and dy'd and rul'd and stunk agen Rebellion for a little moment shines But seldom with a brave applause declines 'T is only Truth and Loyalty can give Restoratives to make a Dead man live T. F. REPENTANCE FOR THE MURTHER OF Charles the Martyr AND The Restauration of Charles the II. is the only Balm to cure Englands Distractions 'T Is true our Nostrils lost their Breath What then ' Cause we sinn'd once shall 's ne're be good agen We murther'd Charles for which Infernal Kings With worse than Aegypt's Plagues have scourg'd our sins The Martyrs Goodnesse Angels cann't rehearse The Rebels baseness Devils cann't expresse Who in their Lower House have acted more Than Belzebub in Hell or th' Earth before And did not Charles the Son yet shine I 'de say That God of Nature and the World decay But God is God and Satan's Fraud we see Charles is our King and Rebels Rebels be Then since we ken a Traytor from a Saint Let 's be for God our King and Bel recant Hee 'l dry our Eyes and cure those Wounds which we Receiv'd i'â—h ' dark groping for Liberty For Liberty which kept us all in Fetters Slaves to the Rump and to the Rumps Abetters Who Freedom and Religion up cry'd When Freedom and Religion they destroy'd Who killed us with Plaisters and brought Hell For Paradice So Eve by th' Serpent fell Then if the death o' th' King caus'd all our woe The life o' th' King had sav'd us all men know Behold him in his Son whose splendid light Shall heal the darknesse of his Fathers night 'T is madnesse to use Candles in the day What need a Parl'ament when Charles le Roy Stands at the door and to us fain would bring Freedom and Laws instead of Rape and Sin The glory of a King is to command But Subjects shame to sit when he doth stand God save the King C. B. Never forget Reader That the Presbyters in their Almighty scotified nullified Solemn League and Covenant with their hands lifted up to the Most high God do swear That they will preserve and defend the Kings Majesty his Person and Authority And that they have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesties just Power and Greatnesse Yet they do also there swear that they will extirpate Episcopacy although so to do is contrary to the Kings Will Laws Command Safety Greatnesse and Authority As if his Majesty had no just Power but what their Faction vouchsafed and pleased to think fit On the late MIRACVLOVS REVOLVTIONS IN ENGLAND c. THree Kingdoms like one Ship a long time lay Black tempest-proof upon a troubled Sea Bandy'd from wave to wave from rock to sand A prey to Pyrats from a forein Land Expos'd to all the injuries of Fate All the Reproaches of a Bedlam-State The brave Sayles torn the Main-mast cut in sunder Destruction from above and ruine under Once the base rout of Saylors try'd to steer The giddy Vessel but thence could appear Nothing but mad Confusion Then came One He sate at Helm and his Dominion Frightned the blustring Billows for a while And made their Fury counterfeit a smile Then for a time the Bottom seem'd to play I' th' wonted Chanel and the beaten way Yet floated still The Rabble snatch't again It's mannagement but all alas in vain No Anchor fixt no wished shâ—ar appears No Haven after these distracted years But when the lawfull Pilot shall direct Our wav'ring Course and Heav'n shall Him protect The Storms shall laugh the Windes rejoyce thereat And then our Ark shall find an Ararat T. F. THE HISTORY of PHAETON Being only a Flourish or Praeludium to the sulsequent more solid discourse Wherein implicitly the temerarious appetite of Subjects to their dread Soveraigns Crown is refuted and condemned The gracious Concessions unparalleled goodness and fatherly indulgence of our late King to his over-bold Subjects manifested and the sad effects of usurpation laid open with the Traytors Epitaph Phoebus representing the King and Phaeton the hare-brained people Eloquar an Sileam timor hoc pudor impedit illud Shall I speak or hold my Peace How shall we sing the Lords song in a strange Land And how shall I hold that which is not to be found WHen rash Phaeton being mounted on the soaring wings of arrogance and presumption attempted the Kingly Government of his royal Fathers Chariot fit for none but such powerful and well-instructed Monarch as himâ—lf For Ovid. lib. 2. Non est tua tuta voluntas Magna petis Phaeton quae non viribus istis Munera conveniunt nec tam puerilibus annis Sors tua mortalis non est mortale quod optas Plus etiam quam quod superis contingere fas est Nescius affectas placeat sibi quisque licebit Non tamen ignifero quisquam consistere in axe Me valet excepto Vusti quoque Rector Olympi Qui fera terribili jaculatur fulmina dextra Non agit hos curros Et quid Jove majus habetur Thy wish is naught What 's so desir'd by thee Can neither with thy strength nor youth agree Too great intentions set thy thoughts on fire Thou mortal dost no mortal thing desire Through ignorance affecting more than they Dare undertake who in Olympus sway Though each himself approve except me none Is able to supply my burning Throne Not that dread Thunderer who rules above Can drive these wheels and who more great than Jove Thou seekest after that which humane power neither can nor ought for to atchieve Thou art ignorant of my power and too much presuming on thine own I am no Officer of trust deputed by the common rout but hold my jurisdiction from above It is not for Mortals to aspire and foolishly to covet such sacred things There iâ— none but I capable of this dignity It is I that aâ— the anointed and crowned King by caelestial decree and therefore am not to be dethroned by terrestial innovation At tu funesti ne sim tibi muneris auctor Nate cave dum resque sinit tua corrige vota Then lest my bounty which would save should kill Beware and whilest thou maist reform thy will Be wise my Son in time and lest thou prove a felo de se banish from thy thoughts this desperate and fond appetite of thine to take my princely reigns of Government into thine unadvised hands Non honor est paenam Phaeton pro munere poscis It is not honour but disgrace and thy utter ruin which thou so greedily huntest after Scilicet ut nostro genitum te sanguine credas Pignora certa petis do pignora certa timendo Et patrio pater esse metu probor aspice vultus Ecce meos utinamque oculos in pectore posses Inserere patrias intus deprendere curas Denique quicquid habet dives circumspiee mundus Deque tot ac tantis caeli terraeque marisque Posce bonis aliquid nullam patiere repulsam Deprecor hoc unum quod vero
politick in which he may purchase to him and his heirs Kings of England or to him and his Successors Yet both bodies make but one indivisible body Plowden 213.233.242 li. 7.12 6. Justice The King can do no wrong Therefore cannot be a disseisor He is all Justice Veritas Justitia saith Bracton circa solium ejus They are the two Supporters that do uphold his Crown he is Medicus regni Pater patriae sponsus Regni qui per annulum is espoused to his Realm at his Coronation he is Gods Lieutenant and is not able to do an unjust thing 4 Ed. 4.25 5 Ed. 4.29 Potentia injuriae est impotentia naturae His Ministers may offend and therefore are to be punished if the Laws are violated but not he 7. Truth The King shall never be estopped Judgement finall in a writ of right shall not conclude him 18 E. 3.38 20 E. 3. Fitz. Droit 15. 8. Omniscience When the King licenceth expresly to aliente an Abbot c. which is in Mortmain he needs not make any Non obstante of the Statutes of Mortmain For it is apparent to be granted in Mortmain And the King is the head of the Law and therefore shall not be intended misconusant of the Law For Praesumitur Rex habere omnia jura in scrinio pectoris sui 1 Jnst 99. And therefore ought to have a Negative voice in Parliament For he is the fountain of justice from whence the Law floweth 8. The Opinion of the two Spencers in Ed. 2. Who held that the oath of allegiance was more by reason of the Kings Crown that is his politick capacity than by reason of his person Is a most detestable excreable damnable and damned invention 7 Rep. fo 11. Calvins case 9. High Treason can be committed against none but the King neither is any thing high Treason but what is declared so to be by the Statute 25 Ed. 3. c. 21. To leavy war against the King to compass or imagine his death or the death of his Queen or of his eldest Son to counterfeit his Money or his great Seal to imprison the King untill he agree to certain demands to leavy war to alter Religion or the Law to remove Counsellours by arms or the King from his Counsellours be they evil or good by arms to seize the Kings Forts Ports Magazine of war to depose the King or to adhere to any State within or without the Kingdome but the Kings Majesty is high Treason For which the Offendor should have judgement First to be drawn to the Gallows 2. There to be hanged by the neck and cut down alive 3. His Intralls to be taken out of his belly And he being alive to be burnt before him 4. That his head should be cut off 5. That his body should be cut in four parts and 6. That his head and his quarters should be put where the Lord the King pleaseth 10. Treason doth ever produce fatal destruction to the Offender either in body or soul sometimes in both and he never attains to his desired end 3 Par. Jnst pag. 36. Peruse over all Books Records and Histories and you shall finde a Principle in Law a Rule in Reason and a tryal in experience that Treason doth ever produce fatal and final destruction to the Offender and never attains to the desired end two incidents inseparable thereunto and therefore let all men abandon it as the Poysonons bait of the Devil and follow the precept in holy Scripture Serve God Honour the King and have no company with the seditions 11. That Kings have been deposed by their Subjects is no argument or ground that we may depose ours A facto ad jus non valet argumentum Because Children have murdered their own fathers is no warrant for us to murder ours Judas betrayed his Soveraign yet should not we follow his example unless we strive for his reward There was never King deposed but in tumultuous and mad times and by might not by right 12. The King is Principium caput finis Parliamenti the begining head and end of a Parliament The body makes not the head nor that which is posterior that which is prior Kings were before Parliaments There were not in England any formed bodyes called the two Houses of Parliament untill above 200. years after the Norman Conquest 13. The King of England is armed with diverse Counsels one whereof is called Commune consilium the Common counsel and that is the Court of Parliament and so it is legally called in writs and judicial proceedings Commune Consilium Regni Angliae Consilium non est praeceptum Consiliarii non sunt praeceptores It is not the office or duty of a Counseller to command and make precepts but only to advise 14. The King is the fountain of justice and the life of the Law The two Houses frame the body the King giveth the soul for without him it is but a dead carcase And Si componere magnis Parva mihi fas est If I may compare small things with great As in a bond though one find paper and another write it yet if the obligor do not seal and deliver it it is nugatory and no obligation So if the King assent not to an act of the two Houses it is void and no Statute It is the royal Scepter which gives it the force of a Law Witnesse the whole Academy of the Law perspicua vera noâ— sunt probanda It would be foolish to light the Sun with Candles 15. Originally The King did make new Laws and abrogate old without the assâ—nt of any known body oâ— assembly of his Subjects But afterwards by his gracious goodnesse perceiving that his people could best know their own soars and so consequently apply the most convenient remedy he vouchsafed so much to restrain his power that he would no make any Law concerning them without their assent For at the first Populus nullis legibus tenebatu sed arbitria regum pro legibus erant Which truth iâ— so clear that it shines almost in every History The oldest and best stile of an act of Parliament is Be it enacted by the Kings Majesty with the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons c. which proves where the virtual power is 16. The Commons have no Authority but by the Writ of Summons That Writ gives them no power to make new Lawes but onely to do and consent to such things which shall happen to be ordained by Common Counsel there in Parliament which are the words of the writ and all their Jurisdiction At a Conference the Commons are alwayes uncovered and stand bare when the Lords sit with their hats on which shews that they are not Colleagues in Judgement with the Lords Every Member of the House of Commons takes the oath of allegiance and supremacy before his admission in the House and should keep it too 17. It is Lex consuetudo Parliamenti The Law and Custome of a Parliament
