all others besides themselves are to be excluded from Governing or chusing of Governours And amongst the ungodly that are to be thus excluded he reckons all those that will not hearken to their Pastours he means the Presbyterian Classis or that are despisers of the Lord's-Day that is all such as are not Sabbatarians or will not keep the Lord's day after the Jewish manner which they prescribe and which is condemned for Judaism by all even of the Presbyterian perswasion in the world but those of England and Scotland onely XV. If a People that by Oath and Duty are obliged to a Sovereign shall sinfully dispossess him and contrary to their Covenants chuse and Covenant with another they may be obliged by their latter Covenant notwithstanding their former and particular subjects that consented not in the breaking of their former Covenants may yet be obliged by occasion of their latter choice to the person whom they chuse Thes. 181. XVI If a Nation injuriously deprive themselves of a worthy Prince the hurt will be their own and they punish themselves but if it be necessarily to their welfare it is no injury to him But a King that by war will seek reparations from the body of the people doth put himself into an hostile State and tells them actually that he looks to his own good more than theirs and bids them take him for their Enemy and so defend themselves if they can Pag. 424. XVII Though a Nation wrong their King and so quoad Meritum causoe they are on the worser side yet may he not lawfully war against the publick good on that account nor any help him in such a war because propter fiuem he hath the worser cause Thes. 352. And yet as he tells us pag 476. we were to believe the Parliaments Declarations and professions which they made that the war which they raised was not against the King either in respect of his Authority or of his Person but onely against Delinquent Subjects and yet they actually fought against the King in person and we are to believe saith Mr. Baxter pag. 422. that men would kill them whom they fight against Mr. Baxter's Doctrine concerning the Government of England in particular HE denies the Government of England to be Monarchical in these words I. The real Sovereignty here amongst us was in King Lords and Commons Pag. 72. II. As to them that argue from the Oath of Supremacy and the title given the King I refer them saith Mr. Baxter to Mr. Lawson's answer to Hobbs's Politicks where he sheweth that the Title is often given to the single Person for the honour of the Commonwealth and his encouragement because he hath an eminent interest but will not prove the whole Sovereignty to be in him and the Oath excludeth all others from without not those whose interest is implied as conjunct with his The eminent dignity and interest of the King above others allowed the name of a Monarchy or Kingdom to the Commonwealth though indeed the Sovereignty was mixed in the hands of the Lords and Commons Pag. 88. III. He calls it a false supposition 1. That the Sovereign power was onely in the King and so that it was an absolute Monarchy 2 That the Parliament had but onely the proposing of Laws and that they were Enacted onely by the King's Authority upon their request 3. That the power of Arms and of War and Peace was in the King alone And therefore saith he those that argue from these false suppositions conclude that the Parliament being Subjects may not take up Arms without him and that it is Rebellion to resist him and most of this they gather from the Oath of Supremacy and from the Parliaments calling of themselves his Subjects but their grounds saith he are sandy and their superstructure false Pag. 459 460. And therefore Mr. Baxter tells us that though the Parliament are Subjects in one capacity yet have they their part in the Sovereignty also in their higher capacity Ibid. And upon this false and traitorous supposition he endeavours to justifie the late Rebellion and his own more than ordinary activeness in it For IV. Where the Sovereignty saith he is distributed into several hands as the King 's and Parliaments and the King invades the others part they may lawfully defend their own by war and the Subject lawfully assist them yea though the power of the Militia be expresly given to the King unless it be also exprest that it shall not be in the other Thes. 363. The conclusion saith he needs no proof because Sovereignty as such hath the power of Arms and of the Laws themselves The Law that saith the King shall have the Militia supposeth it to be against Enemies and not against the Commonwealth nor them that have part of the Sovereignty with him To resist him here is not to resist power but usurpation and private will in such a case the Parliament is no more to be resisted than he Ibid. V. If the King raise War against such a Parliament upon their Declaration of the dangers of the Common-wealth the people are to take it as raised against the Commonwealth Thes. 358. And in that case saith he the King may not onely be resisted but ceaseth to be a King and entreth into a state of War with the people Thes. 368. VI. Again if a Prince that hath not the whole Sovereignty be conquered by a Senate that hath the other part and that in a just defensive War that Senate cannot assume the whole Sovereignty but supposeth that government in specie to remain and therefore another King must be chosen if the former be incapable Thes. 374. as he tells us he is by ceasing to be King in the immediately precedent Thes. VII And yet in the Preface to this Book he tells us that the King withdrawing so he calls the murthering of one King and the casting off of another the Lords and Commons ruled alone was not this to change the species of the Government Which in the immediate words before he had affirmed to be in King Lords and Commons which constitution saith he we were sworn and sworn and sworn again to be faithfull to and to defend And yet speaking of that Parliament which contrary to their Oaths changed this Government by ruling alone and taking upon them the Supremacy he tells us that they were the best Governours in all the world and such as it is forbidden to Subjects to depose upon pain of damnation What then was he that deposed them one would think Mr. Baxter should have called him a Traitour but he calls him in the same Preface the Lord Protector adding That he did prudently piously faithfully and to his immortal honour exercise the Government which he left to his Son to whom as Mr. Baxter saith pag. 484. he is bound to submit as set over us by God and to obey for conscience sake and to behave himself as a Loyal Subject towards him
Neither indeed doth Grotius propose them to infer any such conclusion but rather to establish the contrary as appears plainly by the words immediately preceding which are these Diximus summum Imperium tenentibus resisti jure non posse nunc quoedam sunt quoe Lectorem monere debemus nè putet in hanc legem delinquere eos qui reverà non delinquunt that is We have said saith he that is we have positively affirmed or concluded that those that have the Supreme Power may not lawfully be resisted but now we are to give the Reader a Caveat that he may not think those to be transgressours of this Law who indeed are not or that to be a transgression of this Law which indeed is not And then he proposeth all the aforesaid Instances as seeming to be but not being indeed inconsistent with the Law as he calls it of not resisting the Supreme Power wheresoever it is placed or whosoever they be that are invested with it that Law of not resisting the Supreme Power being the very foundation upon which all Humane Societies of all kinds are built and superstructed and the Palladium The pledge of security whereby they are preserved in their several forms or constitutions so that from or against this Law there lies no exception nor any dispensation with it by any humane Authority upon any pretence either of Civil or Religious Interest or upon any either pretended or real Grievance of the Subject by their Sovereign in any kind or degree whatsoever CHAP. XVII Several other Reasons to prove the Vnlawfulness of resisting in any Case whatsoever The Holy League in France and our late Rebellion brought in by way of Parallel ANd the Reasons for this besides what hath been already produced out of Scripture are First Because the object of humane Prudence in the constitution of humane Societies and Kingdoms or Commonwealths is not to prevent all such Grievances as possibly may be no nor all such as considering the pravity and perversness of humane nature ordinarily will be and of necessity must be even in the best constituted and best managed State or humane Society whatsoever For as St. Paul saith Oportet esse Hoereses There must be Heresies in the Church not as if it were not better there were none but because as long as men are men that is such cross-grain'd creatures and of such different Morals and Intellectuals from one another as they are there cannot chuse but be some Heresies in the Church so and for the very same reason oportet esse gravamina there must be that is there cannot chuse but be Grievances in the Civil State or Common-wealth also And therefore the object of humane prudence seeing it cannot prevent or provide against all evils that may or will be in all States it is as much as may be to prevent or provide against those that are the greatest rather than the lesser and those that are likely to happen often rather than those that are not likely to happen at all or very seldome and those that are inconsistent with the being rather than those that are inconsistent with the well-being onely of a State or Body Politick For as in the body natural so in the body Politick no remedy is to be prescribed or applyed that is worse than the disease And therefore Secondly Any gravamina nay all the gravamina or grievances that Subjects can suffer under their Sovereign are to be endured rather than they are to rebell or to rise up in Arms against him because that will be the cause of more and greater evils than any of these are or can be against which it can be made use of for a remedy For no Tyranny can be so bad as Anarchy and any Government how Tyrannical soever is better than none And therefore it was the saying of one of the wisest Statesmen that ever was in the World Iniquissimam pacem justissimo bello antefero I prefer said he the most injurious Peace that is such a peace wherein men are obnoxious to the greatest injuries before the most just War he means the most just Civil War or such a Civil War as may seem to have the justest or most justifiable causes for it because indeed any Civil War upon what grounds or pretences soever it be undertaken puts the whole body of the Commonwealth into a much worse condition than it can be under any Government or any Governours whatsoever For whilst there is a Government though neverso unjust or injurious there is some authority and execution of Laws for the protection of the innocent if not of the Subjects against the Sovereign yet of the Subjects against one another but Silent leges inter arma When rebellion is up there is no safety for any man against any man not for Fathers against their Children nor for Brethren against Brethren Non hospes ab hospite tutus One friend is not safe from another To conclude Rebellion is the ingagement of the whole body of the Commonwealth against it self and will if it be not suppressed make it at length Felo de se A murtherer of it self and to end either in the desolation or dissolution of it self So that whereas all other evils are but prejudicial to the well-being This I mean Rebellion or a rebellious Civil War is always in its tendency though not always perhaps in the event destructive to the very Being of all States and Humane Societies whatsoever and consequently to the peace and welfare of Subjects as well as Sovereigns that is to all and every one of mankind And therefore this being the greatest of all Evils it is never to be made use of to prevent or redress any that are less and consequently never to be made use of at all because all other evils incident to a Body Politick are less than this and that not onely taken singly but jointly also And yet Thirdly there is one Reason more why in humane prudence and according to the dictates of right reason the Rebellion of Subjects against their Sovereign ought not to be allowed no not though possibly it might so happen that humanely speaking there could be no other way or means to preserve the very Being of the Body Politick as for example in one of the aforesaid Instances or Cases which is put by Grotius but put by him as hardly credible supposing there should be such a King as would profess so implacable a hatred to his Subjects that he would if he could destroy them all and that he will endeavour to doe so The question is whether because possibly there may be such a Case there ought not to be some exception from the aforesaid general Rule of the unlawfulness of Subjects taking up of Arms to resist their Sovereign in any case whatsoever I answer No and that not onely because St. Paul in his prohibition to resist the Supreme Power hath made no such exception though one of the Supreme Powers whom he
to Jews and Gentiles by the Apostles so was it believed and practised by the Primitive Christians who followed herein the example of Christ their head of whom as it was foretold by the Prophets so it is recorded by the Evangelists that he was oppressed and he was afflicted yet as a sheep before the shearer is dumb so he opened not his mouth but without murmuring or contradiction submitted himself to the sentence of an unjust Judge and patiently endured the execution of it leaving to us an Example as St. Peter tells us of suffering as he did without resisting those that are in authority though they use it or abuse it unjustly and injuriously and though it be in our power to resist it as I am sure it was in Christ's And herein I say the first and best of his Disciples follow'd his example I mean the Primitive Christians of the three first Ages that is all the while they were subject to Heathen and Tyrannical and persecuting Princes and yet we do not reade that ever they did so much as make any the least doubt of the right those Tyrannical and persecuting Princes had to govern them much less did they upon the pretence of those Princes having forfeited their Right to their Government ever take up arms either offensive or defensive against any of them as no doubt they might and would have done if they had thought or had been taught that those Princes had either had no right to govern them because they were unlimited or that they had forfeited the Right they had because they were Tyrants For it was not out of Stupidity or because they were insensible of their sufferings neither was it out of Pusillanimity or want of courage to encounter with their enemies though never so numerous for how could they that did not fear death the most painfull and tormenting death fear any thing that men could doe unto them nor lastly was it Weakness or want of power to make resistance or to defend themselves against their persecuting Princes that was the cause they did not as not onely Bellarmine and other Papists but many of those that call and think themselves to be the best of Protestants are not ashamed to say it was but mere Conscience of their duty to God in obeying even such Princes as those were by doing whatsoever they commanded which God had not forbidden willingly and chearfully and by suffering meekly and patiently whatsoever they did wrongfully inflict upon them for not obeying them when they could not obey them and God too as it undeniably appears by those Apologies that were made in the name of all the Primitive Christians of those times by Justin Martyr Tertullian Athenagoras and others who all of them tell their persecuting Emperours that it was not for want of force or courage but merely for conscience sake and because their Religion had forbidden them to doe so that they did not take up Arms to defend themselves against those Powers that God had set over them though the power they received from God were never so ill used or abused by them Which having made appear from Precepts of Scripture and from the Practice of those Precepts by the Primitive Christians one would think there need no more to be said to justifie my exception against this Aphorism of Mr. Baxter's as being contrary to what was taught by Christ and his Apostles and what was practised by the first and best of their Disciples CHAP. VII The Revolt of the ten Tribes from Rehoboam if it were by special commission no warrant to us BUt yet because there is something in the Old Testament which is the word of God as well as the New which may seem to favour Mr. Baxter's opinion namely That Tyrants have no right to their Government or that Sovereign Princes by becoming Tyrants do lose or forfeit the right they had unto their Government we will consider what can be alledged out of the Old Testament to prove that Assertion There is no such Law I am sure nor no such positive declaration of God's Will that a King or Sovereign Prince ceases to be a king or Sovereign when he is or because he is a Tyrant or that his Subjects shall cease to be his Subjects or cease to acknowledge and obey him as their Sovereign upon that account or indeed upon any other account whatsoever much less is there any thing said in the Old Testament to warrant or justifie the deposing of Sovereign Princes by their Subjects upon any pretence of male administration of their Government in any kind or any degree And therefore if there were never so many Examples or Instances in matter of fact to the contrary they would never prove the thing it self to be lawfull But indeed there is but one Instance or Example in the whole Old Testament appliable to this purpose and that is that of Rehoboam from whom the ten Tribes revolted for but threatning he would oppress them more than his Father had done Now from this one Example onely there be some that do conclude that Subjects in case of Tyranny and oppression by their Sovereigns especially if there be otherwise no hope of their being eased or freed from it may lawfully doe as the ten Tribes did revolt from them and set up others to reign over them But as à facto ad jus non valet argumentum From matter of fact to matter of right is no good consequence so neither à semel facto ad semper sic faciendum From a thing 's having been once done to have it alway so done is no good consequence neither So that supposing but not granting that it was lawfull for Jeroboam and the Ten tribes to doe as they did because Jeroboam had been formerly told by the Prophet Ahljah That God would give him those ten Tribes to reign over them and because God himself speaking of the revolting of the ten Tribes from Rehoboam saith expressly that the thing was from him supposing I say that upon these considerations this fact of Jeroboam's and the ten Tribes in revolting from Rehoboam and setting up Jeroboam in his stead to reign over them had been no Rebellion of the People against their lawfull Sovereign but an execution of God's command against him who though he was their Sovereign was but God's Subject and therefore might be punished by him when and how and by whom and to what degree he pleased as having forfeited to him for his own and Father's sins all the power and dominion he had over his Subjects as derived from him and held of him and that but durante bene placito During his good pleasure onely what I say if upon such considerations as these that particular fact of Jeroboam and the ten Tribes were justifiable would it follow that any other Subject or Subjects without such a special or particular Commission from God as they had might doe as they did Would it not
