho I think in this last lewd and Libellous Contest against the Crown that lasted for about five year in that Lustrum of Treason there was but one that was so laboriously Seditious so eminently popular as to endeavour to prove the Peoples Supremacy from Rolls and Records and Acts of State and for that recommend me to the good Author of the Right of the Commons Asserted tho I should rather approve of such an undertaking when endeavored to be done from the tracing the dark and obscure tracts of Antiquity and the Authority of a Selden than the single Assertion of a Sidney and the mere Maxims of some Modern Democraticks that have no other Foundation for their Establishments than the new Notions of their Rebellious Authors and that ipse dixit of such Seditious Dogmatists But I am satisfied too that this Gentleman who has laboured so much in vindicating the Commons Antiquity and their constituting an essential part of our Saxon Parliaments did design in it much more an Opposition of our Antient Monarchy and the Prerogative of the Crown than a mere clearing the dark foot-steps of our Old Chronicle and a real defence of Matter of Fact and the Truth And this is too clearly to be prov'd from the pestilent Pen-man's P-tyts own Papers that were publish'd at such a time when there was no great need of such an Asserting the Commons Right when themselves were more likely to have Usurp'd upon the Crown and as Mr. Sidney and his Associates would have it made themselves and the People Judges of their own wrong For to see such a task undertaken at a time when we are since satisfied such dangerous designs were a-foot looks only like a particular
as repugnant to our Nature as that praeternatural Coition of Matter for have we not all the Laws of our Land on our side and that besides Sense and Reason to whose determin'd sanctions even those themselves must submit for I look upon our Argumentative reasoning in such matters to be somewhat like Belief which all our Learned in the Metaphysicks will allow to determine it self upon demonstration and Commences knowledg'd and a science and so must our Positions at last in the Politicks no longer pass for indifferent Notions or disputable Opinions when they come once to be ratified by some supream Establishment or unquestionable Authority for as the result of demonstration is some Theorem or Postulate that requires our assent so are the Sanctions of the Supream power some Statutes or Laws that Command our Obedience as the one is prov'd so the other Enacted and let any one Judge from the several we have cited or any single Act themselves can cite whether all and every one do not expressly assert or absolutely imply the Soveraign so far from being the Servant of the Subject or the Peoples Creature that they many times maintain him to be ‖ 16. R. 2. c. 5. under none but God and in all places acknowledge him above all the People and is not the absurdity on their side and a Contradiction even in Terms when they contend for the contrary And as that Author of the Right of the Magistrate and the like writings of the most Eminent Republicans led on and seduc'd Mr. S. in some Points so has also his predecessor or Co-eval for I think they liv'd in an Age W. Pryn imposed upon him in others and I am sorry to â—ee Mr. S. that valu'd himself upon his parts â—o rely upon that which that pest of the â—ress plac'd so much confidence in and that are the words of * Deum Legem Parliamentum Bracton where he says as Mr. S. would have it God the Law and the Parliament are the Kings three Superiors But even Pryn himself the perverter of all that was not for his purpose does not deal so disingeniously as this Gentleman in the Case for he recites it more Exactly as it is in Bracton which is the Kings Court instead of the Parliament which in the time that Antient Author writ very probably consisted only of his prelates and Lords so that if granted them Pryn's Commons and Mr. S. his People of England â—re not comprehended in the words of â—hat old writer and then besides it is the opinion of some that those words the Laws and the Kings Courts were not originally in the writings of that Loyal Lawyer who in several other places of his works carries up the Divine Right of his King and that absolute Power of his Prince as high as any of the most Modern whom ‖ Postscript Mr. Hunt has represented and libell'd as first introducers of this new Notion this dangerous and damnable Doctrine for that grave Judge for above 4 or 5 hundred years agon told us our †Hen. the 3d's time Bracton lib. 4. cap. 24. § 5. Rex sub nullo nisi tantum Deo and l. 5. tract 3. non habet superiorem nisi Deum satis habet ad paenam quod DeuÌ„ expectat ultorem King was under none but God that he had none above him but God and that he had God alone for his Avenger and it seems some what Improbable a person of his Loyalty and Judgment should not only detract from the Supremacy of his Soveraign which he seems so much to maintain but also in direct opposition to what himself had asserted and besides were they the sense as well as the words of that Author they are only true as I have before shown when they are taken collectively in a complicated Sentence and so seems a sort of Sophistry which the Logical heads call a fallacy in Composition But yet from that does Mr. S. conclude That the power is Originally in the People and so by Consequence in the Parliament only as they are their Representatives For my part I cannot Imagine thâ—â— Gentleman's large Treatise to be any thinâ— else but a Voluminous Collection of aâ—â— the Rebellious Arguments that were publisht in our late War for as in this little fiftieth part of it as he professes it to be Paper at his Execution there is not one new Notion but whâ—â— â—â— to a Syllable the same with the Papers â—â— Pryn and the Merc. Politicus out of â—e Author of the Treatise of Monarchy â—s he made a shift to borrow or else â— chance very harmoniously to agree â— the pernicious