have the supreme power over the people is proved in Adam and testifyed by the Law of God the Law of Nations The Law of Nature The Law of Reason The Law of the Realm and by the Oathes of all English men aswel Parliament men as other Magistrates though since broken by our Saviour by the Apostles by all the Fathers of the Church and by all Christian People and Religion The glory of the Martyrs which have sacrificed their lives in this just cause shall live for ever and the Rebells shall go out with stink like the snuffe of a Candle The Majesty and power of the King described Good subjects commended and the punishment of Traytors with Korah Dathan and Abiram manifested The sad effects if the people should have the supreme power and proved by reason that no Government could stand nor any man whatsoever live if the people had power to question the King or other their Governors Two supreme powers cannot stand together Trayterous Tyrants alwayes pretend Liberty and Religion with which they blinde the ignorant people The Oath of Supremacy by whom taken and by whom broken with all Gods Commandments with it How the People of England deal with their King HAving satisfied all but those whose profit it is to believe the contrary who have no other grounds for their belief than other mens grounds and estates that Kings receive their power from God and not from the people and are independent from all but the Almighty I shall now shew 1. That they have the Supreme power over the people 2. That they are above the Law 3. That they are not to give account of their actions to the people but only to God and so conclude that there can be no just cause for the subjects either to take up armes against their Soveraign to call him to the bar to accuse him to condemn him or to kill or murther him First with the first That the first King was made in Paradice your have already heard and that there he received his dominion and power but from whom did he receive his power from God hath not God therefore greater power than the Kingâ— he hath From whence do the people derive their power from the King Hath not the King therefore more power than the people he hath Constituens Constituto potior The Constituent is better and higher in place and dignity than the Constituted But the power of God Constituted the power of Kings Ergo the power of God is greater than the power of Kings And quod efficit tale magis est tale that which maketh any such or such is in it self much more such or such But the King giveth power to the people Ergo the power of the King is higher than the power of the people The King is the only fountain from whence all the streams of authority flow to the people It is he that is the Magazine from whence they derive their power And Derivativa potestas non potest esse major primitiva a Derived power can not be greater than the primitive Therefore those men who place Soveraignty in the palace of the peoples breasts must needs be more knaves than fools for so great ignorance cannot roust in their pates who are so worldly wise But let them glosse the text with what false Commentaries they please make white black and black white and muster up dark clouds of jugling riddles to dazle the purblind sight of the Rascal rable of the people who think the Gown makes the Lawyer That that must needs be Law which the Judge saith esteem all things by their exterior apperances and only know how to be ignorant whose deceived foolishnesse is the Chariot on which our men of war ride triumphant from one degree of wickednesse to another Yet notwithstanding Legibus eversis rerum natura peribit the Law of nature shall perish and the Heavens and Earth shall passe away before Lex Terrae the Law of the Land shall deny this Oracle Omnis sub Rege ipse sub nullo nisi tantum sub Deo All men are under the King and the King is under none but God this is that Divine sentence quod nec Jovis ira nec ignes Nec poterit ferrum necedax abolere vetustas which neither angry Jove nor fiery Vulcan neither devouring age nor the bloudy sword a worse devourer than that shall ever expunge out of our Law-Books or explode out of the memory of every pious man This is that which many worthies have written with their blouds and sealed with their lives To this have many died Martyrs whose fame shall out-live the Sun and their memories be engraven upon the marble of everlasting monuments whilest others their opposers would be glad to have the stench of their ignominious names buried in the grave of oblivion where leaving them let us return to our King For nullum tempus occurrit Regi It is alwaies seasonable to do allegiance to the King whose power like the Ocean is boundlesse and his authority like the wind goeth where it listeth he only can proclaim war and he only can conclude peace he only can call Parliaments and dissolve them when he pleaseth he appointeth what Magistrates he pleaseth and turneth out whom he pleaseth all Laws Customs Privileges and Franchises are granted and confirmed to the people by him He raiseth men that are dead to life again for those that are condemned to die by the Judges are dead in Law but the Kings pardon reviveth them again He hath the sole power of ordering and disposing all the Castles Forts strong Holds Ports Havens and all other parts of the Militia He is the breath of our Nostrils the life head and authority of all that we do Supremam potestatem merum imperium apud nos habens having the Supreme power and meer empire over our bodies members lives and estates he doth whatsoever he pleaseth to be short he is our King And where the word of a King is there is power and who may say unto him what dost thou Eccle. 8.3 4. But so greedy is humane nature of dominion and covetous to rule that we have some amongst us who professe themselves to be born Kings they are Kings by birth nay greater than Kings are here For Par in parem non habet Dominium one King cannot command another King But these men use Kings as Children do birds in a string give him what Liberty and Authority they please clip his wings lest he should fly too high for them put pins in his eyes to make sport with him and clip off his head too to make known their authority But doubtless these men were never bred in Christs University Did they ever hear of him If they did it is the worse for them For they which know the will of God and do it not will fare never the better for their knowledge It is better to be an ignorant fool than a cunning knave Reddite quae sunt Caesaris
with a sure foot Though King David was a man after Gods own heart yet could he not please the people for Absolom his own Son made a conspiracy against him and forced him to flye for his life But mark the end of this Traytor though the earth did not open her mouth and swallow him up yet the very Trees took vengeance and caught him up by the head so that he hung between heaven and earth as unworthy to go to heaven or to live upon the earth 11 Sam. 18.9 Then how dare these Pulpit Hunters blaspheme God and prophane his Word and Sanctuary so much as to preach that Rebellion is obedience nay a necessary duty commanded of God and a great means to carry on the work of Salvation inciting the people to cry out for justice accounting all things injustice unless that they have their wicked ends So Absolom did steal the hearts of the people who had controversies telling them that there was no man deputed of the King to hear them 11 Sam. 15.4 And Absolom said moreover O that I were made judge in the Land that every man which hath any sute or cause might come unto me and I would do them Justice A true Lecture of a Traytor for you shall never find Traytors without Law and Justice on their sides to colour their actions The King hath not deputed a man say they to distribute Justice He is popishly given and would bring into the Kingdome the popish Religion He infringeth your Charters breaketh the Laws and destroyeth your Rights and Liberties But O that we were made Judges in the Land how equally and impartially would we give justice to all men we would not take away your Charters nor encroach upon your Liberties The preservation of the Law and Religion is the only cause for which we take up arms But when with their charms and sorcery they have intoxicated the people got the hilt of the sword into their own hands and a power to do what they list then down goeth both Law and Religion and the King too like Jonas must be thrown down from the stern of Government to appease the tempest of the multitude And then and not untill then like the head of a Snail or a Tortoise out of it's shell not seen before doth appear their own cause and indeed the only cause for which they took up arms which is their own private interest and the destruction of the whole Kingdome with their own bodies and souls hereafter Hor. Suis ipsa Roma viribus ruit And Englands own Sword destroyeth poor England But let Traytors pretend what they will yet this is a Principle whose original is the Bible confirmed by our Saviour and the Apostles by all the Fathers of the Church and by all Christian people by all reason and Religion That Kings have the Supreme power over their people and consequently the people no power to resist them either to save their Laws Religion or for what other pretence soever For Rex si supra populum optimatesve agnoscat proprie non est Rex He cannot be a King which hath not the supreme authority and Soveraignty Divisum imperium cum Jove Caesar habet It is God and the King to whom Soveraignty belongeth the people are their Vassals and not sharers in so high a dignity Our Saviour alone was both God and Man and it is a thing impossible for the people to be both king and Subject too at one time But why should I seek stars to light the noon day or press that with arguments to be true to them who with their oaths have confirmed it for a truth swearing I William Lenthal do utterly testify and declare in my conscience that the Kings Highness is the only Supreme Governour of this Realm and all other his Highness Dominions and Countries aswell in all spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or Causes as Temporal And that no forein Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Pre-eminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spâ—ritual within this Realm And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all forein Jurisdiction Powers Superiorities and Authorities and do promise that from henceforth I shall bear faith and true allegiance to the Kings Highnesse his heirs and lawfull Successors and to my power shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions Privileges Pre-eminences and authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highnesse his heirs and Successors or united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of the Realm So help me God and by the Contents of this Book What greater exemplification confirmation or demonstration of the kings Soveraignty can there be than this Sacred Oath of Supremacy For this is the thing which the Lord hath commanded saith Moses Num. 30.1 2. If a man Vow a Vow unto the Lord or swear an Oath to binde his soul with a bond he shall not break his word he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth And is there any English-man so impudently wicked and prophane as presumptuously to break Gods Commandement break his own vows and impiously turn perjured Traytor vix ipse tantum vix adhuc credo malum scarce I even I who have seen it with my own eyes can yet hardly believe so great a villany can be perpetrated Haec facere Jason potuit Could the betrothed do this Heu pietas Heu prisca fides Alas the antient piety Alas the fidelity of old time Debuit ferro obvium Offerre pectus I would have dyed first Quid non mortalia pectora cogis Auri sacra fames What doth not gold more sacred to them than their oathes compel mortals to atchieve Vid. 1. Eli. cap. 1. That the Kings power is above the Law is demonstrated by reason and proved by authority In the beginning were no Laws but the Kings will and pleasure Adams absolute power The King can do no wrong It is better and more profitable that one King than many Tyrants do what they lift with us The King hath no Judge but God That place in learned Bracton which Bradshaw and others used as an authority to kill the King explained and their damnable opinion and false Commentary upon him confuted The King is bound to observe Gods Law yet absolute King That God not the people instituteth kings and that the House of Commons which is but the tail of the Parliament nor any whole Parliament can have power over the king or disinherit him HAving made it evidently manifest that the King hath the supreme power and Soveraignty over the people I will now ascend a step higher and make it as manifest that he hath the supreme power and Soveraignty over the Laws as well as over the people Quidvis facere id est regem esse saith Salustius To do what one will is to be a King Cui quod libet licet Qui legibus solutus est Qui leges dat non accipit proiude qui omnes judicat a nemine