If therefore the Law hath its obliging power which is its form or that which makes it to be Law from the King and the King only the King and the King only must needs be the efficient and sole efficient cause of Law and consequently the whole Legislative power must needs be in him only unless Mr. Baxter can prove that the two Houses of Parliament can of themselves and by their own Authority only make their Bills to be Laws or at least that they joyn with the King in making them to be so For if it be the Kings own arbitrary consent only which makes that to be a Law which was no Law before he consented to it then must it needs be confessed that the King is the sole efficient of all Law and consequently the only Law-giver in his own Kingdom according to the determination of the very learned judicious and truly pious and conscientious Casuist Doctor Sanderson Bishop of Lincoln who in his Lecture de Legum humanarum causâ efficiente speaking of our King hath these very weighty and remarkable words Cùm illa sola censenda sit cujusque rei causa efficiens principalis sufficiens quae per se immediatè producit in materiam praeparatam introducit eam formam quae illi rei dat nomen esse etsi ad productionem istius effectûs alia etiam concurrere oporteat vel antecedere potiùs ad praevias dispositiones quò materia ad recipiendam formam ab agente intentam aptior reddatur omninò constat quotcunque demùm ea sint quae ad legem recte constituendam antecedenter requiruntur voluntatem tamen principis ex cujus unius arbitratu jussione omnes Legum Rogationes aut ratae habentur aut irritae esse solam adaequatam publicarum Legum efficientem causam Seeing saith he that is to be held the principal efficient and sufficient cause of every thing which of it self and immediately produceth and introduceth into the matter prepared for it that form which giveth name and being to that thing though for the producing of that effect other things also must concur or rather precede as previous dispositions to make the matter fitter to receive the form intended by the Agent to be introduced into it it is certain for all that how many soever the things are that are antecedently requisite for the constituting of the Law the Will of the Prince on whose alone arbitrary consent or dissent the ratifying or rejecting of such Laws as are tendred unto him doth depend is the sole and adequate efficient cause of all publick Laws This I say was the judgment of that very learned pious and very judicious Casuist Dr. Sanderson concerning the only proper adequate subject of the Legislative power here in England who was Professor of Casuistical Divinity in the University of Oxford as long as the Rebellious Parliament would suffer him to be so and who would in all probability if he might have been suffered to have continued some few years longer have left us a truer and more exact and compleat body of Casuistical Divinity than any the World hath been so happy as to see yet and in which the World hath more need to be truly and thoroughly instructed in order to peace here and happiness hereafter than in any other part either of Polemical or Dogmatical Divinity the Essentials of the Creed excepted only But that very reason it was for which the Vsurpers of the Regal power in those times would not suffer so vigorously an Opposer and so strongly and clearly a Convincer of that Trayterous and Tyrannical Vsurpation of theirs to be a publick Professor and Standard of that truth which they were concern'd the People should be kept ignorant of or made to believe the contrary as they were by such Preachers as they who could not endure sound Doctrine heaped up unto themselves after their own Lusts and by such Casuists and Writers of Political Aphorisms as Mr. Baxter was whose business it was to make the People believe the Vsurpation of an Arbitrary power and Tyranny to be an Holy Common-wealth for such was the Government here which Mr. Baxter in his Preface to that Book of his calls the best Government in all the World affirming those that were then the Governours namely the two Houses of Parliament without the King not only to have a part of the Supremacy or Soveraignty but to have all the Supremacy or whole Soveraignty and therefore such as whom to resist or depose is forbidden saith he to Subjects upon pain of damnation They are his own words in the before-cited place which one would think were hardly to be reconciled with what he affirms in the place we are now examining viz. That the Supremacy or Soveraignty is divided betwixt the King and them and consequently that they have not the Supremacy but a part of it only But for answer to this Objection perhaps he will say as indeed in effect he doth say that although before the War betwixt the King and them they had but a part of the Soveraignty only yet the King having by force endeavour'd to take their part from them and being overcome by them he had lost his own part which jure belli by right of War did accrue to them and so they became the Possessors of the whole Soveraignty though the King was then living But he had ceased to be King saith Mr. Baxter because he had entred into a state of War with his People and consequently by Mr. Baxter's Logick had lost his part of the Soveraignty But who was to have his part of the Soveraignty supposing him to be justly deprived of it Those that had the other part of it by whom he was conquered No saith Mr. Baxter for if saith he a Prince that hath not the whole Soveraignty be conquered by a Senate that hath the other part and that in a just defensive War that Senate cannot assume the whole Soveraignty but supposeth that Government in specie to remain and therefore another King must be chosen if the former be incapable CHAP. IV. Mr. B. 's high strain in commending those for the best Governors in all the World whom yet he owns to be Intruders and Vsurpers His compliance with Richard remarkt His high commendation tax'd and challenged The Recapitulation WHat he means by the last words of this Thesis viz. Another King must be chosen if the former be incapable I know not unless he means that the former King though he had lost his part in the Soveraignty and ceased to be King by being conquered by the Parliament in a just War yet he might be capable of being King again if the Parliament thought fit to choose him which having used him as they had done Mr. Baxter no doubt wished as heartily as he thought it likely they would do But whatsoever Mr. Baxter meant by these last words of this Thesis
felt of late whilst the Presbytery exercised in Scotland and in England laid claim to the same power For indeed Popery and Presbytery though they look divers ways with their Heads yet they are tied together like Samson's Foxes by their Tayles carrying the same Firebrands of combustion wheresoever they come I mean the same Principles of Sedition and Rebellion against Soveraign Princes and Estates if they will not be ruled by them And therefore as our Kings Predecessors to redeem themselves and their People from the slavery of the Papacy did wisely and couragiously drive out Popery so it is not to be doubted but his Majesty that now is to prevent the same or a worse bondage to the Consistory will with the same wisdom and courage keep out the Presbytery as being indeed where it governs in chief as it would do wheresoever it is a bondage by so much worse and more ignominious than Popery by how much worse it is to be subject to many Tyrants than to one and by how much less it is ignominious for a King to be a Vassal to a foreign Prince than to all or any of his own Subjects But thanks be to God we have no reason to fear that either our King or Parliament will ever think of introducing either Popery or Presbytery to be predominant here amongst us having had so sensible an experience formerly of the one and lately of the other especially being already possessed as we are of such an Ecclesiastical Government as was instituted by Christ and his Apostles universally received and approved by the Primitive Christians and by Law established amongst our selves a Government pretending to no power at all above the King nor to no power under the King neither but from him and by him and for him a Government enjoyning active obedience to all lawful commands of lawful Authority and passive obedience when we cannot obey actively forbidding and condemning all taking up of Arms offensive or defensive by Subjects of any quality or in any capacity against their Soveraign whatsoever he be either in regard of his Intellectuals or his Morals or his Religion in any case upon any pretence or upon any provocation whatsoever Finally such a Government as hath no relation to any foreign Prince or State to protect or assist it from abroad nor any foundation in the Body of the Common People to rise up for it or with it at home but having all its dependence under God upon the Crown and all its security in and by the Law and consequently if at any time it happens to transgress against either as some times by the faults or frailties of particular men I will not deny but it may yet even then or in that case it will easily be corrected and reduced into order and that by the ordinary course of Justice without charging the Subject or endangering the Peace of the Kingdom by levying a War to suppress it and without fear of an Invasion from abroad or an Insurrection at home in defence of it which cannot in the same case be probably affirmed of either of the former Having therefore such an excellent constitution of Government both Civil and Ecclesiastical as we have and both of them by Law established that which we have to do in the first place is to be thankful to God for it who hath not dealth so with any other Nation and then not only to live quietly and peaceably and contentedly under it for the present but to do what we can in our several places and stations for the upholding and perpetuating of it that our Posterity may have cause to bless God for it and for us also And to that end in the first place to mark those as the Apostle advises us that make divisions amongst us by libelling the Government either of the Church or State either in their Pamphlets or in their Pulpits and to mark them so as to set a Mark upon them as men not to be followed but avoided by us though they pretend never so much care of us or kindness to us For such as these they were who as the Apostle tells us in the aforesaid place did then as these do now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple And the way not to be deceived by them is not to hearken to them by resorting to their illegal Conventicles and forsaking our own Legal Assemblies and Congregations as the manner of some is Hebr. 10. 25. And what manner of Men those are that do so another Apostle tells us They are murmurers complainers walking after their own Lusts and their mouth speaketh great swelling words having mens Persons in admiration because of advantage Whereunto to compleat the Character of them he adds These he they that separate themselves sensual not having the Spirit which is as much as if he had said though there be none that do more or do so much pretend to purity or having the Spirit as the Separatists do the only cause of their separation being as some of them say the sensuality and want of the Spirit in those from whom they separate yet indeed the cause of their separation is because themselves are sensual and have not the Spirit or because they know not what spirit they are of for as there be many kinds of Spirits so there be many kinds of sensuality also for Pride and Envy and Malice and Slander and especially speaking evil of Dignities and covetousness and every other inordinate or immoderate Affection are sensualities as well as carnal Lust and Drunkenness and so is Separation it self also For when one saith I am of Paul and another I am of Apollos are you not carnal saith the Apostle And are not say I all that are carnal sensual So that it is not Mens saying or thinking they have the Spirit will prove they have the Spirit nor their calling themselves the Godly Party will make them to be the Godly party but their very being of a Party proveth them to be Schismaticks and their being Schismaticks proveth them to be ungodly I am sure every one of the Parties appropriating the Spirit unto it self and being so divided as they are both in Doctrine and Worship amongst themselves is a demonstration that they are not inspired or guided by one and the same Spirit or that they have not the Spirit of Vnity nor consequently the Spirit of Sanctity nor of Holiness neither how boldly or boastingly soever they may pretend to it But Mundus vult decipi the World hath a mind to be deceived for as long as there are Broachers of lies there will be Believers of lies for as the Father of lies tempts some to be the Teachers so he tempts others to be the Believers of them And therefore unless the Spirit of falshood and division and sedition be by the Spirit of truth of unity and of concord cast
with the King As likewise for another and in my humble opinion a very weighty and important reason namely to prevent the Kings not being able to govern by Parliament though he be never so willing and desirous to do so as when there is a difference betwixt the two Houses concerning priviledge there the order is that whatsoever business they are about of what concernment or importance soever it must cease and nothing must be done until the difference concerning Priviledge be decided which being no other way to be decided but by one of the Houses yielding to the other for neither the King nor the Judges are admitted to umpire betwixt them if after Conference upon conference they finally adhere on both sides as they did in the case of Dr. Sherleys appealing to the House of Lords from a Decree in Chancery wherein one of the House of Commons was concern'd there is no more to be done that Sessions though Hannibal were ad portas knocking at the City-gates though the business they were about before were of never so publick or never so necessary a concernment as indeed that which we were about then was namely the passing of an Act for securing the Government both in Church and State by taking such a Test as the aforesaid Test that was lately enacted to be taken in Scotland and which would undoubtedly have past in the Lords House at that time if some that desired an alteration in both had not thrown that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that stone of offence betwixt the two Houses which as it was done to hinder what we were a doing then so that or the like may be done at any time by either of the Houses to make any Parliament useless and fruitless though there be never so present or so great need of it and though the King and the People do never so much desire the contrary unless there be some means devised and consented to by both Parties to adjust the difference betwixt them as there is betwixt all other differing Parties but these only or unless the Priviledges of each of the Houses be so particularly enumerated and cleerly stated by the consent of both of them that there may not be any difference betwixt them upon this account for the future If I have been too bold in saying what I have said in relation to either of the two Houses of Parliament I humbly beg pardon of them both for Si peccavi peccavi honestâ mente if I have offended in it I have done it out of an honest meaning I am sure I did not intend to lessen the dignity or power or priviledges of either of them Good luck have they with their Honour but all that I said upon this Subject hath been to vindicate the Kings Soveraignty over all His Subjects of all denominations and in all capacities whatsoever which I am sure may well enough consist with whatsoever Power or Priviledge can by the legal constitution of this Kingdom be claim'd by either or both Houses of Parliament CHAP. XII The Kings making our Laws no disparagement to the Parliament The several ways of justifying the taking up Arms against the King The danger of Mr. B. 's Principles that way WHereunto if it be objected that by making the King sole Law-giver or the sole Law-maker I seem to take away the greatest of all the Priviledges the two Houses have and which it most concerns all the People of England they should have I answer it were true indeed that I did so if by saying the King is the sole Law-giver or the sole maker of our Laws I meant he could make what Law he pleas'd but when I say withal that although whatsoever is Law is made by the King to be Law yet he cannot make any Law or any thing to be Law without the consent of both Houses to it or to his making of it by giving to Caesar what is Caesar's by giving to the King what belongs to the King I take away nothing from either of the Houses that belongs unto them or what is requisite for them to have for the securing of themselves and the People from Arbitrary Government for which end it is abundantly sufficient that the dissent of either of the Houses can hinder the making of any Law though the consent of both of them cannot make a Law for that would destroy the Monarchy not by dividing the Soveraignty betwixt the King and the two Houses which is really impossible but by vesting the Soveraignty wholly in the two Houses and consequently by taking it wholly from the King whereas the power to hinder the making of Laws without their consent being vested in the Houses and the power of making Laws with their consent being vested in the King the Soveraignty and Majesty that is due to a Monarch is reserv'd to the Prince and as great power and Authority as Subjects are capable of is communicated to the two Houses and their Liberty and Property which is due to them is secured to all the People which blessed frame and temper of our English Government is such as no wiser can be devised nor no better can be desired and such as no Nation but ours under Heaven is or can be unless it be situated as ours is so happy as to enjoy and therefore such a one as if it were well understood and seriously considered by us it would make us first to be truly and heartily thankful to God for it Secondly to live obediently quietly and contentedly under it and consequently not only to be content but desirous that such a Law as I before spake of should be made to prevent the alteration or change of it into any other form or frame of Government whatsoever And in the mean time not to give ear or credit to any of those seditious Preachers or Pamphleteers who do what they can to disaffect the People to this excellent Government as it is by Law established and only to this end that as they have once already so they may now again make such an alteration in this Government as to turn the Monarchy into a State and Episcopacy into Presbytery which because they think it cannot be done now but as it was done then namely by a Rebellion therefore as they did always so they do still maintain that it is lawful for Subjects in some cases to take up Arms against their Soveraign though some of them take one way to prove it lawful and some another for some will have a middle kind of power betwixt the King and People to be Vmpires or Arbitrators between them whose Arbitrement if the King will not submit to they may by force compel him with the assistance of the People and the People are bound to assist them in so doing this is CALVIN's way whereunto he adds that fortassè Ordines Regni in Angliâ that perhaps the Parliament in England are this middle sort of Magistrates Others will