Position That our â—onarchy is not only Limited and Mixt for that wont content them alone but that this Limitation has oblig'd the Sovereign to be Subject to the Judgment and Determination of Parliament for says that more Antient Antimonarchist this Limitation Treatise of Monarchy p. 12. being from some body else and the â—ower confer'd by the publick Society in â—he Original Constitution of the Government and then he bethinks himself that Kings too may Limit themselves afterward by their own Grants and Concessions which he is pleased to call a Secondary â—â—iginal Constitution i. e. if my little â—â—nse will let me Comprehend the saying â— a Politician that has none at all someâ—hat like a Figure in Speech the Country-man calls his Bull us'd when the Speaker can't express himself Intelligibly A Secondary Original sounds not much unlike the Nonsense of an Original Coâ—y or a second first yet from this senseâ—â—ss Sophistry it must be concluded that â—e Soveraign being limited by this Original Constitution or as they call it Aâ—ter Condiscent and Secondary Origâ—nal what then therefore every Maâ— Conscience must acquit or Condemâ— p. 17 18. Imperium etsilatissime ex lege Regia propter August latum pateret certis tamen limitibus desinitum de jure magist p. 29. the Acts of his Governour and even man has a Power of Judging the Illegâ—â— deeds of his Monarch And so Mr. S. â—â— almost the same Language As a man hâ— is Subject to the People that made hiâ— a King That he receiv'd the Crown upon condition and That performance is â—â— be exacted and the Parliament Judgeâ— of the Particular Cases arising thereuâ—on I cannot but observe to this Geâ—tleman upon this who was always such â— great admirer of the ‖ So the Roman Senate when Augustus was not so much as present freed him from all obligations Romans Commoâ—-wealth what I hinted before was thâ— Sense of the very Romans when according to their own Notion of Original Monarchy the People of that Commoâ—-wealth first conferr'd their Power â—â— Government upon a single Soveraign why their very Laws tell us That noâ—withstanding those Contracts and Limitations of which there were very likeâ— some exprest even in that their very Câ—lebrated and Glorious * The Lex Regia princeps legibus solutus
est l. princ de legibus Law that fiâ—â— made that Government Imperial yâ—â— when once it was so Conferr'd by thâ— very Act all Magistracy i. e. all powâ—â— of Judging that the Subject had before was past over too And were our own â—onarch by the Compact and condiscent â—â— his first Ancestors such a precarious â—ince as they would make him have not â—ur own Statutes I have cited long since â—â—solv'd his Crown to be Independant and himself accountable to none but God And then abstracting from that Advantage we have of the Resolution of the Law Reason it self against which our Republicans rebell too that also will refute the absurdity of such a Position For first where for God's sake would they fix this their preposterous power of Judicial Process if in some single Persons then the Concession of their own renowned Aphorâ—sm will fly in their Face for that allows the Soveraign to be much superior to any Selected number of his Subjects and Major singulis Junius Brutus Vindic. de Jur. Mag. Will. Pryn Parliam Right Buchanan Sidney Tryal p. 23. â—hey won't be such Senseless Sots sure as to â—â—y That those whom themselves acâ—nowledge to be altogether inferior â—â—ould be invested with that Judicial Power which is the highest token and sign of Supremacy if they 'll place it as Mr. Sidney forsooth does in the Original power of the People delegated unto Parliament then should that be granted â—hem when ever this Parliament is dissolv'd if their King be never so great a Delinquent for I think they may assoon make their King so as they did foolishly those that followed him in the late Wars when the word implies a Deserting and the Law only calls them so that adhere to the King's Enemies then Coke Littleton 291. I say if their Soveraign be never so much a Criminal to the State upon such a Dissolution they devest themselves by their own Maxims of this power of Judicature and so put it in the power of the Monarch or the Prince at any time to blasâ— all his Judges in a moment and dissipate them all with the Breath of his Mouth and therefore Mr. Sidney was so wittilâ— Seditious as to foresee such a Consequence and for that Reason very resolutely does deny what some of our more moderate Republicans will allow That the King has a power of Assembling and Tryal page 26. Dissolving a Parliament But this piece of pernicious Paradox a Position so false that some of them themselves are asham'd to own has been already refuted and prov'd from the very Laws of the Land to be an absolute Lye but our Author having plac'd himself and his People above the Law tho it was his hard fate to fall under it and made the Subject Superior to those Sanctions to which themselves acknowledge none to be so but the Soveraign from whom they proceed all the Satisfaction such a Person can receive from the Statutes must be from something of Reason that is the result of them and 't is such an one as relates to their own Positions For they say therefore the Soveraign is obliged to submit to the Laws of the Land because he accepted the Crown upon such an Obligation and shall it not Seditious Souls be as good a Conclusion To say the People have passed away the power of Assembling themselves when they have passed their own Act for being by their King Assembled Then in the next place if this Original power of this People be delegated to this Parliament it would have been much to the purpose for some of them to have shown us from whence this People had this Original Power Certainly if any it must be deriv'd from God Nature or somewhat that 's Soveraign But for the Almighty In all the sacred Texts there 's not a syllable of such a Legacy left them but abundance of the bequest of it that is made