person of any Tyrant Pax â—um hominibus bellum vitiis but I hate his Tyyrannie I freely forgive them all the injuries they have done to me or any of my friends and for their good I have written this Treatise but they are Gods enemies and God would be offended if we should let them sleep in their villanies Our Laws and Religion ought to be more dear to us than all things in the world for without them we should be worse than beasts and who more subverteth our Laws and Religion than Tyrants Vt imperium evertant libertatem preferunt cum perverterunt ipsam aggrediuntur saies Tacitus That they may pervert the legal Government they pretend liberty for the people and when the Government is down they then invade that libertie themselves Auferre trucidare rapere falsis nominibus imperium atque ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellent To rob to murther to plunder Tyrants falsely call to Govern and to make desolation they call to settle peace These are they which God sayes Hosea 8.4 Ipsi regnaverunt sed non ex me They have reigned but not by me They have made Princes and I knew it not and have cast off the thing that is gâ—od There is no power indeed but of God but the abuse of power is from the Devil These men do not rightly use but abuse the power and as Satan is called the Prince of the world so these men are called Governors of the Realm not because they are so by right but by Treacherie Rebellion and Treason their power is by Gods permission not by his Donation Therefore these are not the Dignities and higher powers which the Apostle commands us to be subject to for then we must be subject to the Devil too for Tyrants and Devils have powers both alike lawfull and both by Treason and Rebellion No we should resist and arm our selves against these enemies it is Disobedience to obey them Rebellion not to rebell against them and Treason not to plot Treason against them Therefore let everie one be readie with his dagger like Jodes to stab this devourer of mankind Bad Kings must be converted onelie with praiers and tears but Tyrants must be subdued with clubs and swords for Quis constituit te virum Principem Judicem super nos Exod. 2.14 Who made them Princes and Judges over us the King we know and the Kings son we know but who are they They are not of Gods making but of Beelzebubs their Master and their own making Therefore let everie good Christian arm himself against these Caterpillers devotion and action must go together let him not bribe his Conscience with self interests but take courage and fight the good fight that so he may deliver himself and his Countrie from slaverie and bring the Tyrants to the Rope their best winding sheet All other Governments are but the corruption and and shreds of Monarchy which is the most glorious and most profitable of all sorts of Governments when and how Aristocracy and Democracy begun rather by Gods permission than institution The proper Character of a Common-wealths man or the Definition of an English Changeling with his flexible and mutable qualities The absence of our King is the cause of the presence of our many sins and divisions IF you remember in my Division of Governments I made mention of Aristocracy and Democracy c. which indeed had their first Original from the corruption of Monarchy and are but shreds of Monarchy as all Politicians hold Therefore I will not spend time and paper to abuse your patience with anie thing but a Description of them For Virg. Verum haec tantum alias inter caput extulit urbes Quantum lent a soleni inter viburna cupressi Monarchy doth as far excell all other sorts of Government in glory profit conveniencie for the people and in all other good qualities as the Sun doth the Moon or the Moon the twinckling stars and is like the lofty Cedar amongst the servile shrubs Hence it cometh that even the Republicans who hate a King because he is their Soveraign Master are compelled to suffer and use Petite Monarchies as one may say under them as one Master over everie Familie one Maior over everie City one Sheriff over everie Countie one Rector over everie Parish Church one Pilot over every ship one Captain over everie Troop one Admiral over the Fleet and manie other Offices of trust and places wherein Pluralitie of persons would prove most obnoxious But Monarchie is and alwaies hath been proved and approved the best and most absolute lie good Aristocracy is the Government of a Common-wealth by some select number of the better sort of the people preferred for their wisdome and other vertues for the publick good Oligarchy is the swarving or distortion or Aristocracy or the Government of a few rich yet wicked men whose private end is the chiefest end of their Government tyrannizing over Law Religion and the people Democracy or popular estate is the Government of the multitude Where the people have the supream power and Soveraign autority Ochilocracy or a Common-wealth is the corruption and deprivation of Democracy where the rascal Rabble or viler sort of the people govern by reason of their multitude These kinds of Government were not heard of a long time after Monarchy began and the impulsive causes of them were contention and confusion and were rather permitted than ordained by God as the bill of Divorce was by Moses For non erat sic ab initio there was no such Government at the beginning for God did not create it as he did Monarchy when he made all things but the people being stragled up and down in the world and so in processe of time became out of the knowledge of their lawfull King rather than they would indure the miserable effects of Anarchy for Plebs fine Rege ruit there can be no family no society indeed no living without rulers they reâ—igned up their whole power and libertie to some few select men or else to many who made Laws for them and so tied up the hands of the unrulie and wicked and defended the just from the violent tempests and storms of the unjust to which before they lay open and naked which God seeing that it was better for them to have such a Government than none at all did allow of it but it hath no comparison with Monarcâ—y becuase that was instituted by Gods primarie Ordinance and the further men go from Gods original institution they have the more corruption Nay if compared to Monarchy it is a curse for Solomon saith Prov. 28.2 For the transgressions of a Land many are the Princes thereof but by a man of understanding and knowledge the state thereof shall be prolonged summo dulcius unum Stare loco sociisque comes discordia regnis How sweetlie doth the Poet sing when he saith that it is most sweet for one to govern for a companie of Governors
are called of God to be Kings as his Vicegerents they have power to look to and have a care of the Church that the word be preached and the Sacraments administred by fit persons and in a right manner else how should Kings be Nursing Fathers to the Church had they not a Fatherly power over it Therefore many Acts of Parliament in several Kings Reigns and the whole Current of Law Books resolve and affirm the King to be head and have Supreme Jurisdiction in Ecclesiastical causes In the first year of Edward the sixth a Statute was made That all Authority and Jurisdiction both Spiritual and Temporal is derived from the King So in the Reign of Edward the Confessor was this Law ca. 17. The King who is the Vicar of the highest King is ordained to this end that he should Govern and Rule the Kingdom and People of the Land and above all things the Holy Church and that he defend the same from wrong doers and destroy and root out workers of mischief But since Reverend Coke in the fifth part of his Reports De jure Regis Ecclesiastico hath with luculent examples and impregnable lawes made it so clear that no man can gainsay it that the King ought and the Kings of England ever since before the Conquest until the Reign of Queen Elizabeth at which time he writ have had the supreme power and jurisdiction in all Spiritual and Ecclesiastical causes I referre you to his Book only reciting part of his conclusion viz. Thus hath it appeared as well by the antient Common Lawes of this Realm by the Resolutions and Judgments of the Judges and Sages of the Lawes of England in all succession of ages as by authority of many Acts of Parliament antient and of later times that the Kingdome of England is an absolute Monarchy and that the King is the only supreme Governour as well over Ecclesiastical persons and in Ecclesiastical causes as temporal within this Realm And in another places fo 8. he saith And therefore by the antient Lawes of this Realm this Kingdome of England is an absolute Empire and Monarchy consisting of one head which is the King and of a body politick compact and compounded of many and almost infinite several and yet well agreeing Members All which the law divideth into two several parts that is to say the Clergy and the Laity both of them next and immediately under God subject and obedient to the head Also the Kingly head of this politick body is instituted and furnished with plenary and intire power prerogative and jurisdiction to render justice and right to every part and member of this body of what estate degree or calling soever in all causes Ecclesiastical or Temporal otherwise he should not be a head of the whole body Now he that looketh upon these Authorities and yet saith that the King is not above both Parliament and people nor hath soveraign power over them will likewise look upon the sun in the Heavens and yet say that it is not above but below the earth and when he is in the midst of the sea say that there are no waters in the world If then the King hath the supreme power over Parliament and people as most certainly he hath how then could the Parliament or people much lesse sixty of them question or judge their King For no man can deny but that the greater power ought to correct and judge the lesser not the lesser the greater How could they did I say Why vi armis by violence and injury not by law So may I go and murther the King of Spain or the King of France and then tell them that their people have the supreme power over them The case is all one only these Rebels murthered their natural Father and King to whom nature and the Lawes of God and man had made them subjects but I should murther a forein King whom I ought not to touch he being the Lords annointed It is easie to prove the Soveraignty of the Kings of England by their Stiles unlesse our anti-monarchical Statists will say they nick named themselves Their several stiles since the Conquest you may see in the first part of my Lord Coke's Institutes Fo. 27. Therefore I will not trouble you with a recital of them as for the styles before the Conquest take one for all which you may find in the Preface of Co. li. 4. and in Davis his Irish reports Fo. 60. In a Charter made by Edgar one of the Saxon Monarchs of England before the Danish Kings viz. Altitonantis dei largiflua clementia qui est Rex Regum dominus dominantium Ego Edgarus Anglorum Basileus omniumque rerum Insularum Oceani quae Britanniam circumjacent cunctarumque Nationum quae infra eam includuntuâ— Imperator et dominus Gratias ago ipsi Deo omnipotenti Regi meo qui meum imperium sic ampliavit exaltavit super Regum patrum meorum Qui licet Monarchiam totius Angliae adepti sunt a tempore Athelstani qui primus Regum Anglorum omnes Nationes quae Britanniam incolunt sibi armis subegit nullus tamen eorum ultra fines imperium suum dilatare agressus est mihi tamen concessit propitia Divinitas cum Anglorum imperio omnia regna Insularum Oceani cum suis ferocissimis regibus usque Norvegiam maximamque partem Hiberniae cum sua nobilissima Civitate de Dublina Anglorum regno subjugare quos etiam omnes meis imperiis colla subdare dei favente gratia coegi By which you may observe the first Conquest of Ireland and that the Kings of England are Emperours and Monarchs in their Kingdom constituted only by God the King of Kings and Lord of Lords not by the people And so did many other Kings of England stile themselves as for example Etheldredus totius Albionis Dei Providentia Imperator and Edredus Magnae Britanniae Monarcha c. But that our preposterous Commonwealths men might make themselves most ridiculous as well as impious in all things they would argue the King out of his Militia and have him to be their Defender yet they would take away his sword from him O Childish foppery What a Warriour without arms a General without souldiers why not aâ— well a Speaker without a mouth such Drollerâ— was never heard of in the world until the Infatuation of these infandous Republicans hatcht it Nay but there shall be a King over us cryed the Israelites that we also might be like all the Nations and that our King may judge us and go out before us and fight our battels 1 Sam. 8.19 Anâ— what should he fight without the Militia should the King be over the people judge them and go out before them to battel yet ought the people tâ— have power to array arm and muster the souldierâ— at their pleasure ought they to appoint whaâ— Officers and Commanders they thought fit surely no For he will saith Samuel verse 12.