have the King and the two Houses of Parliament to be Co-ordinates and that any of the two is to over-rule the third and consequently the two Houses of Parliament to over-rule the King if They agree and He will not this was HERL's way one of the Prolocutors of the Westminster Assembly called together by the two Houses in the Rebellious Parliament But Master BAXTER will have the Soveraignty divided betwixt the King and the two Houses or betwixt the King and the Parliament and will have it to be lawful for either of the Parties to defend its own Right by force if it be incroached upon by the other and that the People are to take part with the Party encroached upon against the Party encroaching but with this difference that They are always to believe what the Parliament declares against the King to be true because they are their Trustees not only to defend their Rights but to inform their Judgments whether they be wronged or no and because they are their Trustees not only as they are Subjects now but as they were originally or at first Contractors before they were Subjects and did then by bargain reserve unto themselves certain Priviledges and Immunities to be exempted for ever from the Kings Jurisdiction which if their Trustees whom they are to believe declare to be violated they may lawfully take Arms against the King to maintain or recover those Rights of theirs and to defend that part of the Soveraignty which the Parliament have in the Government Now putting all these things together and supposing a corrupt Majority of Parliament-men in both Houses as Mr. Baxter confesseth there may be and we know there hath been and therefore may be so again who can secure the King though he reign never so much according to Law from being always in danger of a Rebellion or the Kingdom from being always in danger of a Civil War which being the worst of Evils that can happen to any Body Politick they that sit at the helm ought above all things else to take especial care to prevent the broaching any such Principles as tend to the stirring up of the People to Sedition and Rebellion by making them believe that in some cases it is not only lawful but their duty to take up Arms against the King and that they shall do God and the King too good service in so doing Such are those Principles of Mr. Baxter before rehearsed published and owned by him in many of his Books especially in that of the Holy Common-Wealth and amongst the rest especially two of which he seems to be the Original Parent or very first Author as namely first That the Peoâ—le of England are represented by their Trustees in Parliament not only as Subjects to the King but as Contractors with the King before he was their King and before they were his Subjects for which he brings no other proof but that he takes it for undeniable And 2dly That the Soveraignty here with us is not in the King alone as the Oath of Supremacy saith it is but that it is divided betwixt the King and the two Houses of Parliament and for proof of this the only reason he gives is That the Legislative Power which is essential to Soveraignty is in them as well as in the King and the late King himself confessed it to be so Whether it be so or no I have already considered and examined at large and I hope have proved that the King and the King alone is the efficient cause or maker of our Laws whatsoever the two Houses may antecedently do towards the making of them CHAP. XIII The late King 's owning that the Laws are made jointly by King Lords and Commons how to be understood NEither do I think what Mr. Baxter saith the late King confesseth in his answer from York to the Parliaments XIX Propositions namely That in this Kingdom the Laws are joyntly made by a King by an House of Peers and by an House of Commons chosen by the People doth being rightly understood contradict what I have said of the making of our Laws by the King only For although to say the same thing is made solely by one and joyntly by more than one seems to be a contradiction yet if by making the same thing be meant the making of it not in the same but several sences it is no contradiction to say it is made by one and no more in one sence and yet that it is made jointly by more in another sence For example according to an instance before given It may truly be said that Christ alone shall judge the World and yet it may truly be said that the XII Apostles for so saith Christ himself and all the rest of the Saints for so saith St. Paul shall judge the World together with him because the judging of the World by Christ is meant in one sense and the judging of the World by the Saints in another For it is Christ and Christ alone or Christ and none but Christ shall judge the World as a Judge properly so called that is authoritativè or by his own inherent power and Authority But the Saints are said to judge the World approbativè by assenting to and approving of the judgment given by Christ as just and righteous so that in propriety of speech they are not to be called Judges but Assessors and Assenters only In like manner as to the making of our Laws it may be truly said that the King alone is the maker of them because it is by the King and by the King alone that they are made to be Laws which were before no Laws and yet it may truly though not so properly be said too that they are made by the King and the two Houses of Parliament because they do consent to the Kings making of them to be Laws and not only so but also because they do not only consent to the making and publishing of them after they are made Laws by the King but they must consent to have them made Laws by the King before the King can make them to be Laws And yet for all that it is the King and the King alone who by his LE ROT LE VEVLT or his FIAT doth make them to be Laws In which operative and efficacious words neither of the Houses concur with him and yet it is by those words only or alone that what was before but a Bill that is an Embryo or at most but materia disposita matter fit to be made a Law of is informed and enlivened with that obliging power and authority both directive and coactive which makes it to be a Law So that all the two Houses can be said to do towards the making of a Law is to give it a posse fieri a capacity to be made a Law but it is the King and the King only that gives it its factum esse its being made so and yet because the
and therefore more inclined or perhaps necessitated to weaken and impoverish and keep them under as Pharaoh did the Israelites by laying heavy burthens upon them and oppressing them more than otherwise they would have reason or perhaps a will to doe that they may not be able to rise up against them when such Demagogues as our Schismatical Preachers are have a mind to stir them up to doe so Who secondly doe what they can to rob Subjects of that inestimable reward which God hath promised to all such as suffer wrongfully and yet patiently or as St. Peter phraseth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it becomes Christians and not onely so but thirdly do engage them instead of suffering less wrongfully to hazard the suffering of more rightfully from their Princes if they do not prevail in their Rebellion and to a certainty of suffering infinitely much more from God whether they prevail or not if they die in or after their rebellion without repentance And now I think I have sufficiently justified the reasonableness of my exception to that Aphorism of Mr. Baxter's which he saith he wonders Bishop Morley did except against by having proved it to be false in both the particulars that are asserted in it As first That all unlimited Governours are Tyrants and 2dly That no unlimited Governour or Tyrant hath a right unto his Government and consequently that the Subjects of Vnlimited or Tyrannical Governours are not obliged to obey them but may resist them at least for defending of themselves against them both which particulars having proved to be false I hope I have sufficiently vindicated my self also from that horrible calumny of being a defier of Deity and Humanity and an Enemy to God to Kings and to all mankind as Mr. Baxter out of his abundant Zeal and little charity saith I am and would make his unwary Readers believe me to be not from any thing I say my self but from what he is pleased to say for me and then as if I had said it my self to infer from it the calumny which he before intended but could not tell how to doe it otherwise to fix upon me Of which disingenuous and insincere artifice of his as I said before we have seen several Instances already and shall see more hereafter CHAP. XIV That Scripture Rom. 13. for the unlawfulness of resisting asserted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly rendred to Resist and implies more than simply Not to obey Our Translation Vindicated against Mr. B. and others who censure it and vary from it as he often doth ANd yet before we proceed any farther we are to take notice of and remove a shrewd Remora or obstruction out of the way which Mr. Baxter hath laid to take away from us the authority of one of the principal places of Scripture whereon we ground our doctrine of the Vnlawfulness of resisting of Sovereigns by their Subjects in any case or upon any provocation whatsoever and that is the 13 Chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans and in that Chapter especially upon the 2d Verse whereof the words in Greek are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which by our last and by our most authentical Translation are rendred in English thus Whosoever resisteth the power viz. the Sovereign Power or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the higher power as it is called in the verse before resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation And it is against our Translation of some words or rather of one of the words in this Verse that Mr. Baxter makes this objection not against the word power nor as Sovereign power is meant by it though contrary to St. Paul's meaning and the truth of the Roman History he will have the Sovereign Power there meant not to be in the Emperour alone but in him and the Roman Senate also as he faith it is in the King and Parliament here in England and one as truly as the other neither doth he except against the translation of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the word damnation though it always doth not signifie so severe a judgment but he tells us that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not properly translated by the word resisting And why so because saith he There is a Resistance contrary to Subjection and that is forbidden and there is a Resistance not contrary to Subjection and that is not forbidden Might he not as well have said there is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to resist contrary to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be subject and there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to resist not contrary to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be subject And therefore St. Paul did not speak properly when he opposed the one unto the other and yet St. Paul tells the Corinthians who were Grecians that he spoke more languages than they all and no doubt understood the propriety of them as well as they did Howsoever we are sure that St. Paul understood God's meaning and how to express it so as he would have it to be understood neither is it to be doubted but that a commissioned Company of so many learned men as were employed in the last and most accurate Translation of our English Bible did very well understand St. Paul's meaning as he expressed it in Greek and knew how to render it as properly in English as any one private man ought in modesty to think he can or could have done especially if he be no greater a Critick in the Greek language than Mr. Baxter appears to be by the several Instances a learned man gives of his many gross mistakes of the meaning of several Greek words quoted by him in his Church History which I would not have observed but that I find Mr. Baxter so full and fond of his mendings of the magnificat I mean his frequent and needless finding fault with our Churches Translation And truly I could wish that even such as are more skilfull in the Original Languages in which the Scriptures were written than Mr. Baxter seems to be would forbear in their popular Sermons and in their English Treatises to censure so boldly as some of them do such and such places of Scripture as they have or take occasion to speak of as either not truly or not properly translated in our Bibles when there is no necessity for their so doing and when they may thereby give occasion to their unlearned Auditours or Readers to doubt of any other and perhaps of all other places of Scripture as well as of those by them quoted and censured viz. Whether they be truly or properly translated or no which may bring them at length to question and doubt of the truth of the whole written word of God and whither that may bring them God knows perhaps to Quakerism or some other kind of Fanaticism or perhaps to downright Atheism And therefore I say I
without the destruction of very many innocent persons I cannot understand except we can imagine the Sovereign will have no Subjects to fight for him which Christ supposeth all Kings of this world have on that there will be fighting without killing or that none or very few of those that are innocent of either party will be kill'd which in a Civil War which of all other Wars is commonly the most bloudy and most cruel is not to be imagined And consequently if Kings are not to be resisted by their Subjects but in such a case as this they are never to be resisted at all because there can never be such a Case so that Grotius his main Axiome Summam potestatem tenentibus resisti jure non posse That those who have the Supreme Power cannot lawfully he resisted is still safe and without exception Neither is the truth of it impeached by any of those several Instances which he I mean Grotius subjoyns and which seem saith he to be Exceptions to this Rule but indeed are not 1. For as to the first of those Instances it speaks of such Kings as were never Kings at all but in name onely as the Kings of Lacedoemon were 2. The second speaks of those that had been Kings but ceased to be so by their own voluntary resignations as Diocletian did and some of our Saxon Kings did also and retir'd into Monasteries 3. The third speaks of such Kings as would alienate their Kingdoms unto Strangers whom the Subjects may refuse to obey without resisting their own Sovereigns and are bound to doe so not onely in regard of the natural Allegiance all Subjects owe to their natural Sovereign and to him onely as long as he lives or as long as he continues to be their Sovereign but in regard that after his death or after he voluntarily ceaseth to be their King they owe the same Allegiance to his legal Successour in all Hereditary Kingdoms And therefore saith Grotius the act or attempt of such an Alienation is null in it self and consequently is not at all obligatory to the Subject 4. The fourth speaks of such Kings as Verè hostili animo in totius Populi exitium feruntur that is Such Kings as would if they could destroy all their Subjects and endeavour to doe so Sed vix videtur saith Grotius id accidere posse in Rege mentis compote But this saith he is hard to be imagined of any King that is mentis compos that is in his wits or that is not stark mad and if he be stark mad or not mentis compos not in his right mind then his case is the same with that of Kings that are Minors or Infants and his Kingly Power is to be administred in his name by such as by the Laws or Customes of his Kingdom are to have the custody or care of him while he continues in that condition who are no more to be resisted by the Subject than the King himself was before he was in that condition 5. The fifth instance is of such Kings as In ipsâ delatione imperii In the very making of them Kings are made Kings upon this express condition That if they doe this or that so or so Subditi omni obedientioe vinculo solvuntur The Subjects are discharged from all obligation of obedience to them for then saith Grotius he that was King became a private person again But I say such a one was never a King at all properly so called because in the very Act whereby he was made or rather called a King he was indeed made a Subject to them whomsoever they were that had power to question whether he had done this or no and to un-king him if he had nay if he had not if they should think he had or say he had though they thought or knew he had not 6. The sixth Instance is when the King hath but a part of the Supreme Power and the Senate and the People have another part of it But then say I as I said before the King is no King properly so called I mean is no Sovereign but a piece of Sovereign if there can be such a thing and it is the Sovereign He or They that have the Sovereignty or the whole Sovereign power that I say are in no case to be resisted by their Subjects 7. The seventh and last is the same in sense with the fifth though it differ in words or in the manner of expression both of them speaking of one as King who is indeed no King that is no Sovereign as no man or number of men in any Society of men can be said to be that have others in the same Society equal with them and much less superiour to them as they must be to whom they are obnoxious and accountable for their ill managery of their Government and who have authority to deprive them of it and depose them from it And of none but such Kings as these that is such as are not Kings indeed but in name onely are all the aforefaid Instances wherein Grotius seems to grant it to be lawfull for Subjects to resist their Kings to be understood but two onely and those are the third and the fourth in the former of which there is nothing either said or meant of the Subjects resisting of their Sovereign but onely of their not obeying him if he would have them become Subjects to a stranger which they cannot doe if they would without becoming injurious not onely to him but also to his Successours as I said before And there is a great difference betwixt resisting and not obeying of Sovereigns by their Subjects though Mr. Baxter will needs have not obeying to be resisting in its primary and most proper signification As to the other of these two Instances which may be meant of Kings properly so called I mean such Kings as are indeed Sovereigns namely the fourth wherein upon supposition there were such a a King as would doe and did what he could to ruine his own Kingdom and to destroy all his own Subjects Grotius grants indeed that in such a case Rex abdicat Regnum or the King renounces his Kingdom or doth ipso facto declare he will be no longer their King because voluntas imperandi voluntas perdendi non possunt simul consistere Because a Will to reign and a Will to have none to reign over are inconsistent with one another But withall he tells us it is hardly credible he might have said utterly incredible there should be such a King unless he were mad and if he be mad there be other ways as I said before to hinder him from doing himself or his People so horrible a mischief without their taking up of Arms or rebelling against him So that I do not see how it can be rationally concluded out of any of the aforesaid Instances that it is lawfull to resist him or them that have the Sovereign Power