to Kings For Nature there is nothing from it more evident than a whole series of Subordination and that to single Soveraignty setting aside even the paternal among Human Creatures almost to be made out among Insects and Animals Bees and Beasts And if some King indulged this their People to appropriate to themselves all the Supream Power which we never heard of any of ours that did or to participate part of their Prerogative which we know many Indulgent ones of ours to their Parliaments have done then still this their power can't be Original because 't is derivative and I dare swear no Prince ever granted them a power of being Superiors as they must be if they would Judge him or ever accepted a Crown upon that Condition supposing it were as they would have it conferr'd For the very Act of being such a Conditional King would absolutely make him none at all and therefore those whom the Lacedaemonians compounded withâ—â— to be regulated by their Ephori were in effect not so much as the Dictators of Rome and so not to be reckon'd to Reign as Crown'd Heads or mentioneâ— among those that we call our Monarchs In the third place if by this Original Tryal pag. 2â— power of the People delegated to the Parliament the two Houses are constituted the Judges of their King I cannot see how Mr. Sidney could avoid or any of his Associates can this Grand Absurdity and as great a Lye that the Parliament have a Natural Liberty not only to Judge but to lop off the Sacred Head of their Liege-Lord and Soveraign For 't is certain they can have no more Authority than the People they represent and 't is as certain they must have as much Now this Original Power must be a Natural one because not deriv'd from any grant and then this Parliament of theirs must have an Original Power by Nature tho it be but to commit the most unnatural Barbarities I confess we had such an one that upon the same Principles proceeded to the perpetrating that most Execrable Treason and the very Villany that any time may be the Consequence of such Positions A Parliament which this good Author presided in or very well understood the Scandal of our own Nation and the shame and reproach of our Neighbors now I say If this his Original power of the People be delegated to this Parliament as Mr. Sidney says it is then this Parliament hath a Natural and Original Power of being their King's Judges because their People has it whom they represent I confess this is a Bar beyond the Seditious Doctrine of their Author in his Right of Magistrates For he is mighty sollicitous least he should be misapprehended as if he design'd the common People should judge their Soveraign De jure Magistrat therefore tells us very carefully none but the subordinate Magistrates themselves can Judge the Supream and their Brutus that succeeded that Assertor of Rebellion says such only as the Spartan Ephori and the seventy of the Israelites Brutus the Centurions or Equestres
Great â—ven he was not depos'd and dispatcht by the suffrages of the people but by a Perjur'd band of Conspirators and Assassinates in the Senate and whom the very people * Plebs statim â— funere ad domum Bruti Cassii tetendit Cinnam per errorem nominis occidet caputque prefixum hastae circumtulit columnaÌ„ parenti patriae statuit in scripsit sacrificare per CaesareÌ„ jurare perseveravit in deonumerum relatum percussoruÌ„ nullussicca morte obiit Sueton. p. 51 52. too pursu'd for the Fact and even ador'd their deceas'd Emperor tho Heathens and their Empire was not Hereditary to the shame of some of our good Christian Subjects that live under a Monarchy that is so acquies'd more quietly under their oppressions of their Lawless Emperors then some of ours under the good Government of their Gracious Kings who as they have often promis'd so have still Govern'd according to Law The depositions and Barbarous Butcherys of some of the Roman Emperors was never an Act of State of the Citizens or the people but the Force and Fury of a Faction in the Army and 't is with that excuse I am sure our Presbyter with his good Excluded Members would wipe his mouth of the Blood of his Soveraign for those were several times ‖ As Nero Claudius Galba Vitellius Otho Vid. Sueton. set up by the Souldiers and assoon pull'd to pieces by those that had plac'd them on the Throne which effusion of Royal Blood was the clear effect of their not claiming it by an Absolute Inheritance of that Blood Royal for those Adoptions they many times made ware of little force against the salutations of a Legion and the powers of the Field and therefore * Unde Apparet ipsos etiam Caesares Juridice damnari coerceri potuisse de jure Magistrat p. 38. that Author when he says even those Caesars were Legally and justly Condemn'd as if the Romans too â—ad once their High Court of Justice abuses â—he world both with a Factious insinuation and in the very matter of Fact In the next place they must consider that if there was such a Contract and Agreement among the People to accept of such an one for their King upon his performance of such Conditions tho I am sure his Deposition or Censure in our Kingdom were never formally annext to the Penalty of the Bond for his Non-performance neither can they show us in all their Charter of Liberties such a Conditional License to Rebel yet yet still it must be supposed the consent of every individual Subject which was somewhat difficult to be compast was required to such an Agreement for upon the first Constitution of our Government 't is certain we had no such Parliaments wherein they could deleâ—ate their Suffrages to some few Representatives and then by the same Reason we must have the Concurrence of all the particular Persons in the Land when we would Judg of the breach of that Covenant upon which all their Ancestors were supposed to have accepted their King And then I think from the Result of their own Seditious Reasoning our Soveraign may sit pretty safely and he rule as Arbitrary as he pleases