of his hands and take it into their own But this was not all the Sea was dryed up and the fields were scorcht the Harvests were burnt and the Mountains perished with heat the Moon was amazed and the Clouds shone like Comets Parva tamen queror magnae pereunt cum maenibâ— urbes Cumque suis totas populis incendia gentes In cinerem vertunt But this was nothing Cities with their Towrs Realms with their people funeral fire Devours All the Kingdoms in the world did shake And all the Kings doubted of their regal title They feared that themselves should be destroyed and their Crowns with their lives pulled to the ground And doubtless had not Divine providence stopped this wild-fire more Kingdoms than were had been demolished For this fire did intend to make Kings and the common people all in one condition neither was the King to have any praerogative above his subjects but all had like to have been consumed in one and the same sire Great Cities with their walls and whole Nations with their people were turned into Ashes Circumspice utrinque Fumat uterque polus quos si violaverit ignis Atria vestra ruent Behold the Poles above At either end do fume And should they burn Thy habitation would to ruine turn O Almighty this usurpation would have taken away thy power For the Kings which thou did'st set to rule over the people had well nigh been all consumed And thy anointed which thou hast prohibited any thing to touch were by this unwieldy and unlawfull Government almost destroyed The flames begun to lick the Heavens and both Poles did take fire so that all things were hastening into their antient Chaos Alma tamen tellus ut erat circundata ponto Inter aquas pelagi contractosque undique fontes Qui se condiderant in opacae viscera matris Sustulit omniferos collo tenus arida vultus Opposuitque manum fronti magnoque tremore Omnia concutiens paulum subsedit infra Quam solet esse fuit sacraque ita voce profatur Si plaoet hoc meruique quid O tua fulmina cessant Summe Deum liceat periturae viribus ignis Igne perire tuo clademque autore levare Yet foodfull Tellus with the Ocean bound Amidst the Seas and Fountains now unfound Self hid within the womb where they were bred Neck-high advanceth her all-bearing head Her parched fore-head shadow'd with her hand And shaking shook what ever on her stand Wherewith a little shrunk into her brest Her sacred tongue her sorrows thus exprest If such thy will and I deserve the same Thou chief of Gods Why sleeps thy vengefull flame Be 't by thy fire If I in fire must fry The Author lessens the Calamity At length Our Mother Earth being a fellow sufferer in this hot persecution lifteth up her parched head out of the waters gathered together for her defence and holding her hands as a Fan before her face Thus powreth forth her dolefull grief O God of Gods If this be thy pleasure and my deserts Why sleep thy thunderbolts If I must perish by fire Let thy fire be my Executioner And so credit my death Thee O Jove being the Author Dixerat haec tellus neque enim tolerare vaporem Vlterius potuit nec dicere plura suumque Retulit os in se This said her voyce her parched tongue forsooke No longer could she smothering vapours brooke But down into herself with drew her head Near to th' infernal Caverns of the dead When shee had done prayers she shrunk in her venerable head for heat would not permit her to use Complements Which Oration no sooner came to Great Jupiters ear but he presently sends relief At Pater omnipotens superos testatus ipsum Qui dederat Currus Consiliumque vocat tenuit mora nulla vocatos The Almighty calleth a Parliament Summons â—n both Lords and Commons to the Counsel For â—lthough none can deny but that the Omnipotent hath an absolute power without the consent of â—he Inferiour Gods his subjects both to abrogate â—ld and institute new Laws yet such is his Royal indulgence that he will do neither without their consent Yet search the Catalogue of Antiquity and you will never finde a President that his Lords or Commons did ever dispute his authority much less assume his power and pluck the Regal Diadem from off their Soveraigns head It is his goodness which makes them capable of a Consent his Statutes are binding without it But to return Jupiter determins the death of Phaeton and dasheth him out of the Chariot with a violent thunderbolt and re-establisheth Royal Phoebus in his Throne Intonat dextra libratum fulmen ab aure Misit in aurigam pariterque animaque rotisque Exuit saevis compescuit ignibus ignes Et Phaeton rutilos flamma populante capillos Volvitur in praeceps He thunders and with hands that cannot erre Hurls lightning at the audatious Charioter Him strook he from his seat breath from his brest Both at one blow and flames with flames supprest And soul-less Phaeton with blazing hair Shot headlong through a long descent of air Now have you seen both the ascention of Phaetoâ— into the Chariot and his descention out of it Mâ— prayers shall be that I may never rise so high tâ— fall so low But the greatest Tyants in the world have oftentimes the greatest pompe of the world at their funeral to compleat their earthly happiness Therefore Reader take his Epitaph and consider whether it is not better to live a faithfull subject then dye a bold adventurous Traytor Hic situs est Phaeton Currus auriga paterni Quem si non tenuit magnis tamen excidit ausis Here lies Phaeton who though he could not guide His Fathers steeds in high attempts he dyed The Entrance of the AUTHOR who complaining of the times wherein the good are ejected and the wicked kill and take possession sheweth that those who unjustly against law are driven out of their own Country are not banished But that those who are unjust acting against right and deserve banishment by law are banisht though they continue upon their native soil With an Antidote out of venerable Petrack for all aswell Kings as other men who are illegally expelled from their Country THus ended Phaeton and consequently the History with him from whose ruins I will take my Exordium And Exemplo monstrante viam imitating my Mother Earth in her persecution shalâ— first lift up my head and hands to the God oâ— Gods and begin with a short Ejaculation though in King Davids words yet the same in effect with hers Summe Deum liceat periturae viribus ignis Igne perire tuc clademque autore levare Be 't by thy fire if I in fire must fry The Author lessens the calamity Let me fall into the hands of the Lord for very great are his mercies but let me not fall into the hands of man O happy David O happy Prayer O happy Success
as to take upon them a power to depose and powr out the sacred blood of their lawfull Soveraign Yet is there no such power in rerum natura It is the off-pring of the Devil The cloak Sanctuary and refuge of Treason Rebellion and Tyranny to blinde the people taking advantage of their ignorance and lead them hood-winckt into everlasting destruction unless the God of mercy prevent not With this new upstart Doctrine have our Apochryphal Dogmatists in England led the rascal rabble of the people about like a Dog in a string buzzing in their ears that the Monarchy of England is composed of three kinds of Commonwealths and that the Parliament hath the form of an Aristocracy the three estates of a Democracy and the King to represent the state of a Monarchy which is an opinion not only false absurd fond foolish and impossible but also worthy of the most severe punishment For it is high treason to make the Subject equal with the King in authority and power or to joyn them as Companions in the Soveraignty For the power of a Soveraign Prince is nothing diminished by his Parliament but rather much more thereby manifested The Majesty of a Prince consists in the obedience of his Subjects and where is the obedience of the Subjects more manifested then in his Parliament where the Lords and Commons the Nobility and Comminalty and all his Subjects from the highest Cedar to the lowest Shrub with bended knees and bare heads do cast down themselves at his feet and do homage and reverence unto his Majesty Humbly offering unto him their requests which he at his pleasure receiveth or admiteth So that it plainly appeareth that if the Parliament be not extravagant and leap over the bounds limited by the laws of God and our Realm of England the majesty and authority of our Soveraign is not decreased by the assembly of Parliament but rather augmented and increased For the Peers cannot assume Aristocracy nor the Commons Democracy without violation of their Oaths with which they are tyed in obedience to their Soveraign as well as with the Laws Indeed our Prince doth distribute places of command Magistracy and preferments to all his Subjects indifferently and so the Government is in a manner tempered with Democracy But yet notwithstanding the State doth continue a pure and simple Monarchy because all authority floweth and is derived from the King and the Soveraignty doth still continue in him as the fountain from whence those streams of power run and the Parliament is so far from sharing in this Soveraignty that the whole current of our acts of Parliament acknowledge the King to be the only Soveraign stiling him Our Soveraign Lord the King And the Parliament 25 H. 8. saith This your Graces Realm recognizing no superior under God but your Grace c. And the Parliament 16 Rich. 2.5 affirmeth the Crown of England to have been so free at all times that it hath been in no earthly subjection but immediately to God in all things touching the Regality of the said Crown and to none other And without doubt these Parliaments and many others had as much might and right though not so much Knavery as our Anabaptists and Puritans and other Sectaries have now who pretend that the Government originally proceedeth and habitually resideth in the people but is cumulatively and communicatively derived from them unto the King and therefore the people not denuding themselves of their first interest but still retaining the same in the collective body that is to say in themselves suppletive if the King in their Judgement be defective in the administration or neglect the performance of his duty may question their King for his misgovernment dethrone him if they see cause and resuming the Collated power into their own hands again may transfer it to any other whom they please These men would make themselves extraordinary wise or else our Ancestors extraordinary fools for surely if there had been such a power residing in the people as these men blab of it would have been preached up before these new-lights ever saw the light some busie-head like themselves would have awakened it and not let it sleep so long But it is impossible and a meer foppery to think that such a power should be for suppose that the people had at first Elected their Governour and gave him Soveraignty over them could they with justice and equity dethrone him again Surely no. For sive electione sive postulatione vel successione vel belli jure princeps fiat Principi tamen facto Divinitus potestas adest Let the King be made by election lot succession or conquest yet being he is a King he hath Divine power And therefore they have no power to take away that which God hath given The Conceit of a mixed Monarchy that the supreme power may be equally distributed into two or three sorts of Governours is meerly vain and frivolous because the supreme power being but one must be placed in one sort of Governors either only in Monarchy or only in Aristocracy or only in Democracy Our Parliaments of England never until now claimed either Aristocracy or Democracy Therefore as hitherto it hath been granted so the Government must of necessity still be Monarchical And the gracious Concessions of our Soveraign not to make Laws without a Parliament do not make the Parliament sharer or his equal in the Soveraignty because as I shewed before the Parliament hath no power but what is derived from the King His limitation of his Prerogative doth no way diminish his Supremacy God himself who is most absolute may notwithstanding limit himself and his power as he doth when he promises and sweareth that he will not fail David and that the unrepentant Rebels should never enter into his rest so a man that yieldeth himself to be bound hath his strength restrained but not lessened neither is any of it transferred to them who bound him So our Soveraign doth limit his power in some points of his administration and yet this limitation neither transferreth any power of Soveraignty unto the Parliament nor denyeth the Monarchy to be absolute nor admitteth of any resistance against him Monarchy is either Lordly or Royal. Adam proved to be the first King and made by God in Paradise not by the people All Kings are made by God The Son hath more right and it is more pleasing to God for him to murther his Father the Wife her Husband and the Servant his Master than it is for the people to kill their King Though in truth he be wicked The Kings institution and authority declared by Divine and Humane Writers The Horrible Labyrinth of sins which Regicides plunge into with their guilt The most famous Nations in the World have and do live under Monarchy Englands glory and love to Kings in times past and her Apostacy in times present Pater familias were petite Kings and how little Kingdoms grew great Kingdoms The Kings power is