Pronunciarunt si quis attentaverit ita se firmare ut Rex resistere non potuerit Rebellionis tenetur c. They pronounced or declared that if any man should attempt to make himself so strong that the King should not be able to resist him he is guilty of Rebellion Item that the Law interpreteth that in every Rebellion there is a conspiracy against the Life and Crown of the King for a Rebell will never suffer the King to live or reign who may afterwards punish or revenge such his Treason or Rebellion Which Interpretation of the Law of England they confirmed First By the Imperial or Civil Law whereby to do any thing against the safety of the Prince is reputed to be Treason Secondly By the force of Reason because it cannot be but that he which hath once given Law to his King should never permit the King to recover his former authority or to live left at any time after he should revenge it Thirdly and lastly They confirmed it likewise by Examples drawn from our English Chronicles of Edward the II. and Richard the II. both which being once by force of Arms gotten by their Subjects into their Power were not long after Deposed and made away also I have repeated at large what was then said to be the Law of England by the authorised and sworn Expositors of the Laws I mean the Judges And from what was said by them then in that particular Case I observe First That Arms taken up or Forces raised by Subjects of what condition or upon what pretence soever without the Sovereigns leave or commission are in construction of Law taken up and raised against the Sovereign Secondly That such Forces so raised against whomsoever or to what end soever they are pretended to be employed are in construction of Law intended not only to take away the Kings Power but his Life also And Thirdly Because the Law presumes that those that have taken away his Power will not let him live for fear he may recover his Power and revenge himself of those that took it away from him I cannot chuse but think that the Presbyterian Party though they did not at first intend to take away the Kings life yet after they had taken away his Power and made him their Prisoner and used him so barbarously as they did whilst he was their Prisoner I cannot chuse but think I say that had not the Independents taken him out of their hands they would have taken away his life at last also though not by a formal publick judiciary Tryal as the Independents did but some way or other they would have done it For who can believe they would have suffered him to live or at least to live as a King whom They could not chuse but think they had provoked beyond a capacity of being Pardoned by him if ever he should be in a condition to be revenged of them And why should We think they would have stuck at making him away in the dark or in a Prison whom before they had so often indeavoured to kill in the open Field For it is to be supposed saith Mr. Baxter that those that fight would kill those they fight against and therefore it is to be supposed likewise say I that those that commissioned their Armies to fight against their King as the Presbyterian Parliament did the Earl of Essex did commission them likewise to kill the King if they could For I never heard that the King was excepted from being fought against and consequently from being kill'd in any of their Commissions or that so much as any private Instruction or Intimation was given to my Lord of Essex or to any of his Officers much less to all of them to spare the King such a one I mean as David gave to Joab and the Officers of his Army for the sparing of Absolom So that there was no more care taken by the Parliament for sparing of the King's life than for sparing the life of any of those whom their Armies were commissioned to sight against and kill and consequently they were commissioned to kill the King as well as any of the rest They were to fight withal And if so then not only those that commission'd those that fought against the King but those that stirred them up and encouraged them to fight against the King did stir them up and encourage them to kill the King also and if so how can the Presbyterian Clergy of those times especially the London and Parliament Preachers be excused from being intentionally guilty of the late King's death before he was actually murthered by the Independents But of all the rest how will Mr. Baxter excuse himself who tells us it is to be supposed that those that fight would kill those they fight against and consequently that those that encourage them to fight do encourage them to kill those whom they fight against and withal confesseth that he encouraged thousands to do that which the Law calls fighting against the King how will he I say excuse himself from being consequentially at least if not intentionally guilty of the late Kings Death How then can he with any ingenuity or sincerity say that he was never guilty of hurt to the Person or destruction of the Power of the King And yet he doth say so and that so confidently that he professeth likewise that if either this or that viz that if either he was guilty of hurt to the Person or destruction of the Power of the King can be proved against him he will never gain-say them that call him a most perfidious Rebell and tell him he is guilty of a far greater sin than Murther Whoredom Drunkenness and such like In the mean time he doth confess and is convinced it seems that a Rebel is a worse man and a greater sinner than a Drunkard or a Whoremonger or a Murtherer if he be indeed a Rebel though perhaps he doth not think so which is a severer sentence than I durst have pronounced upon many of those that were indeed Rebels but did not think themselves to be so but were misled by their spiritual guides who made them believe that to fight against the King was to fight for the King and that all the while they were doing God and the King good service which the greater diminution it was of their sin that were so deceived the greater aggravation it was of their guilt that did so deceive them And yet those that were the least sinners of these Rebels were according to Mr. Baxter's account greater sinners than Drunkards Whoremongers and Murtherers so that if he could as truly as he doth boldly and frequently charge most of the Episcopal Party with Drunkenness and Vncleanness and Profaneness yet seeing he cannot charge them with Rebellion against their Sovereign they will still be less evil how bad soever they are than the best of those of his
a secondary deduction from it And therefore 't is a vain and senceless shift of Mr. Baxter's for the avoiding of the dint of this Argument which doth jugulum causae ferire cut the very throat of his cause to say as he doth that the end of imposing and taking of this Oath was only for the excluding of all pretence to the Supremacy or to any part of the Supremacy here from abroad and not for the acknowledging the Kings sole Supremacy here at home Whereas it is indeed the Kings sole Supremacy here at home that is as it is called by the Rubrick the Oath of the Kings Supremacy and not the excluding of all foreign claim or pretence to it which to speak properly as Mr. Baxter saith he loves to do is as I said before an abjuration rather than an Oath or at most but the negative and consequent part of the Oath the affirmative and antecedent part thereof being the assertion of the whole supreme Power in the Government of this Kingdom to be in the King and King only and consequently exclusive of any pretence to it or to any participation of it by any either at home or abroad especially by any at home But why then will Mr. Baxter perhaps say was there not annexed to the positive part of this Oath an abjuration or express disowning the supreme Power or any part of the supreme Power to be in any here at home besides the King as well as there is an abjuration or an express disowning of it to be in any abroad I answer because there was no need at all of it First because he that hath sworn the Supremacy or supreme Power to be in the King only hath eo ipso in that very thing or by so swearing forsworn the being of it or any part of it in any other besides the King If it be replyed that upon this account there needed not have been any abjuration or disowning of any foreign Authority annexed to the other part of it neither I answer Secondly That although really there was no need of an express or explicit disowning or renouncing of the one more than the other because the swearing to the positive part of the Oath is implicitly and virtually a disowning or renouncing of them both yet because there had been antiently and was then and was like to be still a claim to the Supremacy here in England at least in matters Spiritual and Ecclesiastical by some that were abroad I mean by the Pope for himself and his Successors therefore the Parliament thought it meet and prudent and in some respects necessary to add or annex to the Assertion of the Kings sole Supremacy here at home an express and explicit Renuntiation of all the Right that was or could be pretended to it from abroad but did not think it to be at all necessary to add or annex the like express or explicit renuntiation of any such Power to be in any here at home because there was none then here at home so impudent as openly and avowedly to pretend to it or to any part of it For here are no Ephori no Overseers or Guardians of the State as there were in Lacedaemon nor no such Senate as there is in Venice nor no such High and Mighty States as there are in Holland For we have but One high and mighty and he is so high and mighty that there is none but the Almighty that is above him and all others in his own Dominions how much higher and mightier they may seem to be in relation to one another are equally below him and subject to him CHAP. XII From the two Houses Petitioning the King and his being free to grant or deny is proved that there is no Co-ordination beside the inconsistence of it with the Government I know there was in the beginning of the late Rebellious times a Discourse written and published to make the foolish part of the World believe for with wise and considering men I am sure it could have no weight that the two Houses of Parliament were Co-ordinate with the King and consequently not Subordinate to the King in relation to the making and repealing of Laws and the determining of all things of publick concernment for the Government of the Kingdom and consequently that according to the nature of Co-ordinates where all three could not or would not or did not agree the two that did agree were to over-rule the third that did not An excellent project or expedient as the deviser of it thought to make a Triumvirate of a Monarchy or a Republick of a Kingdom but he did not consider that it was liable to one little inconvenience namely that it was utterly and absolutely unpracticable being altogether inconsistent with the fundamental Constitution of our Government which is not to have the two Houses of Parliament always in being as the Senate of Rome was and the Senate of Venice is or to assemble and meet when and where they will and to continue as long together as they will as Grotius tells us the Ordines or States of Holland of right did even whilst They had a King But our Parliaments here in England are so far from having always an actual setled and constant being that they have no being at all but what the King gives them by his Writ of Summons neither can they assemble or meet but when he calls them nor either depart sooner or continue longer together than he will have them neither while they do by his leave and command continue together have they any Power to make any new Law or to repeal any old Law but only to pray propose or advise the making of the one or the repealing of the other by the King And this being so as undeniably it is so by the legal and fundamental Constitution of the Government I wonder when and by what Authority it came to be alter'd For supposing but not granting that a Parliament truly so called may make such a change in the fundamental Constitution of the Government as to make an Aristocracy or a Democracy of a Monarchy by the Monarchs own consent to it which I for my part think they cannot the Monarch himself in an Hereditary Monarchy being but a Trustee for his Successors but supposing I say such a change could be made by a Parliament properly so called I demand when and by what Parliament such a Change was made and whether the King did ever consent to it if not we are still where we were whatsoever Power a legal or compleat Parliament may be said or imagined to have and consequently there is not as yet at least any such Co-ordination of King Lords and Commons as the Author of the aforesaid discourse pretended there is It is true indeed that the two Houses of Parliament in the year 42 did Petition the King that he would be pleased to grant such things as they proposed unto him
but hence it will not follow that he was bound to do so nay thence it will follow that neither he nor any of his Predecessors were bound to do so for then they that were the boldest in their demands that ever met and sate in Parliament would have claimed it as of right and not Petition'd for it as they did at least if they had vouchsafed to have Petition'd for it they would have called their Petition a Petition of Right which they did not So that by very Petitioning the King to grant those things which they proposed as agreed on by both Houses they acknowledged that the King was not bound by any Law Custom or Precedent from his Predecessors to consent to what both Houses had agreed on and consequently that there was no such Co-ordination betwixt the King Lords and Commons by the fundamental Constitution of this Kingdom as by the aforesaid Aâ—â—hor was pretended to be And therefo 〈…〉 in his answer to the Petition of the 〈…〉 the 19 Propositions which they pretend humbly to desire but indeed peremptorily press him to grant tells them That to say he is obliged to pass all Laws that shall be offered unto him by both Houses howsoever his own Judgment and Conscience shall be unsatisfied wiih them is to broach a new Doctrine a point of Policy as proper for their present business as destructive to all rights of Parliaments adding that it was out of a strange shamelesness that they would forget for sure there being so many Lawyers among them some of them could not chuse but remember it a Clause in a Law still in force made in the second year of King Henry the V. wherein both Houses of Parliament acknowledg that it is of the Kings Regality to grant or deny such of their Petitions as pleaseth himself And if it were so and acknowledged by both Houses of Parliament to be so in Henry the V's time I would fain know in what Kings Reign or by what Kings consent that Act or the aforesaid Clause in that Act which was in force so lately comes to be repeal'd or whether any Law or Act of Parliament can be either made or repealed without the Kings consent CHAP. XIII An Ordinance of both Houses no Law and consequently no legal Authority for the late War against the King The Militia or the Power of the Sword acknowledged by the two Houses themselves to be in the King A Sermon of Arch-Bishop Ushers in the Isle of Wight Preached to the same Purpose NOT a Law perhaps may Mr. Baxter say properly so called but an Ordinance of both Houses may and that without the Kings consent to it nay notwithstanding the Kings declaring and protesting against it oblige all the People of England to do or not to do what the two Houses will have them as much as any Law consented to by the King ever did or can do nay and may repeal any Law made by the King by the advice and with the consent of both Houses any Law or Custom to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding But per quam Regulam by what Rule Mr. Baxter By what Law of God or man can this be done Why by an Ordinance of both Houses which is equivalent at least to an Act of Parliament properly so called and so it had need to be Mr. Baxter and more too to warrant the doing of such things such horrible mischiefs and Villanies as have been done against God by Sacriledg against the King by Rebellion and by Subjects against their fellow Subjects by plundering and imprisoning and murdering one another of which side soever they were for all will be put to the account of them that had no authority I mean no legal and just Authority to warrant them to do what they did And therefore Mr. Baxter you were best be very sure that the two Houses had Authority to make such a War as they did not only without Commission from the King but against the King and to engage you and by you to engage so many thousands as you say they did in it You were best I say be very sure of it for it is not your head or your neck only which you say you are willing to hazard upon that account but your soul it self and the Everlasting Woe or Welfare of it that lies at stake for it Be not deceiv'd God is not to be mocked It is not the Confederacy of the two Houses it is not the Covenanting of the two Nations that can justifie either their commanding or their being obeyed in any thing which God hath forbidden or not allowed them to command or to be obeyed in by some known Law of his own or of the Land neither of which I am sure can be produced by them Moreover it is not the redressing of Grievances had they been as many or more and as great or greater than the House of Commons in their virulent and malicious Remonstrance to the People represented them to be nor the Reformation of Religion though there had been much more need of it than there was no nor the truly intending as well as pretending never so good or never so necessary an End for the publick Good either spiritual or temporal of the whole Nation that can justifie the Means they made use of if they had not Authority to make use of them I mean in their taking of the Sword out of the Kings hands where the Law of God and of the Land had placed it and taking it into their own notwithstanding Gods and mans Law to the contrary For the proof of the first part of which Assertion of mine I appeal to Mr. Baxter himself for amongst his many false and impious and pernicious Aphorisms he hath this true one that it is not lawful for a Nation to fight for the preservation of their Religion or their worldly goods and liberties without just authority and licence Whereunto he adds by way of exposition and illustration of his meaning That it is but a delusory course of some in these times that write many Volumes to prove that Subjects may not bear Arms against their Princes for Religion as if those that were against them did think that Religion only as the end yea or Life or Liberty would justifie Rebellion or that the Efficient Authorizing Cause were not necessary as well as the Final Where bearing Arms against Princes is warrantable quoad fundamentum as to the ground of it this will warrant it quoad finem as to the end of it A good End must have a good Ground Again for proof of the latter part of my Assertion namely that the Sword or the Power of making War was by Law in the Kings hand and not in theirs I appeal to the Acknowledgment of the two Houses themselves who after they had setled the Militia before the War was actually begun yet knowing and being conscious to themselves that they had done it illegally