when it must be carried against him with a true nemine Contradicente and not a single Subject left in the Land to be friend him with his Vote For upon such a conferring off the Supream Power it must be supposed that the several Subjects have bound themselves to one another to suffer such an one to be their Soveraign and made contract too with one another in some such implied Sense that A. confers hiâ— Right to Power and Government upon B. as Supream Governor upon Condition that C. does so too upon the same Person now to put it in the terms of our own Law the Subjects A. and C. here are both mutual Obligors and Obligees to one another and both Obligors to B. the Soveraign Obligee Now 't is certain that A. cannot recal this power he has confer'd on B. without the consent of C. his joint Obligor but iâ— must be with a breach of Covenant to his Fellow Subject as well as of Faith and contract to B. his Soveraign and this mutual Obligation between two to a third will extend as well to two Millions And I hope we may make at length â—he terms of our Law plead Loyally tho I 've heard an eminent Council at the Bar but commonly for none of the best Clyents Assert Loyalty to be nothing else but an adhering to the Letter of the Law with this good Innuendo as if that would contradict the common Acceptation of the word among the Royalists who make it to signifie an Asserting the King's Prerogative whereas in their Law French they would confine the word Loyalty to express nothing else but bare Legality And be it so I believe they 'll be but little the better for the quaintness of the Criticism for I dare avow that he that will be truly legal in their Sense must be as heartily Loyal in ours for nothing we see runs higher the Royal Prerogative then that The King's Prerogative part of the com Law very Law by which they would run it down But to come to the Nature of this political Contract this Stipulation of Monarchy as they would make it which will be better exprest in the Language of a Civilian when the Subject it self is about Civil Government and an Imperial Crown In this Case rhere is also a Convention as they call it of two Parties the Subject and he that is to be the Soveraign one upon such a contract stipulates to Govern the other to obey Now in such Stipulations it is a receiv'd Rule that no man stipulates but for himself and that there is no Obligation arises D. 45. 1. 38. from any one 's promising another Mans Deed so that every single Subject Alteri stipulari nemo potest nemo promitendo alienum factum obligatur Zouch Element pars 3. §. 8. Vid. Inst lib. 3. c. 19. must in Person here as I've said have made such a Subjection to that Authority to which he submitted if this their Convention and Contract with their King can be supposed and then by the same Rule every man must in his proper Person come and retract his Obedience before this Right to Govern can be absolutely Dissolv'd tho 't is the Opinion too of these sort of Lawyers that what is promised by Subjects to the publick which in a Monarchy is always represented in the King can't be revok'd D. 50. 12. 3. by them no not tho they have reason to repent of their promise and if this shall hold him tho without any Consideration or Cause and tho it be but of a Gift to the publick use much more then D. 50. 12. 1. will it oblige him in his promised Faith and Allegiance But here in this Case there is not only a Stipulation between the Soveraign and every
and in the Mines If we must be put upon such a piece of Impertinence as the Postscript would have it to find out this King Adam 's Court too I 'll just take the Liberty to put them to just such another task They will have their instituted Common-wealth to Commence from the World 's in sancy even before that of Israel before that Moses as they say had divided their Plat. p. â—â— Land unto them by Lot and turned the several Tribes into so many Republicks And then let them tell me what sort of a Republick it was that the Patriarchs liv'd under and were ruled by where it was that Abraham and his Fellow Citizens consulted to make Laws for the Benefit of the Common-wealth of his Family so great that his train'd Servants 318 fought 4 Kings where it was that Lot and his Herds-men when they pitch'd their Tents in the Plain set up Stadtho their use and commenced Burgomasters if in those days there was any Government purely Democratical that is lewdly Licentious it must have been seen in the Cities and Towns of those times some Sodom or Gomorrah yet even Gen. c. 14. verse 2. there the Text tells us Bera was King of the one and Birsha of the other let them tell us where Isaac when he settled in the Valley of Gerar set up his Servants for Senators tho he was grown so great since they will have it so in the Common-wealth of his Houseshold that a mighty King of those times Gen. C. 26. whom the Text expresly calls so Abimilech told him that he was much mightier than he and the Philistines envyed and feared him too for it Let them tell us how Jacob liv'd in the Republick of his Sons and Servants in Succoth tho such a numerous train that they could venture to invade the City of the Shechemites inhabited by the Subjects of Hamor the Hivite whom the Scripture calls the Prince of the Country and sure these Patriarchs were somewhat more than the ordinary Page 32. Fathers of Families as Plato would make them when their Forces were so great and their strength so formidable that they fought Kings and were feared by Princes And now let them prove that this paternal Power of these ‖ One of their Republicans much countenances the Notion of Kings being but Fathers or Fathers Kings Prisci Reges vocabantur Abimilech quod Hibraice sonat Pater meus Rex Jun. Brut-Vindiciae Quest 3. Patriarchal Kings was no more than that of a Burgher in the Town of Antsterdam or that the Cities that were several of them then erected and where the sacred writ expresly says Kings and Princes Reign'd that those were nothing else but