Floud or the Confusion of Babel yet it is as true that there is a Regal right continuing in the Father-hood even untill this day and that the next heir to Adam ought to have the Supreme power as it is true that the father hath right ought to govern his Children or as that it is a rule Qui prior est tempore potior est jure He that is eldest by Law ought to rule For God told Cain the eldest brother Gen. 4.7 That unto him should be the desire of his youngest brother and that he should rule over him which continueth a Law until this present time But though we know not which is the next heir to Adam in any convention of the people which is the fault of our ignorance not of nature yet since God hath told us in his Holy Word that he only disposeth of Crowns as he pleaseth Therefore they can not go out of the right line so long as he directeth and guideth them though the right in the Father-hood lye dormant Every King is a Father therefore every subject must be obedient to his fatherly power otherwise he will break Gods Commandment viz. Honour thy Father c. God only had right to give and take away Crowns and thereby to adopt subjects into the allegiance of another fatherly power Therefore no less false than execrable is their opinion who promulge that all men whereby nature born free from subjection and that they had no Governour but by the peoples assent and chusing when it is most apparent that God gave the Supreme power to Adam and that all men since were born subjects by nature Our Saviour was subject to his Parents will Luke 2.51 And doubtless those men are free from all goodness too who profess themselves born free from subjection to their Prince or their Ancestors before them But suppose all men were born free by nature and that the people originally by nature had power to chuse a King after what manner or how is it possible for them to make their choice it must be by the joint consent of every reasonable creature Male and Female Old and Young Babes and Antient men Sick and Lame all at one time Nemine Contradicente for if natural freedom be granted to all the Major part of the whole people in the world or the Major part of the people of a Kingdom have no power to binde the lesser part to their consent and agreement Every one being as free by birth and having as much power as any other For the Major part never bindeth but where men at first either agree to be so bound or where a higher power so commands Now there being no higher power than Nature but God himself where neither Nature nor God appoints the Major part to binde The consent of the Major part is not binding to any but only to themselves who consent Those who are born afterwards according to the tenets of natural freedome are not bound by their consent because by nature they are likewise born free But if it should be true as it is false that men are all free born by nature yet have not they power jointly or severally to alter the Law of nature Now by the Law of nature no man hath power to take away his own life How then can the people or any single man give that power to another which he hath not in himself If he killeth himself for any offence he is a murtherer Therefore if any man claiming no other power but what he hath from the people do take away the life of any man though in a way of publique justice he is a murtherer and the man so killed is a felo de se Because the man slain had no power to kill himself and so consequently he which killed him had no power neither For Nemo potest plus juris in alium transferre quam ipse habet No man can transfer to another a greater right and power than he himself hath Tyrants are either with a Tittle or without a Tittle Their qualities Kings have their power immediatly from God not from the People proved in Adam and by Gods own Word in several Texts of Scripture by the suffrages of the Fathers and other Writers and by the Lords Prayer and Doctrine The several sorts and degrees of power instituted by God and the Commission whereby God gave power to Adam The honour which God hath bestowed on Kings and his special care and owning them How Kings are said to be instituted immediatly by God The Israelites did not sin in desiring a King and his power and praerâ—gative set forth by the Prophet Samuel Saul was chosen for his virtues and was not vitious at his inanguration Proved from Adonijah and Solomon that God only maketh Kings not the People The Arrogance and presumption of the pragmatical People of England in claiming power to make and unmake Kings condemned who will have none Kings but themselves Monarchy the best of Governments LEt us now set upon this Monster a Tyrant who is either cum titulo vel sine titulo with a title or without a title A Tyrant cum titulo or Exercitio is he who being a legal Soveraign ruleth by his depraved will and treading under foot the Laws of God and his Realm enslaveth his free born subjects and useth their goods as his own A Tyrant sine Titulo is he who usurpeth the Soveraignty without the Authority of the Law and subverteth all Rights and Religion making what Laws he pleaseth or else squareth his actions according to the rule of the known Laws For he that hath no Title to the Soveraignty but usurpation is a Tyrant though he live so piously and religiously that to the world he seems a Saint Here I could willingly cast Anchor and stop the progress of my pen from sayling any further into this rough Ocean of Tyranny But when I see the Sword and Scripture so much at variance the one fighting against the other then am I forced to put this question Whether a lawful Soveraign perverting the Laws of God and man and metamorphosed into an absolute Tyrant may by his subjects be called in question and punished at their pleasure The Sword saith he may and proves it by experience The Scripture though not with so much violence yet with more Reason and Religion both saith and proves it that he may not Mulciber in Trojam pro Troja stabat Apollo For the better decision of which question it is first necessary to be known whether the institution of Kings be immediatly from God or whether they be creatures made by the people receiving their power from their subjects and so to be dethroned when they vouchsafe to think convenient For art thou only a stranger in England and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these dayes That there are new Statesmen who have found out a new discovery and hold forth these Sophisms for true doctrin That Royal
Woolves with the destruction of the Innocent I need no other proof for this than every mans experience Virgil. Tantane vos generis tenuit fiducia Vestri Jam caelum terramque Dei sine numine venti Miscere tantas audetis tollere moles Quos Deus at motos praestat componere fluctus Post sibi non simili poena commissa luetis Maturate fugam Regique haec dicite vestro O ye Empty Clouds and raging winds of Ambition could Attempts enter into your Dunghill thoughts as to assassinate your King provoke Heaven and molest the Earth Durst you encounter the Almighty pitch battail and sight against his Deity Are your Commandments above his and can your Statutes repeal his Hath not he in his Vpper-house constituted a King and commanded you to honor and obey him and can your Mortal nothings in the Lower-house next door to hell vote him useless Can you put asunder that which Jehovah hath joyned together and take away not only the Crown but the life also of your dread Soveraign Can you do these things and look upwards Aposiopesis But God will that he will Ah rather repent of your villanies It is better for you I think though not your deserts to go peaceably to Heaven than to be thrown headlong into hell For there you will be murthered with the Devils and you cannot murther any more Kings death lyeth at your door and after this life ended you shall not be punished with the Sermons of holy Ministers or with Gods Word which is now odious unto you But with the Scorpions of the Devil Beelzebub and his Angels shall execute Tyranny over you in the infernal pit as you and your Angels have done over the Lords anointed and his innocent subjects in the open air before God and man Therefore Repent for Repentance is your nearest way to salvation Maturate fugam Regique haec dicite vestro Make haste and go and tell your King these things That you are sorrowful and that it gnaweth and biteth your seared Conscience to think that you should be the Authors of so great a wickedness beg his gracious pardon restore his sacred Patrimony which you have torne in pieces and cast lots for his pardon and peace with him will do your Souls more good than all his Lands or Royalties Acknowledge his Soveraignty as ye ought and set the Crown again upon his head which you did injuriously pluck off or else the time will come that one drop of the many tears and waters which you have caused to flow from the eyes of the Royal party their Widdows and Orphans shall be more desired of you to cool your tongues than ever their estates and honours were If a Thief should set upon you or any other subject to rob him It is lawful for the honest man to draw his sword and kill him if he can How dare you then with violence set upon your King to rob him not only of his goods but also of his life yet because he defended himself and so some of the Rebels slain Therefore you impeach him of high Treason and murther O monstrous did you ever hear of any Law in the whole world that ever the King could commit high Treason Be dumb for you did not The Laws of England are divided into three parts viz. 1. Common Law which is the most antient Law of the Realm 2. Particular Customes 3. Statutes or Acts of Parliament There is no offence punishable by the Laws of England unless it be against one of these Laws He that doth not offend against the Law is no sinner for where there is no Law there can be no transgression I had not known sin saith St. Paul but by the Law Rom. 7.7 Then cannot the King be guilty of Treason to the people or of any other offence punishable unless he offend against one of these three Laws And that he did not offend against any of them nor was guilty of those offences laid to his charge by any one or all of those Laws is as clear as the Sun and a Maxim with all honest men For 1. The Common Law is nothing else but the general custome and common usage of the Realm Finch 77. Plowdens Com. 195. Therefore the King cannot be an offender or guilty by the common Law nor the people have power to call him in question for any of his actions because it is so far from being the general custome and common usage of England for the King to be punished by the people that before this first and last great and monstrous distractive and destructive wicked and abominable murther of the last most gracious and merciful King such a thing was scarce ever heard of or entred into the thoughts of any English man Therefore the Rebels are cast by common Law and the Chancery will never give relief against the common Law li. 4.124 D. and St. So that take them which may you will this Dilemma will hang them Amen 2. Customary Law is where a particular custome grounded upon reason differeth from the general usage and common custome of the Realm Now to prove that the King is not an Offender against this Law would be a thing altogether frivolous and ridiculous it being known to every one that he cannot 3. Statute Law is a Law positive made by the King with the assent of the Parliament And there is no Statute or Act of Parliament in England which maketh any offence in the King high Treason or that giveth the people power to call the King to an account accuse or condemn him But there are many offences committed by the people made high Treason against the King by several Acts of Parliament But that the King could commit Treason against the people is such a novelty that Heaven nor Earth never heard of before perditious England hatcht it But since our age is much given to fictions Let us for once feign with our false Republicans That by the antient fundamental Laws of the Realm The King might commit Treason against the people and be a Traytor to the Common-wealth for which the people might lawfully question him Yet since Leges posteriores priores contrarias abrogant The Statute Law may alter and abridge the common Law The King cannot now commit Treason against the people nor be a Traytor to the Commonwealth Because by the Statute made 1 H. 4.10 and several others It is enacted by authority of Parliament who as the common people think may do any thing vote Heaven Hell or Hell Heaven That in no time to come any Treason be Judged otherwise than it was ordained by the Statute of 25 E. 3.2 In which Statute I am sure there is no mention made of any Treason but only against the King as any one may read at large which Statute being it was made by Benedictum Parliamentum a blessed Parliament for so it was called Co. Inst 3.2 I commend it to the perusal of every English man as the best
And therefore Sir John Davis in his preface confidently averreth that the Common-law doth excel all other laws in upholding a free Monarchy which is the most excellent form of Government exalting the Prerogative royal and being tender and watchful to preserve it and yet maintaining all the Ingenuous liberty of the Subject Nay so carefull is the law of the Kings Soveraignty that in all cases from the highest to the lowest it demonstrateth the Kings supreme power and dignity The law will not permit any Subject to come so near the King as to be jointenant with him for if Lands are given to the King and a subject or if there be two Jointenants and the Crown descend to one of them the Jointure is severed and they are Tenants in Common for no Subject is equal with the King Co. Lit. 190. Plowd Com. in Seig. Barkleys Case Nay rather than the Suâ—â—ect shall be equal with the King in any thing he shall lose all for the King being Tenant in Common of entier Chattel personal he shall have the whole as if an Obligation be made to two or two possessed of an horse and one is attainted the King shall have the whole duty of the Obligation and the horse 13 El. pl. 322. Finch 178. To instance all particular cases is endlesse and impossible all land is holden of the King immediately or by means himself not having any higher upon earth of whom to hold 50 Ass pl. 1. 18 Eli. Pl. 498. For it would be against Common right and reason that the King should hold of any or do service to any of his subjects saith Cook lib. 8.118 Because he hath no Superior but God almighty Cook Lit. 1. Escheats of all Cities appertaineth unto the King all mines of Gold and silver or wherein the gold and silver is of the greater value appertain unto the King 8 E. 3. Escheat 12. 