and by usurpation of the Kings Authority without any Commission or leave from him for the doing of it they make it one of the 19 Propositions they sent to the King when he was at York in the year 42. That his Majesty would be pleased to rest satisfied with that course that the Lords and the House of Commons have appointed for the ordering of the Militia until the same shall be farther setled by a Bill by which Proposition they do plainly confess First That they had taken the Sword by having ordered the Militia of the Kingdom Secondly That they had no Commission or leave from the King for it by saying it was done by their own appointment Thirdly That they knew they had intrenched upon his Authority by so doing Why else should they desire his Majesty would be pleased to rest satisfied with what they had done in that particular at least pro tempore at the present until the same that is the ordering of the Militia should be farther setled by Bill Whereby Fourthly They confess that the Power of setling it and consequently of making any use of it was not in them as yet by Law until by a Bill consented to by the King it were made a Law and consequently that the Ordinances of both Houses as they call'd them did not nor could not make any thing they ordered to be done legal or obligatory to the whole Nation And hence or from this consciousness of the insufficiency of their own Authority to justifie either before God or the World the lawfulness of doing what they had done and meant to do it was that they so earnestly and so often press'd the King to pass their Ordinances into Acts. For though they did what they could to make the poor deluded People believe that their Ordinances were as legal as valid and as obligatory as Acts for the draining of their Purses and exposing of their Persons yet by their being so desirous as they were even after their victory and when the King was their Prisoner to legitimate their spurious Ordinances by turning them into Acts it is evident they did not themselves believe what they and their Preachers made the People to believe concerning the validity of any of those Ordinances especially that for taking up of Arms as if the Power of the Sword and ordering of the Militia of the Kingdom to fight for whom and against whom they pleased and upon what account they pleased had been in them which by what I have said it doth not only appear it was not but that they knew it was not but was and always had been in the Crown as the King tells them in his answer to the aforesaid Proposition of the two Houses telling them that he will no more part with his Right in the Militia than with his Crown and indeed when he parts with the one he doth in effect part with the other also for as the Crown upon his head is the Emblem of his Sovereignty so the Sword and the Scepter that are always when he appears as a King carried before him are the Emblems of the two supporters of his Crown or of his Sovereignty the Sword the Emblem of his supreme Military and the Scepter the Emblem of his supreme Civil or judiciary Power and both of them signifie that he is the fountain of all Power and that there is no Power that can be legally exercised within any of his Realms and Dominions but what is derived from him and exercised immediately or mediately by him and for him And that this is true in Divinity as well as by the Law of the Land in relation to our King I will cite the Authority of a Casuist whom Mr. Baxter seems to have a great reverence for and esteem of though he were a Bishop and more than a Bishop I mean Arch-Bishop Vsher whose Reduction of Episcopacy Mr. Baxter seems to approve though the Arch-Bishop himself as I have been informed would not own it to be his This Great and Good man I say preaching before the last King at the Treaty in the Isle of Wight did in that Sermon of his positively and in plain terms more than once or twice affirm the King our King to be the fountain of Power under God within his own Dominions and that therefore no Power could lawfully be assumed or made use of by any upon any pretence whatsoever but as it was derived by Commission from the King These were his very words whereunto he added This is true Doctrine were the King a Papist or a Pagan and much more when he is as our King is a Christian King an Orthodox Christian King and that not in profession only but in practice also And then having somewhat inlarged himself in speaking of the Kings personal Vertues and Graces both moral and spiritual Now said he some that hear me may think I flatter him indeed I do not but I confess that what I have said of him I have said to comfort him for never any man of his quality had more need of it both in regard of the unworthy usage he hath had and the unworthy condition he is now in which I hope said he will last no longer For this as he then added is the 49th year of his Age and at the end of the 49th year began the year of Jubilee among the Jews and then every bondman was made free and every Prisoner was set at liberty and every one that had been kept out of possession was restored to it And if said he We be not worse than Jews it will be so with us now also Haec audivimus magnum illum virum non magis verè quà m fortiter animosè disserentem these things we heard that Great man discoursing of with no less courage and resolution than with truth And I have repeated it so often upon several occasions both at home and abroad for his honour that I verily believe these for the most part were the very same words or very near the very same numerical words as well as the identical sence of that passage of his Sermon which I have repeated And although I cannot produce many Witnesses to attest the truth of what I have here said as to this particular there being but one besides my self at least that I can remember now living that heard that Sermon yet that One is one of that credit and reputation with the generality of good men that he is multorum instar as good as a great many to make any thing he attests upon his own knowledge to be believed and this was so notable a passage to be delivered at such a time and in such a place by One that was nominated not by the King but by the Commissioners for the Parliament to be sent for thither that I am sure Sir Philip Warwick could not chuse but take special notice of it as I think every body did that heard it and
therefore I am sure he cannot forget it or at least will remember it assoon as he is put in mind of it And to him I appeal for the verifying of what I have said as to this particular But if any man shall notwithstanding Sir Philip Warwick's attestation think it to be incredible that the two Houses of Parliament being then in their Zenith should indure any such thing to be said so much to their reproach and condemnation of their cause and of all their proceedings without any animadversion upon him that said it I answer it was partly because they were then in their Zenith so high advanced and so highly elevated with the success God had for our sins and for their obduration permitted them to have that they despised what any man did or could say against them and partly because they could not have taken notice of it without inflicting some punishment or other upon him for it which they could not have done he being a man of such eminency not only in regard of his quality but much more in regard of his learning and sanctity and in regard of the very great reputation he had thereby acquired both at home and abroad without exposing themselves to the envy and hatred of the whole World and without doing themselves any good by it and therefore all things considered they thought it best to take no notice at all of it as for ought I ever heard they did not Howsoever what I affirm that pious and learned Arch-Bishop said whether he said it or no is true namely that the Power of the Sword or the Power of making War though for their own defence only or for never so good an end was not in the two Houses but in the King and in the King only as they did themselves acknowledg because at that very time and at that very Treaty one of the prime Articles which they mainly insisted on was to have the Sword for so many years to be put into their hands by the Kings passing of an Act of Parliament to that purpose and for their raising of mony during that time for the support and exercise of that Power in what proportion they thought or should think fit upon their Fellow-Subjects all which they had done before by virtue of their Ordinances only which either they did or did not think to be a legal and sufficient Authority for their taking of the Sword and using it as they did If they did think so why might not the same authority have been sufficient for the continuance of it and if so what need was there of an Act for the trusting them with it but for a time only But if they did not think their own Ordinances to be a legal and sufficient Authority for their taking of the Sword and taxing of the People and the exercising all those other Acts of Arbitrary Power which they did for so many years together by vertue of their own Ordinances only why then habemus confitentes reos We have their own confession not only that they took the Sword which neither the Law nor the King had put into their hands and therefore were Vsurpers of the Regal Authority but had made use of it against the King or which is all one against those that were commissioned by the King and therefore were Traytors and Rebels as likewise that their own Ordinances were not legally sufficient to justifie their so doing and consequently that they have not such a Legislative Power as Mr. Baxter saith they have and which he is so confident of as that he offers his head to the Block if the reasons he gives for the proof of it be disproved which I am now in the last place to try whether I can do or not The end of the third Section SECT IV. England a Monarchy and the Soveraignty solely in the KING prov'd against Mr. Baxter as also that neither the Parliaments concurrence as the Peoples Representatives to the making Laws nor their being Trustees for the Peoples Rights gives them any share in the Soveraignty CHAP. I. The mischief of Schismatical Books Mr. Baxter 's Anti-episcopal and Anti-monarchical Aphorisms The Soveraignty not divided as Mr. B. saith betwixt KING and Parliament Prov'd by the Parliaments acknowledgments and by the Oath of Supremacy AND first thanks be to God and the King that Mr. Baxter is not Lugdunensem causam dicturus ad aram that he is not to plead his cause at the Kings-Bench Barr. For God knows that all the hurt I wish him is that no more hurt may be done by Him and for this end and for this end only it was that I silenced him from preaching and for this end and for this end only it is that I would have him prohibited from writing or at least from publishing what he writes until he is licensed by Authority to do so For when he hath published such pernicious Principles against the legal constitution of the Church and State as he hath done in divers of his Books especially in that of the Holy Commonwealth it is too late and to very little purpose to say as he doth say of some of them that he would have them taken pro non scriptis as if they had not been written For Serò medicina paratur Cùm mala per long as invaluêre moras that is Physick comes too late when ill humors through long delays have got too great a head An Arch-Heretick may by Gods mercy be himself reconcil'd to the Truth and become Orthodox and an Arch-Schismatick may by the same mercy be reconciled to the Church and become Conformable and yet that Heresie that was broached by the one and that Schism that was introduced by the other may be propagated and perpetuated by their Books and by their Disciples from Generation to Generation to the Worlds end and if Master Baxter will needs have a secondary Original sin I think this is that which may most properly be so called Our Countryman Brown who would needs have our Church of England to be no Church was himself convinced of this error so that he not only became a Member but a Minister of the Church of England and as I have been informed died Parson of a Parish called A-Church in Northamptonshire But did Brownism dye with him No there are Brownists still and will be God knows how long perhaps till Doom's day put an end to the World and all the Divisions that have been are or shall be in it So that as nothing can be more criminal than to be the Author of a Schism Sect or Heresie so nothing can be more dangerous than to suffer the spreading and growth of them especially of such of them as are destructive in their natural tendency whatsoever the intention of the Authors and Abettors may be to the peace and welfare of the established Government either in Church or State And such say I are Mr. Baxter's Anti-episcopal Aphorisms in
as when he saith unto them Come they must come so when he saith unto them Go they must go according to the legal and established Constitution of our Government Which being so I wonder how the two Houses can be said to be co-ordinate with the King or how the Soveraignty can be said to be divided betwixt the King and the two Houses when neither of them are Houses till he makes them to be so nor continue to be Houses any longer than he will have them to do so Indeed if the two Houses of Parliament were Bodies that were always in being as the Senate of Rome was and as the Senates of Venice and Genoa now are or such as might assemble and meet together when and as often as they pleased and continue together as long as they pleased as the States of Holland may and do now and as Grotius tells us they might and did even then when they had Kings such he means as were called Kings but were no more Kings indeed than those of Sparta were as Grotius himself tells us in the same place if I say our two Houses of Parliament were such a Senate as were always in being or might be so when they pleased and continue so as long as they pleased there might perhaps be some pretence for their having some part in the Soveraignty But when they have no being at all till the King gives it them by calling them together and are reducible to what they were before that is to no being again whensoever he pleaseth to dismiss them I cannot imagine in what sence the two Houses of Parliament can be said either to be Co-ordinate with the King or to have any share in the Soveraignty or Kingly power I am sure that according to the established constitution of our Government as they have not yet so it is and always will be in the Kings power to prevent their Usurpation of any such power as long I mean as he keeps the power of calling and dismissing that is of making and unmaking them in his own hands and confequently of acting any thing in their Parliamentary capacity to the prejudice of the Crown or of the People I say to the prejudice of the Crown or of the People because what is really prejudicial to the Crown is really prejudicial to the People also howsoever or by whomsoever the People may be and are often made to believe otherwise and are not to be convinced of their error but by their feeling only CHAP. III. The Legislative power solely in the King How far the Parliament concerned in making Laws Dr. Sanderson 's judgment of it Mr. B. ascribes the whole Soveraignty to the Vsurpers upon the Kings loss of his Part against a Thests of his own BUT although it be the King's Summons of them or calling of them together that makes them to be the two Houses and consequently that inables them to act as the two Houses or in their Parliamentary capacity and although they cease to be two Houses or to have any power to act in a Parliamentary capacity when the King pleaseth to dismiss them yet because Mr. Baxter may say that as long as they are two Houses or as long as the King permits them to sit together in their Parliamentary capacity they have a Legislative power or right of making Laws together with the King for the whole Kingdom and consequently are partakers of the Soveraignty with the King also the making of Laws for the whole Nation being undoubtedly one of the Essentials of the Soveraignty or supreme power We are therefore in the 3d. place to inquire what the two Houses do or legally can do as to the making of our Laws and whether that be enough to entitle them to be properly called Legislators or if I may so speak Collegislators with the King All that ever I heard that either of the two Houses severally or both of them joyntly could legally do in order to Law-making is but the framing and proposing or offering unto the King such Bills or materials as they think fit to be made Laws by the King if he think them fit to be made Laws also Here is the two Houses Non-ultra hitherto they may go but no further And sure it is not the proposing of any thing to be made a Law that is the making of a Law or that can prove the Proposers to be the Law-makers especially if he to whom they propose it may choose whether he will make it a Law or no as there was never any doubt made but he might before the rebellious Parliament in the late Kings time broached the contrary together with many other Anti-monarchical Paradoxes to justifie their own Anti-monarchical and rebellious Practices against the known Laws Customs and Constitutions of this Kingdom of which this was one of the most essential that as the Houses had a liberty to pass and propose Bills to the King so the King might as he saw cause or thought fit make or not make them to be or not to be Laws by giving or not giving his Royal assent unto them For it is the Kings Fiat or the stamp of Royal Authority upon them that makes those Bills to become Laws obliging all the Kings Subjects to the obedience of them or for non-obedience to the Penalties appointed by them So that the Bills are but the materia ex quâ the matter out of which Laws may be made but the forma per quam the formalis ratio or intrinsecal and specifical form by which what were before Bills become Laws is the obliging power which the King by his Fiat breaths into them as God doth the Soul into the Body to make it a living and a rational Creature And therefore Mr. Baxter who being so Metaphysical a man as he is as he must needs know that it is forma or causa formalis the form or formal cause per quam res est quod est which makes every thing to be what it is must needs know too and if he have any ingenuity confess likewise that from whence and whence only the Laws have their obliging power which is formalis ratio Legis that which makes Law to be Law from thence and thence only those Laws must have their being also and consequently if it be the King's Fiat only that gives those Bills that are by the two Houses presented to him an obliging power over the whole Nation thereby making them of Bills to become Laws the King and none but the King must needs be the sole efficient or maker of those Laws For as Forma est causa per quam res est quod est so Efficiens est causa à quâ res est quod est As the Form is the cause by which the thing is what it is so the Efficient is the cause from which the thing is what it is by introducing that form which makes it to be what it is