as perfect Republicks as Venice Genove or the united Provinces in the Netherlands And cannot our Seditious Souls be convinc'd that this their Patriarchal Power was Monarchical unless we can prove every patriarch a Crown'd King should we oblige them to make out their same Common-wealths of those days after the same manner their Modern ones are now Establish'd they would be put to find out in those primitive times some general revolt of a Rebellious people from their Lawful prince For that was the first Foundation of their fam'd Republick pag. 25 26. in the Low-Countries as Mr. Sidney himself will allow tho against common Sense and Reason he cannot let it be called a Rebellion And also is it not one thing to say a paternal Right was once Monarchical but must it make all Monarchs to Rule by a paternal Right conquest of the Sword grounded upon a good pretence of Right is what a great many Kings claim by a long series of Successive Monarchs makes the Title of a great many more as much unquestionable and yet I cannot see why Monarchy may not still be said to have been first founded in a paternal Right tho the claims to Soveraign power since in such several Kingdoms and Nations where it is now Establish'd are of as several sorts too as there are Subjects that have submitted to be govern'd by it It is a pleasant sort of Diversion to see Mr. Hunt Harangue out half of his Tretise in an impertinent pains to prove the Father of every Family at present not to be the King of it we would have granted it him quietly and the postulate should have been his own in peace without raising upon his War of Words and the thundering charge that he gives Postscr p. 100. this Opinion of puzzl'd senseless vain unlearned paradox For once every parent shall not be a Crown'd Head and every City but a Common-wealth of Kings for that is all they must contend against and then what 's the Contention but just about nothing but that parents have nothing in them that is Analogous to a Monarchical power that they have no Right to govern those very Children He that but curseth his Father shall dye Levit. C. 20. V. 9. they have begot as this Gentleman with his mighty performances thinks he has perfectly prov'd that I think will be found at last to be the greater paradox if not a perfect Lye For first the very Deut. 2. verse 18. decalogue declares the contrary And the command we have to Honour our Father and Mother implies an Authority that they have that requires Obedience by the Levitical the Laws of the Jews the Rebellious Son was to be ston'd to Death and if the very Bible can call it Rebellion Certainly it must suppose some power against which he could Rebel And what does Mr. Hunt who himself admits of this say to the refuting the very Objection that he raises why he says this was an unnatural severity permitted the offended parent that is an unnatural severity commanded by the very God of Nature For all those their Laws were so many Divine precepts for the regulating his own Theocracy and the very Text tells us this exemplary punishment of Dissobedience to parents was shown that Israel might fear i. e. fear those parents in whom the Almighty's Law had lodged such a power and then if we consider it in the Abstract from any positive Law of God or Divine precept if we look upon it in a pure natural State as the result of Generation for all whatever the postscript impertinently suggests with his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and all the distracted noise that he makes with the procreation work being such an Act of Affection and mere impetus of Love I cannot see why by that darling work that delights Mr. Hunt so much the power of governing those very Children he has begot should be superseded The Gentleman among his many Malancholy moods had it seems some pleasant Fancies For in effect he tells us no more than this that Coition being an Act of Love to the Mother the Government over the Child that she bares him must by no means be call'd a power and if this be not indeed a puzzl'd senseless Opinion I submit to persons that abound
with more sense and if it have the least shadow of a consequence I will forfeit all my Right to Reason might it not be as well infer'd too that every Father that chastises his froward Child is an absolute Tyrant because that sort of severity savors of Anger and fury but the Generation work obliged him never to exercise it because that was an Act of extream Love But besides that precept in the Decalogue Honouring our Parents is an Eternal Law of Nature engraven in our Hearts as well as it was in the two Tables of Stone and whereever there is a Natural Veneration there is at the same time an imply'd subjection for those we always reverence most to whom we are most Subjected I know there are inferior Objects upon which many times we place our affection and may in some sense be said to have for them an Esteem but that cannot be properly call'd Honour but is better exprest by the Name of Love and this is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Friends have for one another tho they are Equals or Parents to their Children tho Subject to their power but if we consider the word Honouring it self which in all the Versions of the Decalouge is still render'd so as if it would remember us of the subjection we owe to those we are commanded to Honour that very word it self implys Power in the Person that is to be Honoured for if we abstract our selves from any prepossessions and Engagements of Love we still find we still Honor those most that are also most in power thus our Nobility are respected by us as Honourable because they are in great places of Power and Trust And our King more Honoured by us agen because the very Fountain of Power it self and lastly what strikes us more into a Venerable Horror of the Majesty of Heaven but that awful attribute of his being Almighty so that uncorrupted Nature it self from the Rules of Common gratitude obliges us to Honour