1 El. Plo. 314. The King is Anima legis he governeth and defendeth the law all Writs and Processe run in his name and receive authority onely from him and all persons have their power from him and by his Writ Patent or Commission The King hath the sole Government of his subjects The body Politick and the natural body of the King make one body and not diverse and are inseparable and indivisible Plo. 234 242.213 lib. 7.12 Rex tuetur legem lex tuâ—tur jus We muâ— be for God and the King because by his laws we are protected and it is a miserable case to be out of the Kings Protection Co. Lit. 129. All Jurisdictions and the punishment of all offenders against the Laws belongs to the King And Treasons Felonies and other Pleas of the Crown are propriae causae regis For why The King is viva Lex a living Law who only hath power to give Laws and therefore he only ought to punish those who break them Not the Parliament as it is called viz. the two Houses or either of them singly because they without the King can make no Law and therefore they are murtherers because they have put to death many worthy Innocents having no other Law but their own wicked wills And for my part if any one should tell me that the Law of England is nothing but the will of the King I could not disprove him for what are the great volumes of our Statutes but the Monuments and Repertory of the Kings will What is the reason that it is a Law that the King cannot make new or alter old Laws but in Parliament with the consent of his Lords and Commons Because the King was pleased to will it so for it was not so from the beginning The King was long before Parliaments and therefore did most certainly make Laws without them What is an Act of Parliament but the will of the King Nay what is Magna Charta but a Roy le veilt All our Rights and Liberties we enioy are by the gracious concessions of our Soveraign Lord the King who esteemeth our good and freedom his best praerogative and happinesse Omnium domos illius vigilia defendit omnium otium illius labor omnium delitias illius industria omnium vacationem illius occupatio The King by his watch and diligent care doth defend and keep every mans house in safety his labour doth maintain and defend every mans rest and quiet his diligence doth preserve and defend every private mans pleasure and delight his businesse doth maintain and defend every mans leasure So that as Manwood hath it even as the head of a natural body doth continually watch and with a provident care still ook about for the safety and preservation of every member of the same body Even so the King being the head of the body of the Commonweal doth not only continually carry a watchful eye for the preservation of peace and quietnesse at home amongst his own Subjects but also to preserve and keep them in peace and quietnesse from any forein invasion Therefore if the Rebells since the murther of our gracious King Charles the first have taken the freeborn Subjects of this Nation and imprisoned them like Slaves without any just cause or due processe of Law If they have violently driven us from our Lands and Livelyhoods possessing themselves of them and taken away our free Customs and Liberties If they have unjustly deprived us of the benefit of the Law banished us out of our Country and destroyed us with their high Courts of Injustice without the verdict of our equalls contrary to the Law of the Land if they have delayed Justice and Right denyed it to all men and granted it to no man but to those who would buy it Blesse God for Charles the first and pray for the restauration of Charles the second Praise God for their noble Praedecessours who have been our Nursing Fathers and their Queens our nursing Mothers who have willed and enacted Magna Charta ca. 29. Nullus liber homo capiatur vel imprisonetur aut dissisietur de libero tenemento suo vel libertatibus vel liberis consuetudinibus suis aut utlagagetur aut exuletur aut aliquo modo destruatur nec super ibimus nec super eum mittemus nisi per legale judicium parium suorum vel per legem terrae nulli vendemus nulli negabimus aut differemus justitiam vel rectum That no man should be arrested imprisoned disseised of his Free-hold of his Liberties or free customes or out-lawed bâ—nished or otherwise destroyed but by the verdict of his equals and the Law of the Land neither should Law and Justice be delayed sold or denyed to any man but the King in judgment of Law is present in all his Courts of Justice repeating these words We will sell deny nor delay Justice and right to no man Inst 2.55 O Magnificent blessed and golden Oration It proceeded from the lips of Kings and we shall never hear such Doctrine preached again in any of our Courts of Justice untill our King be
his Majesty before he was crowned King But it was clearly resolved by all the Judges of England that presently by the descent his Majesty was compleatly and absolutely King without any essential ceremony or act to be done Ex post facto and that Coronation was but a royal ornament and outward solemniation of the descent And this evidently appeareth by infinite Presidents and book cases where such execrable opinions have been no sooner hatched than destroyed and if the Judges of our age had been so honest as to have cropped in the bud such like opinions broached by the Rebells Charls the first had still been our King and we a flourishing and happy Kingdom Although the King of England hath two Capacities the one by Nature the other by Policy yet ligeance is due to the King in his natural capacity and his natural and politick body make but one indivisible body Plo. 213. The Oath of Alligeance is made to the natural person of the King so is the Oath of Supremacy and all Inditements of Treason when any do intend or compasse mort◠et destructionem Domini Regis the death and destruction of the Lord our King which must needs be understood of his natural body for his politick body is immortal and not subject to death the Inditement concludeth contra ligeantiae suae debitum ergo the ligeance is due to the natural body vid. Fitt Justice of Peace 53. Plo. Com. 384. in the Earl of Leicesters case It is true that the King in genere dyeth not but no question in individuo he dyeth as for example Charls the first dyed yet the King is not dead because Charls the second whom God preserve is still alive For by the Laws of England there can be no interregnum within the same lib. 7.11 And to affirm as the Traytors now do that the Kings power is separable from his person is high Treason by the Law of the Land hear the Oracle of the Law tell you so lib. 7.11 In the Reign saith he of Edward the second the Spencers the Father and the Son to cover the Treason hatched in their hearts invented this damnable and damned opinion that Homage and Oath of Ligeance was more by reason of the Kings Crown that is of his politick capacity than by reason of the person of the King upon which opinion they inferred execrable and detestable consequents 1. If the King do not demean himself by reason in the right of his Crown his Lieges are bound by Oath to remove the King 2. Seeing that the King could not be reformed by Sute of Law that ought to be done by aspertee that is by force 3. That his Lieges be bound to Govern in aid of him and in default of him All which were condemned by two Parliaments one in the Reign of E. 2. called exilium Hugonis le Spencer and the other in Anno 1 E. 3. cap. 1. If the opinions of the Spencers were so wicked and detestable what then are the actions of the Rebells of our age who have put in practice what was but intended by the Spencers and that they might reform the King according to their minds cut off his head because he was a headhigher than they O Monstrous Reformers Did I not know that the Euthusiasts of our times do by their diabolical interpretations subvert even the Holy word of the Almighty making themselves absolute Kings over the Scripture to do what they please with it though they will not permit their King to have Soveraignty over themselves his Vassals And like the raging torrent of the foaming flouds which running down the lofty Hills demolisheth and carrieth away all opposites in its roaring Streams or as the violent fury of a Masterless headstrong multitude who hew down Kings as well as Royal Subjects in their tempestuous fury so these men set upon the Bible and stretch every Text of Scripture to their own meaning although there is as great a distance between their meaning and the Scripture as there was betwixt the Glutton in Hell and Lazarus in Abrahams Bosom in Heaven else should I wonder how they could seem to make the very Letter of the Law speak against the very Letter and like the Philosophers stone which turneth all things into Gold so the tongues of these men turn the sense of all the Lawbooks into their golden meaning and cite those books as authorities on their sides which are so contrary and opposite against them as if they had been purposely prepared to encounter and confute them For where is the Kings Soveraignty more fully demonstrated and evidenced than in Reverend Bracton and what book so much abūsed as his For lib. 2. cap. 24. speaking of Liberties and who had power to give them Quis saith he who hath power he answereth that the King hath For Sciendum quòd ipse dominus Rex qui ordinariam habet jurtsdictionem et dignitatem et potestatem super omnes qui in regno suo sunt habet enim omnia jura in manu sua quae ad coronam et laicalem pertinent potestatem materialem gladium qui pertinet ad regni gubernaculum habet etiam justitiam et judicium quae sunt jurisdictiones ut ex jurisdictione suae sicut dei minister vicarius tribuat unicuique quod suum fuerit Habet enim ea quae sunt pacis ut populus sibi traditus in pace sileat quiescat ne quis alterum verberet vulneret vel male tractet ne quis alienam rem per vim roberiam auferat vel asportet ne quis hominem Mahemiet vel occidat Habet enim coercionem ut delinquentes puniat coerceat Item habet in potestate sua leges constitutiones assisas in regno suo provisas et approbatas et juratas ipse in propria persona observet et subditis suis faciat observari nihil enim prodest jura condere nisi sit qui jura tueatur Habet igitur Rex hujusmodi jura five jurisdictiones in manu sua And again in the same Chapter ea quae jurisdictionis funt pacis ea quae sunt justitiae paci annexae ad nullum pertinent nisi ad coronam dignitatem regiam nec a Corona separari poterunt cum faciant ipsam Coronam The sum of which in English is this the King hath supreme power in all civil causes the Law floweth solely from him he is super omnes above all men in his Kingdom all jurisdictions are in him The material Sword of right belongs to him and whatsoever conduces to peace that the people committed to his charge may live peaceably and quietly The power of holding Assizes is derived from him and of punishing Delinquents for it would be in vain to Enact Laws if there was not some body enabled to protect us by defending them c. And the same Author saith lib. 2. ca. 9. Potentia vero omnes sibi subitos praecellere parem autem habere
odious woman when she is married and an Hand-maiâ— that is Heir to her Mistresse Is not our Englanâ— disquieted with all these Oh who can bear it yet these Tyrants rejoce at it Delight is not seemly for a Fool much lesse for a Servant to have ruâ— over Princes Pro. 19.10 Yet these Slaves tryumph over their Prince and scoff at his Miseries And as the Jews in a deriding manner said of oâ— Saviour This is Jesus King of the Jews So thesâ— Jews scoffingly call their Soveraign Lord The King of Scots yet keep his Kingdom from him jeeâ—ing him out of his Estate O Heavens As perpetually afterwards so allwayes before the Conquerour the legislative power did continue in the King tanquam in proprio subjecto as in the true and proper subject of that power and the Kings Edicts were the only positive Laws of the Realm and indeed who can be a King without this power for what difference is there between the King and Subject but that the one gives the Laws the other receiveth them And most clear it is by all Historians that the Common Council of our antient Kings were composed only of Prelates and Peers the Commons were not admitted to any Communication in affairs of State Camden in his Britannia telleth us that in the times of the Saxon Kings and in after Ages the Common Council of the Land was Praesentia Regis Praelatorum Procerumque collectorum The presence of the King with the Prelates and Peers Ingulphus who dyed before 1109 saith Rex Eldredus Convocavit Magnates Episcopos Proceres Optimates ad tractandum de publicis negotiis Regni He did not call the Commons So Edward the Confessor that great Legislâ—tor made all his Laws without the consent of the Commons Now when the Norman Conqueror one of the Praedecessors of Charles the Martyr came in who had a triple title to this Kingdome to wit by Donation Conquest and by the Consent of the people for as it is well known when Edward the Confessor lived in Normandy he gave this Kingdom after his decease to William Duke of Normandy as he was his kinsman near of bloud so that the Conquerour was heir of the Crown to the Confessor by adoption Which title if it was invalid you must know he was a Conquerour and no man will deny that Conquest maketh a legal title Jure Belli But suppose both those titles were as they were not invalid yet by the Law of Nations the Consent of the people maketh an inviolable title even to an Usurper in continuance of time if they have no other lawfull King much more to a lawfull Soveraign And his people our Ancestors ever since the Conquest for the space of about six hundred yeares have all done allegiance to and unanimously resolved that the Conquerour and his Successors were our only true Kings Liege Lords and Soveraigns having the supreme power over us and never did the people claim power to depose the King until those Monsters at Westminster under pretence of such a power murthered Charles the first and against all Law Justice and Equity and against thâ— wills of the people make themselves masters of our lives and fortunes and of all that we have taking them away when they please It would make a man cry and it would make a man laugh to see what fools these fellowes make of us Royal Government by Kings hath been used here time out of mind and approved by all our Ancestors to be the best of Governments and most natural and profitable for us yet these few stinking Members at Westminster made an Act March 17. 