maker of them And yet because he cannot make them but of such materials as are by the two Houses prepared and proposed unto him therefore they are said in the common and modern stile to be enacted not by the King only but by the King Lords and Commons that is by the King and the two Houses also to the end that the People who are to be governed by them may as I said before the more willingly submit to them when they know that although they are called the Kings Laws as being made by him yet the materials whereof they were made were first devised debated digested and agreed on and then suggested to the King not only by the Lords but by the House of Commons also that is by their own Representatives and Trustees and consequently in effect by their own selves when they know this I say they must needs be the more willing to submit to them CHAP. VI. The Preface of our Laws doth not prove the Legislative Power to be in the Parliament The Old stile of enacting Laws why changed by Henry the VIII and why since resumed AND this and no more than this is the meaning of the modern form of prefacing our Laws and Statutes which we call Acts of Parliament when they are said to be enacted by the King Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament and by the Authority of the same which I call the modern stile because antiently it was otherwise And therefore Mr. Baxter laying so much stress as he doth upon this form of words to prove the Legislative Power and consequently a principal branch of the Soveraignty to be partly in the Parliament meaning the two Houses of Parliament doth well and wisely to say that he will not run to Records for he knows if he know any thing in that kind that this was not the stile that was anciently used in Prefacing the Acts or Statutes made by our Kings in Parliament Ab initio non fuit sic from the beginning it was not so For from the first of our Parliaments recorded by Poulton which was in the 9th of Hen. III. to the 15th of Hen. VIII this stile of Be it enacted by the King Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled was never used but during all that long Interval of Eleven Kings Raigns and the very many several Parliaments held by them the making ordaining and passing of Laws was in the Kings name only sometime with this addition by or with the Advice and consent of his Bishops Earls Barons c. without naming the Commons and sometimes by the advice of His Bishops Earls Barons c. at the request of the Commonalty or at the special request of the Commons and sometimes with consent of the Commons as well as of the Lords But still and always the making or enacting of the Laws is said to be by the King alone sometimes in these words We of Our meer free will have given and granted which is the stile of Magna Charta or the great Charter it self sometimes in these The King willeth and commandeth and sometimes in these It is by the King made provided and ordained This I say was the stile all along which was used in passing of Laws or Acts of Parliament until the 15th of Hen. VIII for about 300. years And then indeed it began to be changed from Be it Enacted by the King with the advice and consent of the Lords and Commons to Be it enacted by the King Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons but not constantly For in the very next King's time his very first Act of Parliament Cap. 1. runs in the old stile viz. Be it enacted by the Kings Highness with the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and of the Commons And again in the same Parliament Cap. 4. it is said that at the humble Petition and suit of the Lords and Commons in that Parliament assembled the King did declare ordain and enact by the Assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and of the Commons c. In the same old stile likewise runs the first Act of Queen Mary viz. Be it ordained and enacted by the Queen our Soveraign Lady with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and of the Commons c. The like we find in the Raign of Queen Elizabeth as may be seen in the Act of Vniformity made by Her and prefixed in our Common-Prayer-Book to another Act of the same kind made by our present King For in that of Queen Elizabeth the stile is Be it enacted by the Queens Highness with the consent of the Lords and Commons in this Parliament assembled c. And in that of our present King it is Be it enacted by the Kings most Excellent Majesty by the advice and with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and of the Commons in this Parliament assembled c. So that the first of the two Proofs Mr. Baxter alledgeth for the Legislative power in the Parliament as well as in the King and consequently their participating with him in the Soveraignty is not so convincingly conclusive from the stile used in the Preface to Acts of Parliament as he would have it thought to be but that it may without immodesty be contradicted though he tells us it cannot because saith he the Laws expresly speak their Authority when they say Be it enacted by the King Lords and Commons in Parliament and by the Authority of the same It is not saith he upon their Petition or Proposal only but by them or by their Authority But did the Laws anciently speak thus at all or do all of them speak thus in all our modern and later Acts I think I have given him Instances of both sorts to the contrary and such and so many Instances as must carry the Question if it be to be decided by the speaking of the Laws either in regard of their Antiquity or Plurality For as I said before all Laws made before Hen. VIII speak and speak expresly the King and none but the King to be the maker of them as may appear by the Instances before given and of many more that might have been given even as many more as there were Acts of Parliament during the Reigns of so many Kings for 300. years during which time I cannot find so much as one single instance of any Law which is said to be enacted by King Lords and Commons but by the King with the advice and consent of the Lords and Commons when most is ascribed to them I mean to the Commons for sometimes it is upon the request and sometimes upon the humble Petition of the Commons and with the advice and consent of the Lords that the Law is said to be enacted by the King So that if as I said before the question of who are the Law-makers be to be decided by the speaking of the Laws
themselves as Mr. Baxter calls it as either they are more venerable for Antiquity or considerable for Plurality the King and none but the King must be acknowledged to be the Enacter or the maker of them And truly one would think that those Laws that are most ancient and consequently nearest in time to the first Institution of Parliaments though they were not the most in number were most to be credited for speaking most properly of who they were that made them then and consequently who it is that makes them now Unless Mr. Baxter will say it was the King and King alone indeed that made the Laws in Parliament then but it is the King Lords and Commons or the King and Parliament that makes them now and consequently that the King is not so much a King now as He was then and that the constitution of the Kingdom it self is changed from Monarchical to Aristocratical But then I must ask him by whom and when this great change was made Was it by him that brought in this new stile of Be it enacted by the King Lords and Commons c. That was Hen. the VIII who was not a Man likely to give away any of his Authority or to part with any part of his Soveraignty to his own Subjects who rescued it from the Popes incroachments And yet perhaps even He meaning to make use of the Parliament for the countenancing whatever he had a mind to do though never so extravagant in it self though never so offensive to Foreign Princes his Allies or never so injurious to his own Children because he thought it would be serviceable to his own ends after he had forced the two Houses to consent to what he listed to enact to joyn them with himself in the enacting of it as well as by assenting to it to make it so much the more plausible or at least so much the less grievous unto the People Otherwise it is most certain that never any King of England after the making of Magna Charta reigned so despotically and arbitrarily as he did or whom the two Houses of Parliament stood so much in awe of as they did of Him as appears by his making them consent to the doing and undoing to the enacting and repealing of whatsoever he would have to be done or undone to be enacted or repealed And therefore it is not to be imagined that such a King as he was did mean by changing of the stile to lessen the Legislative Power it self which was in his Predecessors by admitting those whom he used as he did the two Houses of Parliament to a participation of any the least degree of Soveraignty And as he never meant to do so so they the two Houses of Parliament did not then or ever since for ought I ever heard understand that to be the meaning of the Alteration from Be it enacted by the King with the consent of the Lords and Commons to Be it enacted by the King Lords and Commons to signifie that either the Kings power as to the making of Laws was less or the Parliaments greater than it was before this alteration of stile For if it had been understood either by the King or Parliament to signifie any such thing as the King especially such a King as Hen. VIII was would never have suffered the alteration of the former to the latter So the two Houses who are jealous enough of their Power and Priviledges would never have suffered the alteration of the latter to the former again as it was altered by King Edward Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth King Henry's three immediate Successors and as it is altered by our present King in the Act of Vniformity For as the alteration of the former to the latter could not have been made without the Kings so the alteration of the latter to the former could not have been made without the consent of the two Houses neither And therefore I verily believe that if any thing at all was meant by the alteration of the former stile to the latter it was only ad faciendum Populum to gain the People that the People might more willingly receive and submit to the Laws when they were made especially such of them as might seem to pinch them in their Purses when they were said to be enacted by the Lords and Commons or by the Lords and their Representatives and consequently by themselves as well as by the King for Volentibus non fit injuria where there is consent there is no injury And yet again lest by this alteration of stile and misinterpretation of it the Kings Prerogative of being the sole Soveraign and consequently the sole Law giver might be thought to be diminished by being communicated to either or both Houses of Parliament therefore the first most ancient and withal the longest continued stile of Be it enacted by our Soveraign Lord the King by the advice and with the consent of the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled was presently after the first alteration of it resumed by the three next succeeding Princes as it hath been also now of late by our present Soveraign and by all of them with the consent of the Lords and Commons thereunto CHAP. VII The Laws enacted by the Authority of Parliament in what sense Why called Acts of Parliament They provide the Matter of the Laws the King gives the Form BUT withal will Mr. Baxter perhaps say with this Addition and by the Authority of the same that is by the Authority of the Parliament so that according to this former stile our Laws are said to be made and enacted by the Authority of the Parliament and consequently by the Authority of the two Houses of Lords and Commons as well as by the Kings For answer whereunto I might say in the first place that it was not till after 200. Years from the first Parliament that we read of in our Book of Statutes namely not until the Raign of Henry the VI. who owed his Title such as it was to the Parliament and to the Parliament as it signifies the two Houses only without the King for by the Authority of such a Parliament it was that is of a Body without a Head that Henry Bullingbrook was made King Richard the Second's surrender being neither voluntary nor lawful if it had been voluntary as was acknowledged by the two Houses themselves when Richard Duke of York claimed the Crown as the right Heir to it thereby acknowledging likewise that although they had de facto yet they could not de jure exclude the right Heir Howsoever their Authority being the only Title which the then present King had and held the Crown by as having not the courage either of his Grandfather or his Father to claim it by Conquest and hold it by force as they did He was willing to acknowledge he held it by Authority of Parliament as the word Parliament is taken for the two
Houses of Parliament without a King And this perhaps might be the reason why at first in that weak King's time to Be it enacted by the King with the consent of Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled was added and by the Authority of the same But this is not the Answer I rely on because this addition hath been continued ever since whereas the alteration I before spoke of did not as I have already showed And therefore 2dly to this Objection that when it is said Be it enacted by our Soveraign Lord the King by the advice and with the consent of the King Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled it is said also and by Authority of the same My Answer is that by the word Parliament is not meant the two Houses or the Lords and Commons only that is the Body without a Head but the Body with the Head to direct and govern it as the natural Head doth the Body natural and more than so for the natural Head though it directs and governs yet it doth not give its Being to the Body natural but the Parliamentary Head gives its very Being it self to the Parliamentary body as being made what it is by his Call and dissolved into what it was at his pleasure that is into so many single and private Persons as they were before as I have already shewed And truly if we mark the words well By the Authority of the same cannot be meant the Authority of those that are assembled in Parliament but of the Parliament it self wherein they are assembled which is as it is commonly truly and properly called the Kings great Council or the Kings High Court of Parliament It is by the Authority therefore of that great Council or by the Authority of that High Court that our Laws are said to be enacted But whence is it that this great Council or this High Court hath its Authority Is it not from the King Is it not from Him that makes them to be such a Council and makes them to be such a Court by his calling and assembling them together So that to say Be it enacted by the Authority of the Parliament is no more in effect than to say Be it enacted by the King in Parliament or Be it enacted by the Kings Authority in his great Council or in his High Court of Parliament For as all Inferiour Courts are and Act by the Kings Authority so is and doth the High Court of Parliament it self also for as it doth not nor cannot make it self no more than the Inferiour Courts do or can for if it did or could it might meet as often and subsist as long as they listed themselves so their acting when they are a Court is as the Actings of other Courts are if they Act as they ought to Act in and by the same Authority from whence they have their Being for Agere sequitur esse acting follows upon being as Mr. Baxter often but sometimes very impertinently tells us And therefore as in all other Courts because they are the Kings Courts the Judgments that are there given and the Decrees that are there decreed for interpreting applying and moderating of Laws already made are the Kings Decrees and the Kings Judgments because they are made by his Authority or by an Authority derived from him and delegated by Him and might if he pleased be executed by him in Person as some of them have been by some of his Predecessors so in the High Court of Parliament where Laws are to be made the Laws that are there made are the Kings Laws and that not only as being made in one of his Courts but made in a formal and solemn manner either by himself personally and immediately or by special Commission granted and authoriz'd by him to do it for him For it is the Le Roy le veult whether pronounced by himself or by any other authoriz'd by him that makes the Law So that it is the Kings Will and the King 's will only to have it a Law that makes it a Law and not any Act antecedent or subsequent of either or both the Houses of Parliament But why then are our Laws called Acts of Parliament Because as I said before they are made by the King in Parliament Yea but they are said to be Enacted by Authority of Parliament that is say I by the King's Authority in Parliament But they are said to be enacted by the Lords and Commons as well as by the King but it is not said they are enacted by the Authority of the Lords and Commons as well as by the Kings So that by enacting by Lords and Commons is meant by the Lords and Commons advising or consenting to the matter of them as appears by the indifferent use sometimes of one of the forms and sometimes of the other as I observed before Whereunto may be added that it is not unusual to ascribe the doing of a thing to Him or them that are but the advisers of it or consenters to it Thus we call that an Order of Council which is ordered by the King in Council or by the advice of his Council And thus St. Paul saith The Saints shall judge the World and Christ himself saith that his twelve Apostles shall sit upon twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel Yet it is certain as Christ tells us in another place that the Father hath committed all judgment to the Son and hath joyned none in Commission with him So that it is Christ and Christ done that shall absolve those that shall be absolved and shall condemn those that shall be condemned which are the proper Acts of a Judge quatenus as he is a Judge and therefore of none but him that is a Judge How then can the Saints be said to judge the World or the twelve Apostles be said to judge the twelve Tribes Why they do it by consenting to and approving of the judgment which shall be given by Christ whether it be the sentence of absolution or condemnation upon whomsoever it is pronounced So though it be the King and the King only that properly speaking doth make the Laws yet because he never makes any Laws but such as are agreed on and consented to by both Houses of Parliament therefore the two Houses of Parliament may in the same sence that the Saints are said to judge the World be said to make our Laws that is by consenting to the King 's making of them to be Laws But yet with this difference which is indeed no small one that Christ's judging of the World needs not the approbation or consent to it antecedently or consequently either of Saints or Angels but the King according to the legally established constitution of our Government cannot make a Law but the matter of it must be antecedently agreed on by both Houses of Parliament as a fit subject for the King to make a