our Parents as well as the express precept of the Divine will and then by Consequence Subjects us to those whom we are requir'd to respect so much and esteem for Nature as it never according to the Maxim of the Naturalists in Philosophy is said to do any Plato himself not the Redivivus allows those that beget to Rule over what they have begotton thing Foolishly or in vain so neither will it require any thing that is so from others to be done and therefore there is no Natural Law that obliges us to Honour our Servants and those that are subjected to our Power but the very Act it self would seem preposterous awkward and unnatural And this agrees even with the very Vis lex nature semper in ditionae parentum esse liberos Jussit Plin. Paneg notion of as Learned a Republican perhaps as ever publisht any thing Politicks for Aristotle that liv'd under a Common-wealth tho he had less I believe of its principles then our Seditious Souls that are Born Subjects to a King and sworn to be true to an Establisht Monarchy he to Confirm his opinion of the paternal Right which in several parts of his Politicks that Antient Heathen that vast Body of the Primitive Philosophy is pleas'd to maintain when he tells us that Families and Houses were at 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. first Govern'd after the manner of Kingdoms by the Eldest head in it that Cities were herteâ—fore as most Nations now are under the Goverment of Kings and then in another place in his Ethicks ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Rep. l. 1. c. 2. more Expresly to this purpose plainly says directly contrary to the Sense of Mr. H. and some of our Democraticks that have ador'd some part of his Political Observations †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ethic. lib. 8. c. 12. That an Empire or Monarchy or according to the Literal Greek a Kingdom will be a Paternal Government and one would think the Authority of such Antiquity should at least have prevail'd upon Mr. Hunt and his Historian not to have Libell'd the Hypothesis for Novel or new but agreeable to this his position does that wise Heathen define Honour in the same Sense as I have Suggested aboue i. e. that it does imply wherever it is paid a Power and Subjection in him that pays it for he makes all his Honour peculiarly properly in his ‖ Arlstot Polit. lib. 3. cap. 7. and then agen lib. 5. cap. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are the â—aâ—c that â—e expressâ—s in other places by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Politicks to signify nothing else but Empire and Magistracy and in other places by those that are in HONOR he understands the same persons whom at other times he dignifies with the Title and appellation of those that are in POWER which has made me many times think that as the Romans receiv'd the first rudiments of their Learning from the Greeks so they might retain some roots of their Language and mixt them among their own as we see among our selves those Modern Nations do at present that Correspond and then we may imagin since their Sense and Etymology is not so wide and irreconcilable that the Latinisms Timor and Timeo were but borrow'd from the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for whom we fear we must Honour and whom we Honour we fear I know that it is but a sorry sort of reverence that is the result of our being afraid but yet we oblige our selves to pay it tho it be but with reluctancy so that I can confirm the position I lay'd down and return to the very words of what was first asserted and that with none of the worst Syllogism in Logick a sort of Sorites or Gradual Climax i. e. Where ever there is any Natural Honor there always will be an awful fear and wherever there is any thing of awful fear it is of somewhat that has an absolute Power And then in my poor Apprehension it is almost as natural an inference in the Rules of Logick from the proposition of A being the Father of B that therefore he is his Lord and Master too as it is in the Common Conclusion that is made among Logicians of B's being an Animal from the Proposition that he is a man for tho Dominion be not absolutely exprest in the definition of a Father yet it is so apparently Imply'd that it makes an essential part of him from the Closeness of the Connexion neither can Mr. H. overthrow the notion with his Fruitless Labours about the sublim'd Love that exerts it self in the work of Generation for it is not the bare procreation that Entitles the Father to this Dominion for then the Mother too would at least have as great a Power over the Production being as much contributory to its being produc'd and for some reason more Right and Jurisdiction over her Infant as being the Fruit of her own
and the Dominion remained in the Child and such a Sense of Soveraignty do the Civilians express to reside in the Father of a Family that they gave him the same Appellation with that of a King and tell us by the name Appellatione Familiae etiam princeps familiae Continetur Zouch pars 3. §. 4. Dig. 50. 19. 196. of a Family the Prince of it is also understood and tho Mr. Hunt tells us a Story out of the Cabala of the Jews Laws and the Tract of Maimonides that they lookt upon their Children Emancipated of Course when they came to Thirteen and that then they could claim it as their right to be free I must tell him from the Constitutions of the Imperial that must be of more force among us unless we resolve still that even Christians shall Judaize that no Sons were ever emancipated or emitted out of the power of the Parent unless they could prevail upon him for his own consent that by no means he could be compell'd Neque naturalâ— liberi neque adoptivae ullo modo possunt cogere parentes de potestate suâ eos dimittere Iust 1. 12. 