1648. contrary even to their own Oaths and Protestations to abolish the Kingly Government as unnecessary I use their own words burthensome and dangerous to the people as if this small company consisting of fifty or sixty at the most of the Scum and tail of the people were wiser and knew what was better for us than all our Ancestors both noble and ignoble in all ages But what was their reason to abolish Kingship To make each of themselves Kings nay Tyrannical Kings over us So may the slave say that the government of his Lord over him is unnecessary burthensome and dangerous and therefore he will murther his Lord and make himself Maâ—ter changeing the name and execute the office worse So may High-way men take away the true owners purse and tell him it was unnecessary for him to keep it or by the same law may thieves murther and rob the Master of his house and then vote the Master burthensome and dangerous to his family Yet notwithstanding while these Tyrants destroy our fundamental Government Lawes Religion Freedoms and Liberties making of us absolute slaves villains only to satiate their lust and pleasure yet even then they stile themselves The Keepers of the Liberty of England by Authority of Parliament Close and trusty keepers of our liberty indeed for we can come at none of it they keep it from us not for us so Wolves may call themselves keepers of the Lambs which they have caught or by the same law may a Cut-purse be called the keeper of the purse and be said to have the same care of it for they are heepers of our liberty only to keep themselves For by what authority was this Individuam vagum the Keepers erected By what authority why they will tell you by authority of Parliament Cunning Curres How they take the people with this word Parliament when God knows they themselves were all the Parliament by whose authority the thing called Keepers I know not what they be for I never yet heard them named were invented So may Adulterers vote themselves keepers of Chastity or so may I murther a man against his will and then call my self keeper of his life by his authority For they destroyed the Parliament when they destroyed the King and there hath been no Parliament since Vide 1 H. 4. Rot. Parl. n. 1.14 li. 4. Coke 4 Inst p. 46. and 4 C. 4. f. 440. Therefore they most falsly call themselves a Parliament Neither are they the Representatives of the people as I shewed before but a company of Ungracious Tyrants acting against the wills of the people Yet forsooth they tell us that the people have the supreme power and that they act for the people being their Representatives Just as if I should take away all that another man hath against his will and then tell him that he hath the supreme power over his goods and that I took them away by his authority and power or as if I should take away his money without his leave and tell him that I am his Representative So these Foxes cozen the people with nonsensical cheats and in all things are Representatives of the Devil not of the People for they all well know and some of them have declared so that if the people might chuse their Representatives those Representatives would restore the King to his
or Precinct to be holden there only and remove the Courts at Westminster to what place he pleaseth and adjourn the Terms as he sees cause this is book-Law 6. H. 7.9.6 Eli. Dier 226. But I pray what Law set up the new slaughter-house in England viz. the high Court of Justice Doubtlesse it was not the Kings Law and if not his Law it was no Law for England never heard of any other but the Kings Laws You have already heard that the King was before Parliaments that the King first instituted Parliaments not Parliaments the King that the House of Commons is but as it were of yesterday and that both Houses are nothing else but what the King made them Let us now see what the King did make them with what power this Idol the House of Commons is invested since they have nothing else to shew for what they are than the Kings Writ that being their Basis and only legal authority Take a view of the Writ The King to the Vicount or Sheriff Greeting WHereas by the advice and assent of our Counsell for certain arduous and urgent affairs concerning us the State and defence of our Kingdom of England and the Anglican Church We have ordained a certain Parliament of ours to be held at our City _____ the _____ day of _____ next ensuing and there to have conference and to treat with the Prelats Great-Men and Peers of our said Kingdom We command and strictly enjoyn you that making Proclamation at the next County Court after the receit of this our Writ to be holden the day and place aforesaid you cause two Knights girt with Swords the most fit and discreet of the County aforesaid and of every City of that County two Citizens of every Borough two Burgesses of the discreeter and most sufficient to be freely and indifferently chosen by them who shall be present at such Proclamation according to the Tenor of the Statute in that case made and provided and the names of the said Knights Cittizens and Burgesses so chosen to be inserted in certain Indentures to be then made between you and those that shall be present at such Election whether the parties so elected be present or absent and shall makâ— them to come at the said day and place so that the said Knights for themselves and for the County aforesaid and the Citizens and the Burgesses for themselves and the Cominalty of the said Cities and Burroughs may have severally from them full and sufficient power to do and to consent to those things which then by the favour of God shall there happen to be ordained by the Common Counsel of our said Kingdom concerning the businesse aforesaid So that the businesse may not by any means remain undone for want of such power or by reason of the improvident election of the aforesaid Knights Citizens and Burgesses But we will not in any case that you or any other Sheriff of our said Kingdome shall be eâ—ected And at the day and place aforesaid the said Election being made in a full County Court you shall certifie without delay to us in our Chancery under your Seal and the Seals of them which shall be present at that Election sending back unto us the other part of the Indenture aforesaid affiled to these presents together with the Writ Witnesse our self at Westminster This Writ is the foundation of the Parliament upon which the whole fabrick of their power and proceedings is grounded It is that which setteth up a Parliament Man and is the only Commission which distinguisheth him from another man for without that every man in the Kingdom hath equal right and authority to sit and vote in Parliament Now by Law no man ought to exceed his Commission Therefore if the Lords or Commons act beyond the bounds of their power limited in this Writ their only Commission they are transgressors and incur the punishment of Malefactors The Writ telleth you that both Houses are but as it were the production of the Privy Council for though the King ordaineth the Parliament yet it is by the advice and assent of his Council why then may not the Kings privy Council being prius tempore lay claim to the Soveraignty as well as his Common Council surely both have like right The Lords are only enabled by their call tâ— Conferr and Treat and that not without but with the King It is their Counsel to advise not their power to authorize which the King requireth For why had not the King ordained a certain Parliament to be and there to â—ave Conference and to treat with them they â—ad not come to give him Counsel and as they â—annot come but when the King commands them â—o neither can they chuse but come when the King â—oth command except the King excuse them â—nd being come they are but as Judge Jenkinsâ—ith â—ith Consiliarii non Praeceptores Counsellors â—or Commanders for to Counsel is not to Comâ—and They are only to advise not to controul â—r compel the King The Parliament is ordained â—y the â—ing as appeareth by the Writ only for â—ertain arduous and urgent affairs 1. Touching â—he King 2. The State of the Kingdom â— The defence of the Kingdom 4. The â—tate of the Church And 5. The â—efence of the same Church Though it â—e arduous yet not urgent occasion to destroy â—ingship To condemn the King to death and â—unishment is not touching the King but a Maleâ—ctor To kill the King is to destroy the kingdom â—ot to defend it and his death is the death of â—e Church and Religion O how have the Long â—arliament swarved from the true ends for â—hich Parliaments were ordained Indeed the Lords not as the upper House of â—arliament but as a distinct Court of the Kings Baâ—ns have power to reform erroneous judgeâ—ents given in the Kings Bench But there is first Petition of Right made to the King and his anâ—wer to it viz. Fiat Justitia The Court of Parliament is only the House of Lords where the King sitteth and they are his common-Counsel it belongs to them to receive all Petitions to advise his Majesty with their Counsel and to consent to what Laws the King shall make by their advice Not to speak of the qualities of the persons of the House of Commons being most of them to wit Citizens and Burgesses Tradesmen brought up in their Shops not in any University or Academy of Law and Learning and as fit to Govern and make Laws God wot as Cows are to dance The rest of them being Knights of Shires chosen commonly rather for their Mony than their Wit having greater wealth than head-pieces I pass from their education to the authority which the King vouchsafed to bestow upon them which is only what is contained in the Writ viz. facere consentire to do consent but to what Not unto such things which they shall ordain but unto such things which are ordained by the King and
his Common-Counsell they are but only Ministerial Servants and by the Writ it is clear that they are no part of the great Counsel of the Kingdom they are but the grand Inquest and general Inquisitors of the Realm to find out the grievances of the people and Petition to the King for redress the Burgesses and Citizens to present the defects in their Trade and the Knights of the Shires the burthens and Sores of their Counties they ought not nor are not admitted into the House before they have sworn that the Kings Majesty is the only and supreme Governour over all persons in all causes This oath did every Member of the long Parliament take before they set foot into the House of Charls the Martyr whom they afterwards murthered and took possession themselves of all that he or his royal progeny had or should have let the world judge how faithfully these Keepers kept their Oathes and Covenants Now forsooth none must come into the House but those who first swear that the King who is is not but that they who are not are the only supreme Governours over all persons in all causes And will these oaths be kept 'T is perjury to keep them Thus they joyn hand in hand and oath to oath but it is but to do wickedness for like King Davids Rebels they make a Covenant against their King and would murther him as they did his Father if they could catch him but nulla pax malis the wicked cannot hold together long though they unite their forces into one intire body yet it is but like Samsons Foxes by the tailes only to set the world on fire When the Commons have taken the oath of Supremacy and met together in a body collective in the house they have not so much power as a Steward in his Leet or a Sheriff in his Tourn for they cannot minister an oath imprison any body but themselves nor try any offence whatsoever much less try their King and assume the Legislative power At a conference the Commons are always uncovered and stand when the Lords sit surely these are no marks of Soveraignity They indeed chuse their Speaker but after their choice the King may refuse him at his pleasure and make them chuse another and Lenthal himself as all other Speakers do did when he was presented to the King disable himself as a person unworthy to speak before the King yet now he is styled the Father of our Country How the world is turned up-side down These Parliamentiers heretofore were wont to be arrested by any common Person and lyable to all Sutes and punishments as other men untill the King graciously passed an Act for their indemnity 4 H. 8. ea 8. So that they are nothing but what the King made them nor have nothing but by his grant and all that the King did make them appeareth by the Writ which is to do and consent to such things as the King with his Common-Counsell should ordain Then stay Reader and behold stand still with thy head and hands lift up to the heavens and admire with what impudence and oppression tyranny and usurpation the long Parliamentiers are fraught with who never had any other legal power than by the Kings Writ and have lost that by the Kings death yet tyrannize over three kingdoms calling themselves the Representatives of the whole Kingdom and that they were intrusted by the People with the Supreme and Legislative power which God and all the world knoweth is as false as the Almighty is true For first they do not represent the King the head nor the Peers who are the higher and nobler part of the kingdom therefore they are not the Representatives of the whole kingdom neither were they ever entrusted by the People with the Supreme and Legislative power Nay the people did never confer any power on them at all for by their Election the people did but design the person all the power the Commons have proceeded from the King which is contained in the Writ by which they were called As Free-holders worth forty shillings a year and free-men of Cities and Borroughs would make very unfit Electors of Supreme Magistrates so never did they they cannot make any Election of their Commons untill the King commandeth and giveth them power they have no power so to do of their own much less to authorize supreme Legislators The King giveth liberty to Towns and Cities to make choice of Burgesses which had no such power before the Kings grant so that all the power which the Commons have floweth from the King not a drop of it from the people Therefore if the Commons exceed their commission to wit the power given them by the Kings Writ it is illegal and their actings void in Law and since the power given them by the Writ is extinguished by the Kings death the Long Parliament is by Law dissolved and all the power which they take upon them since is usurped illegal and Tyrannical and contrary to the Lawes both of God and man And to make their Tyranny the greatest under the Heavens they protest to the world that the Representatives of the people ought to have the Legislative power yet they give Lawes as they call them to Scotland and Ireland not having so much as one Member from both Kingdomes in their representative body nor the eighth part of the Representatives chosen by the Counties Cities and Burroughs in England So that no Tyrants since the Creation of the world did ever equallize these either in cruelty or absurdity wickednesse or foolishnesse yet forsooth in 1649 they made an Act that it should be High Treason for any one to affirm the present Government to be Tyrannical Usurped or Unlawfull or that these Commons are not the supreme Authority of the Nation So thieves may murther the Father and take away the inheritance from his Children and then make a Law that it shall be high Treason for any one to call them thieves or usurpers or to say they had not the supreme Authority Thus they defend Tyranny with Tyranny and one sin with another Unumquodque conservatur eodem modo quo fit Things impiously got must be impiously kept They got their authority by blood and by blood it must be kept they juggled themselves by lyes into the supreme self-created authority and we must lye and say they are the supreme authority only because they do otherwise we shall be executed for high Treason against this infamous conventicle So that of necessity we must displease God if we please them and live no longer than we sin for they have made it a capital offence to speak truth I must confesse most men amongst us are frighted with this scarr-Crow not only to lye and affirm the long called Parliament to be the legal supreme authority but also with St. Peter forswear and deny their persecuted Lord and Master the King accounting no weather ill so they be by their warm fire