And therefore when our Law saith the King can do no wrong the meaning is not as I conceive that the King cannot do that or command that to be done which is really a wrong or injury to any or perhaps to many or all of his Subjects as David did when he numbred the People for which sin 70. Thousand of them were swept away by the Plague in three days But the meaning of that Maxime in our Law I say as I humbly conceive is that if the King should do or cause to be done never so great a wrong yet he is not legally accountable or questionable or punishable for it by any power on Earth and much less by any of his own Subjects Whereunto another Maxime of our Law seems to be a Witness which tells us that the Crown takes away all defects or that he who is King is not chargeable with or answerable for whatsoever he hath done amiss And hereunto the Law of God bears witness also For in this sence it was that King David confessing those two great sins of Adultery and Murder unto God saith Against Thee Only have I sinned not as if he thought he had not sinned very highly and heinously too against Bathsheba and Vriah by defiling the one and murdering the other but because he was not accountable to or punishable by any but God for it Any other Man of the Nation that had committed either of those Crimes must by God's own Judicial Law have been put to death for it without mercy How came it to pass then that David who was notoriously guilty of both those capital Crimes was never called to account for either or both of them The reason is plain because there was none that had Authority to call him to an account for it not any other King for all Kings properly so called are equal as to the right of non-subordination to one another and Par in parem non habet Imperium a Peer or equal hath no right of Authority over his equal or Peer and much less Inferior in Superiorem an Inferiour over his Superiour for such are Subjects of all Qualities and in all Capacities in relation to their Soveraigns But did David then escape unpunished No for God who is only their Superiour and therefore the only Judge of Kings did question and arraign and judge and condemn and punish him for it though not by shedding his blood for the blood that he had shed yet by shedding the blood of his darling Son Absolom which was more grievous than the shedding of his own blood would have been to him as appears by his so often and so passionately wishing he had dyed for him Be wise therefore O ye Kings and be learned O ye Judges Ye that are Supreme Judges here on Earth and think not because you cannot be punished by Men therefore you shall not be punished at all if you deserve to be so for Reges in ipsos Imperium est Jovis the Almighty God's rule and authority is over Kings themselves could a Heathen man say The exemption of Kings from being punished by Men doth make them the more obnoxious to be punished by God either here or hereafter and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is a fearful and terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God But of the punishment which Kings are to expect from God I have spoken before as likewise why Kings who are Monarchs or Kings indeed cannot be question'd or called to account for any thing they have done or may be supposed to have done amiss because they have no Superiour That which I am now doing is to prove our King to be a Monarch because he hath no Superiour nor is ever a whit the less a Monarch because according to the legal Establishment or constitution of our Kingdom our Kings cannot make Laws for their Subjects without the consent of their Representatives that is without their Subjects own consents in Parliament For I demand how comes it to pass that they cannot Is it not because they did at first out of their meer grace and favour to their Subjects give away the Power they had formerly of doing otherwise William the Conqueror from whom our Kings ever since derive their Right and Title to the Crown could and did make Laws for the People without asking or having their antecedent consent to them It is true the Conqueror himself when he was crowned King took an Oath to govern justly and afterwards he took an Oath to observe the Antient Laws of the Realm established by his Noble Predecessors the Kings of England and especially those of Edward the Confessor as Daniel tells us but it is true too as the same Historian tells us He brought in the Customes of Normandy so that the main stream of our Common Law with the practice thereof saith the same Author flowed out of Normandy notwithstanding all Objections that can be made to the contrary And it was the Son of this Conqueror Henry the First who because saith the same Author he would not wrest any thing by an Imperial Power from the Subjects took a course to obtain their free consents to serve his occasions in their General Assemblies of the three Estates of the Land which he first convoked at Salisbury in the Fifteenth Year of his Reign which had from his time the name of Parliaments according to the manner of Normandy And in all probability as this was the beginning of our Kings not raising of Money so was it likewise of their not making of Laws but with the consent of the Representatives of their People in Parliament But whether it began then or sooner or later I am sure it must be the Kings granting of it that made it to be what it is I mean the legal way of proceeding in order to the making of Laws by our Kings for the Government of their People A most excellent way indeed but such a one as whosoever may have been the deviser or advisers of it it could never have been established as it is but by the King 's voluntary and arbitrary consent to it I say his arbitrary as well as his voluntary consent to it because it was in his power whosoever the King was that granted it first not to have granted it if he would CHAP. IX Mr. B. 's whimsey of an antecedent Compact between the King and People Their consent to the making of Laws when ever brought in a thing of Grant not of Contract Their double Capacity as Mr. B. fansies and states it FOR to think there was any Government here in England before that of Kings or that the People when they were under no Government at all did or could unanimously consent to be governed by one whom they should choose to be their King upon such or such conditions and with such or such limitations reserving to themselves such or such
better order were taken for the Exclusion of unworthy persons from Electing or being Elected members of Parliament that so says he being out of danger of impious Parliaments chosen by an impious Majority of the People we should then build all the Fabrick of our Government on a Rock which else will have a foundation of Sand And then a multitude of errors would thus be corrected at once and more done for our happiness than a thousand of the new Fantastical devices will accomplish Euge well said again Mr. Baxter No man can more heartily say Amen than I can to this wish of yours that none were to choose or to be chosen Parliament-men but those that were worthy to choose and to be chosen nor no man can more fully concur with you in this Opinion than I do That such a Parliament so chosen would be more effectual for the Establishment of our Government upon a Rocky or impregnable foundation as likewise for the correcting of such errors and miscarriages as by reason of the ill management of the best Government are or possibly may be in it and consequently for the making of us more happy than any new Fantastically devised model of Government can do In all this I say I agree with Mr. Baxter But in the Notion of who are worthy or unworthy to choose or to be chosen I am afraid we shall differ very much for perhaps Mr. Baxter and those of his Party may think those that are Dissenters from the Government of the Church are the only worthy men to choose and to be chosen Members of the Parliament I am sure by that stir and stickling they have made in the late Elections for Knights and Burgesses in all Counties and Corporations it appears they think so Whereas I am of opinion that none but such as are conformable in point of Judgment and well inclin'd in point of Affection to the present Government both in Church and State as to the species or kind of either that is as the one is Monarchical and the other Episcopal is fit to choose or to be chosen a Parliament-man and consequently that none of those that are not well affected to the present Government are fit to choose or to be chosen though they pretend never so much to be the Godly party nay though they were indeed as good and Godly men as they say they are and would have others believe them to be For though as Moses wish'd that all the Lords people were Prophets and yet did not think them to be so so I wish that all good and Godly men were wise and prudent men also but I cannot believe they are so nor consequently that they are sufficiently qualified either to be Statesmen themselves or to discern who are fit to be Statesmen And unskilful though well meaning Workmen may be marring whilst they think they are mending and pluck down more in a day than wiser men can build up again in a year And therefore the Fabrick of our present Government being so good a one as that Mr. Baxter himself by prefering it before any new Fantastical mode or model that can be devised or obtruded upon us doth as good as confess there cannot be a better certainly the main care that is to be taken by the wisdom of the State is to prevent the alteration or change of it And consequently the main Qualification to be required in those that choose and are to be chosen to be States-men is their being obliged to maintain and uphold the present Government as it is by Law established I still mean as to the species or kind of it and then as wise and good men may find work enough without medling with removing or moving of Foundations to mend the faults that are and to prevent those that may be in the superstructure So those that are not so wise as they should be nor so good as they would seem to be and those are the men most likely to be medling will not be able to do any great harm so long as the foundations themselves are secured from being undermined or overthrown by them CHAP. X. The excluding some Persons from choosing or being chosen into Parliament no injury The Test reinforced upon this account that if the Successor consent to it it cannot but hold good IF it be objected that the making of such a Law would be the excluding of many of the Freemen and Free-holders of the People from one of the greatest of the priviledges of their Birthright namely the choosing and being chosen Members of Parliament I Answer that if the security of the Government and the Peace and Welfare of the Kingdom require it and the Majority of the Peoples representatives without which it cannot be done consent to it it is no more than in many other cases is done already Secondly I answer that in this very case All the Papists who if they be not a great number I wonder why we should be so much afraid of them all the Papists I say who are all of them Free-men and as Freemen have a right to choose and be chosen into the House of Commons and some of them by Birth to be Peers of the Realm yet are all of them excluded from both Houses and so are all Out-law'd and Excommunicated persons and such are or should be all the Sectaries that will not come unto our Churches Thirdly Did not both Houses of Parliament make it one of the conditions of Peace with the late King that none that had serv'd him against them should be capable of sitting in either of the Houses for Twenty one years to come And why might not the King with much more reason have demanded the exclusion of all those that had fought for the Parliament against Him from the same priviledge Or why may not those that will not oblige themselves by Oath to maintain the Government legally established by King Lords and Commons be much more reasonably and much more justly and equitably excluded from having any thing to do in the Government or in the making of our Laws than those that would not take the Oath of Abjuration and of being faithful to the Government as it was illegally set up without King and Lords were excluded not only from choosing or being chosen into Parliaments but from having any protection or benefit of the Laws by the upstart Free-state as they call'd themselves but were indeed no better than Rebels and Robbers It is not therefore to be doubted but that such a Law as is made in Scotland may by the same Authority respectively be made in England and in Ireland also Neither is it to be doubted but that such a Law if it were made would be the best security that can be given against the bringing in of Popery or Arbitrary Government especially if the rightful Successor will not oppose but promote the making of such a Law here as I do verily
observeth to have been the error of Polybius in judging the Roman to have been a mixed Government and the Soveraignty or supreme power thereof to have been divided betwixt the Consuls the Senate the People when saith Grotius the Government was indeed meerly popular or Democratical And the cause of this mistake in Polybius saith Grotius was his respiciens ad actiones ipsas non ad jus agendi his looking at the things that were done not at the authority whereby they were done whereas if he had consider'd that what was done either by the Consuls or by the Senate was done by an authority derived from the People signified nothing if it were not ratified by the People he would have been convinc'd that the Soveraignty or supreme power was wholly in the People consequently that it was a meer Democracy and not a mixed Government In like manner Mr. Baxter looking only at the things that are done by the 3. Estates in Parliament as to their concurrence to the making of Laws subordinate managery of other parts of the Government not considering by whose Authority they do what they do and that all that they do signifies nothing unless it be ratified by the King erroneously at least if not fallaciously concludes the Soveraignty or supreme power it self to be divided betwixt the King and the 3. Estates or betwixt the King the 2. Houses of Parliament whereas their very Parliamentary being consequently the power of their Parliamentary acting is derived from the Supremacy of power inseparably and indivisibly and incommunicably inherent in the King But although the Soveraignty it self or original fountain of all power in a Monarchy be indivisibly incommunicably in the person of the King yet the streams that issue or flow from that fountain may be and are and of necessity must be divided communicated so as may be most serviceable for the several uses the whole body Politick or the whole body of the Kingdom may have of it And as this Supreme or Soveraign Power though it be always indivisibly inherent in the King as the fountain of it may have its several streams divided communicated so in the exercise of its several Acts operations it may be in all Political Kingdoms it is limited determined in some more in some less but in none more nor so much for the good of the Subject without prejudice to the Soveraignty Majesty of the King than in this of ours where the People by their Representatives are not only admitted to propose what they would have to be made Laws but where no Law can be made but what they propose or consent to though they do not make it though it be in the Kings power to refuse the making of it because the Laws we have already are sufficient to secure all their Rights unto the People as long as they are in force in force they will be until the People themselves do consent to the repealing of them For the King as he can make no new Law so he can repeal no old Law without the consent of the Representatives of the People who most certainly will never give their consent for repealing of Magna Charta or the Petition of Right or any other Law now in force for the securing any of their just Rights and Privileges So that the Kings Negative is not nor cannot be prejudicial to the Interest of the People but it is absolutely necessary for the preservation of Monarchy For if the King could not refuse to make what the 2. Houses propose to be Laws the Soveraignty would be wholly in them not at all in him Nay he would be so far from having the Soveraignty of a King that he would not have the liberty of the meanest of his Subjects that sits in the House of Commons in giving his I or No according to the dictate of his own Reason and Conscience which as it is every private mans right by nature as he is a reasonable Creature so it is the Kings right by Nature and Prerogative too as he is a King it being impossible to be a King without it And therefore those that say the King is bound to pass all those Laws quas Vulgus elegerit which the People or Commonalty shall make choice of or that he is but one of the three Co-ordinates therefore may be overvoted by the other two or that he hath but a part of the Soveraignty and therefore cannot over-rule those that have their parts in the Soveraignty as well as he or that he may not prorogue or dissolve Parliaments when he thinks fit to do so All these are Enemies not only to the well-being but to the very being of Monarchy and that not of absolute or despotical Monarchy only but of Political or Paternal Monarchy also And therefore though they cajole and flatter the People never so much they are the greatest Enemies they have and as such the People ought to look upon them would do so if they were not like Beasts without understanding nay worse than Beasts without sence and memory of what they have so often and so lately suffered by listning to the same Songs of the same Sirens or sweet Singers that have so often deceived them But if the People cannot or will not understand the things that belong unto their peace yet Be wise O ye Kings and be learned O ye Judges of the Earth be wise for the Peoples sake be wise for your own sakes also For if you do not prevent the raising raging of those waves the Pilot as well as the Passengers will be swallowed up by them And there is no way to prevent the raising of those Waves nor the raging of them when they are raised but by rebuking the Winds that raised them for if it were not for those boysterous Winds that puff them up there would be no such swelling Waves as we see there are In the mean time I hope I have said nothing for the justifying of my self from being a Defier of Deity and Humanity and from being an Enemy to God to Kings and to all Mankind as Mr. Baxter saith I am because I maintain it to be Vnlawful for Subjects to resist their Soveraigns in any cause or upon any provocation whatsoever and for the confutation of Mr. Baxter's erroneous and seditious Aphorisms or Principles to the contrary I hope I say I have said nothing in order to either of these ends that will give any just offence to such as are judicious and impartial Friends to Truth and do really wish and desire the continuance of the Peace and welfare of their Country and then for such as are contrary minded I care not what they think or say of me The End of the Fifth Section SECTION VI. The rest of Mr. Baxter's Reflexions called to account as concerning the Bishop's advising him to reade Hooker and