12. Vid. Jul. Pac. ibid. to it and they had no freedom de Jure till their Fathers were de facto dead And tho Pacius in his Comment on that part of the Institution says They became sui Juris at 25 from their Manner and Custome yet concludes the Law of Nature oblig'd them still to their Parent which no civil one could disanull The Duty that their ‖ D. 22. 3. Digests say was due to this Paternal power which they Insinuate almost as Sacred was exprest by the word piety and a * Ridley's part 4. C. 2. learn'd Civilian of our own laments that there is no more provisions made in our English Laws for the Duty of the Child and the protection of the Parent and with them so great was the crime of parricide that they could not a long time invent an adequate punishment for such an unproportionable Guilt tho they had one for Treason against the Prince And tho our own Laws do not make the Paternal power savour so much of Soveraignty yet we shall see they sufficiently evince that the Parent has a power very Analogous too it whereas Mr. Hunt will not allow it to have the least Relation which remisness of our Civil Institutions might well proceed from a presumption of our knowledge of the express command in the Decalogue of which the Romans were ignorant tho we have no formal ‖ Yet Servants were heretofore with us formally Emancipated Qui servum Liberat inmercato vel hil lumdredo Lanceam gladium quae liberorum sunt armâ in manibus ponat Lex H. 1. 78. Lamb. p. 206. Vid. Bract. l. 1. c. 10. Flet. l. 1. c. 7. Lex Aethelst 70. Lamb. p. 54. Emancipation now in use which does imply a power of Government yet our old Lawyer tells us still that Children are in the power of their Parents till they have extrafamiliated them by giving them some portion or Inheritance and the Custody of them while minors which afterward went to the King upon the presumption I suppose of his only ability to be a second Father that was settled in the Parent both by Common-Law and Statute for there lay a good action against any one for seducing a Mans Son as well as Servant out of his power which does imply that there is a power out of which he may be seduced and thus I have endeavor'd to shew the first Foundation of power to have been in the Fathers of Families And it signifies nothing whither every Father of it Reigns in it as a King now and therefore Mr. Hunt his impertinence is inconclusive and part of his Assertion a plainly Post p. 98. when he would infer from the continuance of the Parents Authority over their Children together with the Soveraign power distinct that therefore there was never any Foundation of a Patriarchal power for he might as well tell us That because we have no Parents now Si aliquis filiolum occideret ergaâ—um parentes mortui conjuncti re us est Lex Hen. 1. 79. Lamb. p. 207. And with this agrees the reviv'd practise among our moderns to bring Appeals but what are Subject to the Municipal Laws of the Land therefore there was never any Patriarch in the Bible never an Abraham an Isaac or a Jacob that had an absolute Dominion over their own Families or none now amongst some Barbarous Nations that have no other jurisdiction but what is Paternal the question is not what jurisdiction those Parents have that are Subjected to the Laws of a Civil Society but what they have by those of nature and 't is as absolute a lye when he says 't is not abated by the Soveraign power for were it not the Parent had a power over the life of his off-spring as the Patriarchs had of old and some Barbarous Nations that are at present unciviliz'd And for the Statute of the 25 which 25. Ed. 3. Mr. Hunt brings as an Argument against it because Parricide is not made by that petit Treason is as pertinent perhaps as if he had told us that every Father of a Family was not included in that of Edward the first that settles the Militia Ed. 1. in the King for sure 't is not possible to suspect how they can be considered as so many Soveraigns in the very Civil Sanctions that establish a much more Supream Soveraignity whose Supremacy in their several Families is founded on the Law of Nature tho we have seen that they are confirm'd too by the general Laws of Nations and the Hypothesis favour'd from our own But as it is impertinently applyd to this purpose so is it as falsely infer'd from that Statute for tho Parricide be omitted and the Judges by that act restrained to interpret its extent from the paty of reason or à Fortiori Coke 3. Ins p. 20. yet no Man in his senses can imagin that it was therefore omitted because there was no Relation of Subjection or Soveraignty between the Father and the Son when a Master and a Servant are exprest in the very Letter of the Law when a Prelate and a Priest a Husband and a Wife And is it not against Sense to imagin a Man has not as much Soveraignty over his Son as over his Wife that sits always with him as his Equal and to whom our Courtesie of England gives the Precedence and the Laws of the Land make but one as well as those of God and if the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Impetus of Love and Affection will supersede the Servitude and Subjection I think that by Mr. Hunt's leave is more abundantly exprest to the Wife especially in that point upon which he himself puts it the work of Generation And can it be imagin'd that even a regular or secular Priest whose Subjection to his Primate