for an Almes and by and by knock their Benefactor on the head and make themselves Masters of what they before entreated for And indeed the most part of their Villanies did commence with Petitions for in driving on their wicked designs they alwayes got the Rascal rable of the People to heap in Petitions for what they themselves set them upon as if these Godly Villains did nothing but what they were driven to through commiseration of the people when God knows they did nothing but what was for the satisfaction of their own wicked Lusts and Ambition For when the Souldiers and other baser sort of the people cryed out for Justice and Privilege of the Parliament Even then was the Injustice of these Rebels most promoted and the Parliament did not then only lose its privileges but its very life and being Thus Barbers may cut off the Head when they pretend to trim the Hair and so may Physicians destroy and kill the Body when they pretend to apply Medicines For as now it appeareth even to the blind their pious pretences were but a Colour for their wicked intentions to destroy both King and Parliament and root up all our Laws and Religion when they seemed to act most to preserve them Now since the power of Warr only belongeth unto the King it must of necessity follow that the King hath power to levy Taxes and impose Subsidies on his people to maintain the Warr otherwise it would be in vain to think of waging Warr for all Souldiers must have Vectigalia Food Apparel and Arms and where should the King have this but in his own Kingdom To be short it is a duty laid upon the Consciences of all Subjects to supply their King with all necessaries both in time of Warr and Peace And a thing commanded both by our Saviour and his Apostles Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesars And 13 Rom. Render therefore to all their due Tribute to whom Tribute is due Custom to whom Custom Fear to whom Fear Honour to whom Honour But our Antipodes subverting all Scripture render to no man their dues and that they may act contrary to the very words and meaning of every Text They do not render Tribute Custom Fear and Honour to the King to whom it is only due but forsooth to themselves to whom it is not due So may the Servant murther his Master and take all his Revenues and Honour as due only to himself He which argueth that the King hath not right to chuse his Privy Counsellors Great Officers and Judges c. will likewise say that the Master hath not right to chuse his Servants it being the practice of all Kingdoms as well as of England and due to him by the Law of Nature Thou shalt provide out of the People able Men saith Jethro to Moses when the 70. grand Senators of Israel the Great Sanhedrim of the Jews were to be chosen By which you see the great Officers c. are to be chosen out of and not by the people but by the King So Pharoah not the people made Joseph Ruler over all the Land of Aegypt and Nebuchadnezzar and not his people made Daniel Ruler over the whole Province of Babylon And since our Lawyers are so forward to take Commissions and be made Judges by every power which getteth uppermost be it right or wrong Let me tell them that it is an undoubted truth that every person who hath been since the murther of Charls the Martyr or shall hereafter without the authority of Charls the second be condemned and executed for any Crime whether guilty or not guilty in the Kings Bench or at the Assizes or elsewhere is murthered and all the Judgments acts and proceedings of those nominal Judges or Commissioners are void as things done Coram non judice So that it consequently followeth that these lawless Judges are principals in every murther so committed Vengeance only belongeth unto God Deu. 32.35 The King is the Minister of God a Reuenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil Therfore whosoever prosecuteth in the Kings Courts against the life of any man as in an Appeal c. or sueth for recompence for any wrong done unto him he doth not take vengeance but God who executeth his wrath by his Minister the King But if any private man or the whole people take upon them to make themselves their own Carvers taking what recompence they think fit either against the King or any of their fellow Subjects in this case they make themselves their own Revengers and rob God of his rights for vengeance belongeth to him not to them Therefore if any man though in a way of publick Justice take upon him to condemn and execute any man without authority and power from the King he is a Murtherer and malicious Revenger upon whom the vengeance of God whom he endeavoureth to cheat and rob will fall Oh then admire and bewail the Infandous Murthers and Murtherers of our age wherein the good are destroyed for performing their duty towards God and their King and the wicked flowrish only because they are sinfull for whosoever will not be a Rebel must not be a Common-wealths-man amongst these new Republicans Yet forsooth they have such a form of Godlinesse amongst them that whosoever doth not approve of their wickednesse but speaketh of their actions according to their deserts they call such men the ungodly and flatter themselves saying the Saints of all ages have been spoken evil of by the wicked holy David nay our Saviour and his Disciples were reviled by the Reprobate therfore no wonder if the Malignant Cavaleers do reproach and vilifie our piousness and brotherly love and charity one towards the other So Belzebub may call them impious who do not account him the only good Angell How these men would be esteemed most Religious even when they commit Sacrilege and seem righteous even in the very act of wickednesse They murther many and take away the Estates of all Royalists yet if the Royalists whom they have thus spoyled tell them according to Gods Commandments that they ought not to be swift to shed blood nor covet their neighbours goods these Saints presently tell them that they have not the Spirit of Godliness in them but that they are the abusers of Gods word and his Children as if Gods Spirit gave them authority to act wickedly and that none but they were the children of God who had got their wealth by murther rapine and sacrilege O Monstrous If you call their ill gotten Government Tyranny or Usurpation they number you amongst those filthy Dreamers who speak evil of Dignities and will noâ— submit to lawfull authority Yet these Antipodes could revile their Soveraign the King with multitudes of scurrilous Pamplets cut off his head and banish his Royal Progeny taking away their Lands and the Estates of thousands more yet they would make one believe that they never spoke evil of Dignities nor ever resisted lawfull
their free will and pleasure So that the peoples Representatives must represent these Traytors in all their wickednesse otherwise they shall be no free-Statesmen for they account that Government most for the liberty of the people wherein themselves may have liberty still to continue in their Treason Rebellion and that they call slavery and oppression of the people which would suppresse their wicked and infandous Tyranny All the reason which they can give against Monarchy is because say they many of the people would lose their interests in their new purchased estates and we should be turned out of our possessions and perhaps lose our lives too A good argument indeed if maintained by the Logick of the sword So thieves and murtherers may argue against the Sessions because then perhaps they should lose their stollen goods and be hanged for their murthers and robberies O abominable that English men should degenerate into such impious impudence for this is the truth of their case might they but still have the Kings and Bishops lands which they have gotten by their horrible Treason and Rebellion and be sure to live secure from the punishment which the Law of the Land would inflict upon them they would easily confesse if the Devil have not made them contradictors of all manner of truth that Monarchy is the best of all Governments especially for the English Nation where as one may say it grew by nature until these destroyers of the Lawes of God Nature and the Realm rooted it up and endeavoured to plant their fancied Commonwealth in its room which will grow there when plums grow in the sky or when rocks grow in the air not before as you may see by the small root it hath taken ever since the reign of Charles the Martyr Dig and delve they may yet they will never set it in so fast but that if the right heir do not which God grant he soon may the wind and ambition of some one of their own sect and faction will quickly blow it down as did Oliver the wicked c. As Monarchy is the best sort of all govetnments so the Monarchy of England is the best of all Monarchies and hath in it the perfection and all that is good either in Aristocracy Democracy or Free-State For every one knoweth that Charles the Martyr though a King yet alwayes made himself a subject to his lawes accounting his prerogative safer being locked up in the custody of the law than in the absolutenesse of his own will And what lawes of any Nation in the world did ever maintain the liberty and freedome of the people more than the Kings Lawes of England I may most truly answer none more nor so much for what greater freedome can the people wish for than not to have any lawes imposed on them than what they please and desire The Kings of England never make any law but what the people consent to the Lords and Commons have a Negative voice as well as the King Although the inferiour Members receive all their authority from the head yet cannot the head act without their consent and privity so neither â—oth the King impose any lawes on his subjects without their concurrence and approbation The House of Lords resembleth Aristocracy and the House of Commons Democracy or a free State yet the King like the Sun which doth not diminish its own light by giving light to others continueth stil a royal Monarch and without any Solecism in State I may truly say that the House of Lords did excel Aristocracy and the House of Commons Democracy in preserving the Peoples rights and wel-fare because the necessity of their joyning votes each with the other and both of them with the King in making of a Law did inhibit either of them from having an unlimited arbitrary power which either of them without the other would have and so enslave the People as the House of Commons now do according to their lusts having destroyed their Master the King and the House of Lords their Moderators Whilest the King Lords and Commons like the three Graces joined hand in hand in passing votes approved by this triple touchstone then were our Laws like Gold seven times refined which made our Nation most glorious abroad and to overflow with peace and plenty at home we were then feared not derided by all forein Kings and Princes Religion not Faction then reigned in our hearts and our industry was then to preserve not to destroy Gods Sanctuary But now since the hand hath said to the eye I have no need of thee and the feet to the head I have no need of you the whole body of our Kingdom hath groaned and every Member therof as with a Consumption is wasted and grieved The Crown is fallen from our head and we are become a reproach and hissing amongst all Nations Oh therfore to redeem our credit and long lost happiness Let us all unanimously agree to be loyal Subjects to Charls our King and let all his loyal Subjects pray for and earnestly desire his safe arrival into our England that we may once more eat the Manna of our old Laws and Religion with the sweetnesse wherof we surfeited in the reign of Charls the Martyr Then shall we beat our Swords into plow-shares and our Spears into pruning hookes faction shall not rise up against faction neither shall we learn war any more For if we be willing and obedient we shall eat the good of the Land Isa 1 19. Hor. Concines laetosque dies urbis Publicum ludum super impetrato Fortis Augusti reditu forumque litibus orbum Tum meae si quid loquor audiendum Vocis accedet bona pars O Sol Pulcher O laudande canam recepto Cáesare falix Tuque dum procedis Io triumphe Non semel dicemus Io triumphe Civitas omnis dabimusque divis Thura benâ—s Then shall we sing the publick plays For his return and holy days For our Prayers heard and Law 's restor'd From Rebels Sword Then I if I may then be heard Happy in my regained Lord Will joyn ' i th' close and O! I le say O Sun-shine day The City leading wee 'l all sing Io triumph and agin Io triumph at each turning Incense burning Thus when we have received our gracious Soveraign from his long unnatural banishment what then can the Lord do more for us that he hath not done Wherefore when he looketh that we should bring forth good grapes let us take heed that we do not bring forth wild grapes let us fear God and honour the King and meddle not with them that are given to change as God hath commanded us for if we refuse and rebel we shall be devoured with the Sword for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it and so our last rebellion will be worse for us then the first General Monk hath amply repaired his honour which he lost by pulling down the City Gates and Perculisses and