to justifie himself and those of his Nonconforming Brethren for preaching as they do though the Law have forbidden them to do so but the Popish Priests may pretend to also for their justification in the Execution of their Priestly Office in Conventicles of their own persuasion or for the gaining of Proselytes to their own Religion I. As first for example may not a Romish Priest say and say it truly as Mr. Baxter doth That he holds the sacred Office of the Ministry or Priesthood consisteth in an obligation to doe the work and an Authority to warrant him therein and that both these are essential to the Office as likewise That Kings and other Magistrates are not by Ordination to give this Office nor by Degradation to take it away But what then May not the King forbid a Popish Priest to exercise his Priestly Function here in England and punish him if he do though he cannot degrade him or make him to be no Priest And if this may be done to a Popish Priest without degrading him why may it not be done by the same Authority to a dissenting or Nonconforming Minister without degrading him also Yea and without taking away any thing that is essential to his Office For it is not the obligation to doe but to be qualified and willing to doe the work of a Minister that is essential to his Office neither doth his Ordination give him Authority to doe the work of a Minister any otherwise or any longer than he doeth it as it ought to be done So that this Argument drawn from the Obligation of a Minister to doe the work of a Minister after he is ordained if it prove any thing it proves either more or less than Mr. Baxter would have it namely that either Popish Priests may and ought to exercise their Priestly Office here in England though by Law they are forbidden or else that the Nonconforming Ministers may not nor ought not to exercise their Ministerial Office being forbidden to doe so by the same Authority and especially for the same Reasons also namely for being Disturbers of the publick Peace and holding such Principles as are destructive to Monarchy the one teaching the Division of the Sovereignty betwixt the King and another Foreign Prince that is betwixt the King and the Pope and the other teaching the Division of the Sovereignty betwixt the King and the Parliament that is betwixt the King and his Subjects II. Neither is Mr. Baxter's second Argument for the Nonconforming Ministers being obliged to exercise their Ministry though they are by Law forbidden to doe it so peculiar to them but that if it had any force in it any man that hath been ordained and thereby been consecrated and devoted to the Ministerial Function may lay claim to it and make use of it though he have done or may doe never so much hurt by the exercise of it because he will be guilty of Sacrilege saith Mr. Baxter if he do not and of the highest degree of Sacrilege that can be it being much more sacrilegious saith he to alienate consecrated Persons than consecrated Things from the Service of God And for proof thereof he tells us That our Canons enquire after all such as alienate themselves from the Ministry to which they were ordained and turn to other Callings adding We dislike not that Canon but we wish our observance of it might be thought but a pardonable fault As if this Canon which forbids men to quit their Ministerial Calling and to betake themselves to any other Lay Profession did oblige all those that are Ministers or have been ordained to be Ministers to continue in the exercise of their Ministerial Function though by lawfull Authority and for never so just cause they are forbidden to doe so because forsooth he will be guilty of Sacrilege if he do not so that he that is once ordained and thereby consecrated to serve God in the Ministry though he be never so heretical or schismatical or fanatical in point of Opinion or never so factious or seditious or rebellious or lewd or debauched in point of Practice he must not be forbidden to doe the work he was ordained to doe or if he be forbidden he must not forbear to doe it notwithstanding because it will be the highest degree of Sacrilege except Apostasie it self if he do So that this Argument proves nothing neither or as much for the worst as it doth for the best that ever were ordained III. The like may be said of Mr. Baxter's third Argument also which is a deduction from several Texts of Scripture obliging those that have taken upon them the Ministry of the Gospel to be diligent and faithfull and constant in the preaching of it All which places must be understood with this exception unless they be lawfully and by their lawfull Superiours forbidden to doe it Otherwise there will a Floodgate be opened for the bringing in all manner of Heresies and Schisms into the Church and of Faction and Sedition and Rebellion into the State as we have found by our own experience it hath done lately into our own Church and State and will doe so again if such Arguments as these can prevail with us to repeal our Laws and to grant a Licence or rather a licentiousness of Preaching to Men so principled and so affected as Mr. Baxter himself and those he pleads for have shewed themselves to be and will not yet give us any security that they will not preach and doe hereafter as they have done formerly IV. But his fourth main Reason as he calls it why those he pleads for must preach though they be forbidden is a main one indeed if it were a true one namely That they should sin against the Law of Nature it self nay even the great radical Law of Nature so far as to be guilty of the murthering of mens Souls if they did not preach though they be forbidden by what Authority or for what cause soever for so he must mean or else he saith nothing to the purpose and if he means so he condemns the King and Parliament for forbidding so many hundreds or thousands as Mr. Baxter saith are silenced because they will not conform and consequently for doing what they can to make so many hundreds and thousands to sin against the radical Law of Nature and to be guilty of murthering God knows how many Mens Souls But Kings and Parliaments Mr. Baxter may say are but Men and Men that may err in commanding what God hath forbidden and in forbidding what God hath commanded as they do saith he in this particular and are not therefore to be obeyed as the Apostles did not and professed they would not obey the High Priest and the Sanhedrim when they did forbid them to preach any more in the name of Christ the like saith he the Primitive and Orthodox Christians did though the Pagan and Arian Emperours forbad them to doe so
have or ever had them by an antecedent compact with the King before they were his Subjects is that which I affirm to be false and consequently that Mr. Baxter's distinction of the Peoples being represented in Parliament in a double capacity namely either as they are now that is as they are Subjects or as they were as first that is as they were before they were Subjects is frivolous and fictitious for they never were nor are now represented in Parliament any otherwise than as Subjects only And as such Mr. Baxter confesseth that neither they nor their Representatives can do more than complain if they be grieved and humbly Petition the King that they may be relieved But as their Representatives in Parliament are the Peoples Trustees they do represent them saith Mr. Baxter not as Subjects but as they were before they were Subjects when as Freemen they did contract for the reservation of such Priviledges and Immunities unto themselves which the King was not to violate or take away from them or if he did attempt to do so those Representatives of theirs as Trustees were to do what they could even by force if they could not by fair means to maintain and preserve or to vindicate and recover those aforesaid reserved Priviledges and Immunities and that the People were obliged to assist them against the King in so doing And upon this undeniable supposition as he calls it he endeavours to justifie the late Rebellion insomuch that he saith he thought he should have been a Traytor to the Parliament if he had not taken part with them This supposition therefore being of so very great importance as that upon the truth or falsity thereof the justification or condemnation of the late War and consequently of the Bodies and Souls of all those that were engaged in it doth by Mr. Baxter's own confession wholly depend he ought to have been very sure that it had been indeed undeniably true in point of Fact and that it could by undeniable Records be demonstrably evidenced to be so For it is not his taking it to be undeniable as he saith he doth can prove it is so or will make it believed to be so neither are the Oaths of Kings nor the Charters and Laws in which they have expressed their consent to govern according to those Charters and Laws together with the antient Customs of the Nation that can prove there was either at first or at any time since any such compact or contract as Mr. Baxter supposeth to have been betwixt the People before they were Subjects and the King before he was King and that there were such reserves of such and such Rights and Priviledges antecedently conditioned for by one of the Parties and consented to by the other upon penalty of forfeiture of the Crown upon breaking of the Covenant to such or such a degree and that the Parliament were to be the Peoples Trustees for the securing of the performance of the antecedent Covenant or Contract and might make War with the King for the breach of it and that the People were obliged to assist them in it All which Particulars Mr. Baxter supposeth to be the subject matter of his supposed antecedent Compact or Contract betwixt the Kings of England and their People and thinks he hath proved it because our Kings swear at their Coronation that they will govern according to the Laws already made by the Kings their Predecessors and that shall be made afterwards by themselves in Parliament But first as I have observed already Are not our Kings Kings before the taking of the Oath Was not out present King so de jure by right many years before he came home and was he not so de facto in fact as well as de jure by possession as well as by title two years before he was crowned after he came home and consequently before his taking of the Oath 2dly Is there any thing in the Oath obliging him to the keeping of it upon penalty of forfeiture of his Regal Power and Dignity or for the discharging of his Subjects from their Allegiance to him if he do not keep it 3dly Is there any mention or Intimation in that Oath of the Parliaments or any other Trustees for the People to judge betwixt them and the King whether he keeps the contract or no and to question and punish him if he do not as the Ephori might do and did punish the Kings of Sparta because indeed they were no Kings but in name only and no more than so would our Kings be neither if there were any such antecedent contract as Mr. Baxter supposeth there is or if the Parliament were such Trustees for the People as he supposeth them to be But it is not his supposing will serve the turn for the proof either of the one or of the other but he must produce authentick and undeniable Records to verifie and evidence the truth and certainty of both For example he must in the first place produce some such authentick undeniable Record wherein it is averred that at such a time the People being then free did stipulate and contract with him whom they meant to choose to be their King saying as he supposeth them to say We choose You and your Family successively to rule us on these and no other terms Accept these terms or We accept not you Upon which Terms consented to by him and so being chosen by them he obligeth Himself saith Mr. Baxter and all his Successors that will rule that is if they will not be deposed to rule upon that foundation And upon some such formal contract as this it is that he takes it for undeniable that the Government of this Kingdom of ours was at first constituted which if he could make it appear by any authentick Record as I am sure he cannot yet that would be but one half of the work he hath to do For supposing but not granting that once upon a time no Man knows when there was such a contract betwixt the People whilst they were free and their King that was to be that they should have such or such Rights Priviledges and Immunities reserved to them and that the King upon breach of his part of the Covenant should forfeit his Right to them supposing I say but not granting all this to be true yet if he cannot produce some other as Authentick a Record to prove that the Parliament were by that antecedent supposed compact or contract agreed upon by both Parties to be Trustees and such Trustees for the reserved Rights and Liberties of the People as might in case they were to such or such a degree violated by the King or his Ministers legally do what the late Parliament did namely make Laws without the King and make War against the King or those that were commissioned by the King he shall never be able to excuse them from being in the highest degree guilty of
a most illegal and insolent and impudent Invasion and Vsurpation of the Kings authority in the one nor of a most Trayterous avowed and bold-faced Rebellion against the Person as well as the Soveraignty of the King in the other and consequently that all that assisted them whether it were with their hands or with their tongues with their Swords or with their Pens with their prayers or with their Purses were as arrant Traytors and Rebels as they were Whereas if Mr. Baxter can make it evidently to appear that there was such an Original constitution of Government by such a compact or contract betwixt the People on the one part and the King and his Successors on the other part and that by virtue of the said Original constitution the Parliament was appointed and agreed on by both Parties to be such Trustees for the People as he saith the Parliament was we are now speaking of and that they might legally do what that Parliament did for the discharging of their Trust If he can make this I say evidently appear from any authentick Record I must and will confess that the Government here with us is indeed no Monarchy and that not only for the reason given by Mr. Baxter because the whole Soveraignty is not in one Person namely in the King but partly in the King and partly in the Parliament but also because according to Mr. Baxter's supposition the Soveraignty is not at all in the King but wholly in the Parliament as it was in the Ephori in Sparta and as it is now in the Senate of Venice But thanks be to God it is not come to that yet though it were once very near coming to it when they had gotten an Act to sit as long as they listed and took upon them to make Laws to raise Mony and to make War and consequently to play REX as we say by exercising all the Acts of Soveraignty and by pressing the King to devest himself of them by making another Act not only to justifie what they had done but to enable them to do the same things for one and twenty Years more And by that time the Monarchy would have been like an old Almanack worn out of date and either an Aristocracy or rather a Democracy not only set up but setled instead of it as we saw it was assoon as the Monarchy by the Murder of the then Monarch seemed to be quite down the House of Commons assuming and usurping to themselves the whole Government of the Kingdom without King or Lords which the Lords as well as the King ought to remember calling themselves a free State and behaving themselves as such both at home and abroad for the short time of their Raign which was until their Servant made himself their Master by making use of that Army for the pulling of them down which they were forced to keep in pay at the excessive charge of the People for the keeping of themselves up And then They and the People too saw and felt the difference between a legitimate and legal Monarchy and the despotical Arbitrary Government of an Vsurped Tyranny which made them wish and pray and long for the Return of the right Heir and the restoring of the right Government having found by woful experience that every change they had made was first from good to bad and then from bad to worse and lastly from worse to worst of all I mean the Rump-Parliament that so having made tryal of them all they might be the more careful to hold fast the best if God should be pleased to restore it to them again which in his infinite goodness and mercy he hath done and that in a strange and almost miraculous manner by making the Thieves fall out amongst themselves in dividing of the spoyl that so the true Owner might have what they robb'd him of again The End of the Fourth Section SECT V. An Expedient proposed for the preservation of our Government and Religion as now by Law Established from Arbitrary Power and Popery or Presbytery c. without Exclusion of the Right Heir CHAP. I. People bugbear'd with Popery and Arbitrary Government The Priviledges of English Subjects by the Favour and Grants of their KINGS Their Representatives in Parliament Grotius thwarts Mr. B. in his main Principle AND now one would have thought that being so lately delivered from so base and shameful as well as heavy and grievous a Bondage we should not so soon have forgotten what we suffered under a Succession of various Tyrannies nor so soon have been weary of our Quails and Manna as to be so desirous as many of us seem to be to return to the same or perhaps if it be possible to a worse Bondage than that they were under before and to that end there be some that do as good as say one to another as that rebellious backsliding and ever-murmuring Generation of the Jews did Let us us make us a Captain and let us return into Egypt And why so why so soon so weary of well-being Is there any Nation under heaven in a better nay in so good a condition as we are Are not we the only People of Europe that are in Peace when all our Neighbours are in War with one another Doth not every one of us from the highest to the lowest enjoy the Liberty of his person the Propriety of his gooods and the fruit of his Industry without having any of it without his own consent taken away from him So that if ever it might be said of any it may now most emphatically be said of us Happy are the people that are in such a case Yes may some men say if we were sure to continue always as we are but we are afraid we shall not we are afraid of Popery we are afraid of Arbitrary Government which may take away all we have from us that is or ought to be dear to us But why should we fear where no fear is Is not our Religion our Liberty and our Properties secured unto us by the Laws and by such Laws as can never be repealed but by our own consents Did not such a needless fear as this make us rebell against our late Gracious Soveraign Lord the King and by that Rebellion make our fellow Subjects nay the basest and vilest and meanest of our fellow Subjects to be Lords over us And if ever we come into such a slavery or any slavery at all again it must be by such a Rebellion produced by such a pretended fear or by a Foreign Invasion invited by our divisions amongst our selves that must be the cause of it Never was there a better Constitution of a Government than ours is nor ever was there better security for the keeping of it as it is than we have Never were there Subjects that had more and greater or so many and great Priviledges as the Subjects of England have neither do our Kings