have wisht a Fellow that had the Misfortune which he call'd Happiness to carry War and Confusion wherever he went We had several Protestants of our own Nation fled from a real Persecution of ou◠Zealous Queen to * Vid. Troubles at Frankfort Edit Ann. Dom. 1642. Frankfort a Town in Germany and there lived quietly with submission toward the Supream Magistrate till this Geneva Gentleman no sooner arrived but he sets all i◠Combustiom is accused of High Treason toward the Emperor for comparing him in Print ‖ Sanderson's History of King James p. 15. in some of Mr. Sidney's Similitudes to a Tarquin Nero Caligula for which he was forc'd to fly the Town and Post away to what could only bear with as well as breed such Vermin the Lake or their Commonwealth of Italy About the Year 1558 the Queen Regent of Scotland when the Reformation was but in the beginning as a special Act of Favour for so it must be call'd because then not only contrary to her own Religion but the Law of the Land allow'd the Congregators which were Conventiclers then too as well as now because the general Worship establisht was not theirs the Bible in their own Language But they no way contented with an Act of Grace from the Crown and Instigated by this Incendiary this Scandal of the Reformation Knox that had taught them they might Demand with their Swords what was deny'd them by Law fell a reviling her even for such a signal favour and when she sent for some of the more furious of the Faction they came all attended with a multitude of Favourites and Force that for her Preservation she was compell'd to Command them to depart And the best of Governors might well fear the worst from such an audacious Assembly but this was so much the more offensive to them only because they were Commanded to offend her less that they throng'd into her Privy Chamber threatned her with their Arms till she was constrained to pleasure them against Law And as they then menac'd a Force so they afterward made it good with as much violence for away they went pulling down Monasteries and * St. Andrew's Scone Sterling Edenburg c. Spotswood pag. 123 124. Churches and seconding their Sedition with what could only succeed it Sacrilege that is from Traytors to their Soveraign to be Rebels to their God And this by that Sanctified Beast that invited them to debase themselves to Brutes to be divested of Humanity was call'd a Purging of the Temple as if our Saviour Christ had countenanced an Extirpation of the Religion of some Christians But though the Queen at last granted them the free and publick exercise of their Religion though at last she only begg'd the private use of her own that was by such Seditious Subjects thought a boon too great to be begg'd by their Soveraign they Protest against it Preach against it Print against it and Assault her House of Worship break the Wax Candles with the Windows of her Chappel force their Queen Regent to fly to Dunbar and then as fairly Depos'd her for being fled though at the same time they profest against her Deposition And if we 'll believe a Loyal and Learned * Sanderson p. 31. Author they proceeded so far in their petulant piece of Reformation that they Religiously Reform'd the very Petticoats of the Queen and the Ladies of the Court which they look'd upon as too fine for the plainness or simplicity of the Kirk How near our present Pretenders that have taken Arms for the Protestant Religion will tread in the steps of their Reforming Predecessors must be Collected from the Precedents they give us of their being but Implacable Republicans especially when we have nothing now to be Reform'd unless what they deny'd to the Grandmother of our present Soveraign that their King himself shall not be indulg'd to exercise by himself the Religion he professes at the same time he Protests to defend all his Subjects in the establish'd Profession of theirs The Actions of the late Rebel Scot of the last Age they say squinted like their Argyle that headed them working one way when they profest to design another and they might have had as much reason to distrust the Promises of his late Declaration the Sincerity of his Son that succeeded him even in a Rebellion In the Year 1565 when the Queen of Scots was married to Henry Stewart Lord Darnly The Rebel-Lords instigated from the Preachings and Principles of this Knox the Ferguson of his Age who rail'd at the Government and reflected upon the King be took themselves to Arms and brake into open Rebellion Lord Darnly upon this Match being proclaim'd King marcht against the Rebels who fled into England and though through Intercession this Rebellious Business was Reconcil'd yet within two Years after the King was barbarously Butcher'd and Dispatcht but by whom because their Historians do not agree in it can be only best determined by Conjecture and must probably lye at their Doors that could Rebel against their Sovereign in an open War and then sure as likely to set upon Him in a secret Assassination especially when their Principles instructed them in both and their Preachers had made the Murder of their King an Oblation to their God And besides when they rebell'd also against Bothwell the Queens second Husband too as well as the first whom they forc'd to fly into Denmark seiz'd on the forsaken Queen secur'd her in an * Isle of Lochlevin Island compell'd her to resign her Crown and if we 'll credit an Authentick * Sanders History of K. James pag. 52. Historian were not so well satisfied with her Resignation of her Sovereignty but that they consulted too to deprive her of her Life and very likely to have prevented her loving Cousin Elizabeth in England Upon the same Principles the same Seditious Daemocraticks proceeded against her Son and Successor that was afterward our own Sovereign K. James then a young Prince about 12 Years old whom they †Vid. Spotwoods Hist p. 323 324. seiz'd at Ruthen carried in Triumph and Constraint to Edenburgh from which he was forc'd to contrive an Escape which he made by the Means of Collonel Stewart a Captain of his Guards but shortly afterward * An. 1503. incited by the Seditious Insinuations of their Geneva Principles brought them home fresh hot and reeking with Blood and Rebellion by one Melvill that had come from thence but a few years before to supply not only Knox's stock of treasonable Positions but to succeed him in his Place of an implacable Incendiary his Predecessor expiring a Year or two before he came over by this Factious Fellow 's and his Associates Seducements did I say shortly after the Earl of Gowry conspire against the King and break out into an open Rebellion which he deservedly suffered for with the loss of his Head Then is this succeeded by Bothwells Rebellion who had contriv'd