as follows viz. That if his Majesty or any of his Successors should happen at any time hereafter to Act contrary to those Provisions by which the Privileges and Liberties of the Kingdom were Established that from thenceforth it should be for ever Lawfull for the Subjects without the least Blemish of Disloyalty to Resist and Oppose their Prince This was a Decree to purose by vertue of which as Thuanus observes the Protestant Hungarians Justified their Arms against their King And we may take notice in Contradiction to what our Author Affirms That such Odious Things and their Remedies too where they are allowed are particularly Named and Provided for Therefore we may fairly Conclude that where none of this plain Dealing is to be seen the Constitution does not admit of any such singular Reservations Indeed to talk of a Character for Resistance in a Country which has been Conquered so often and all along Monarchically Governed seems to be a Romantick Supposition For can we imagine that when our Kings had sought themselves into Victory and Power and forc'd a Nation to swear Homage and Submission to them that they should be so easie as to Article away their Dominions make their Government Precarious and give their Subjects leave to Disposess them as often as they should be pleased to say they had broken their Agreement But the Silence of our Laws and History as to any such Compact is a sufficient disproof of it For if there had been any such Enfranchising Instrument how prejudicial soever it might have been in its Consequence yet the natural desire of Liberty would have occasioned the preserving it with all imaginable Vigilance And as it would not have miscarried through Negligence so if Violence had wrested such a pretended Palladium from us the Calamity would have got into the Almanack before this time and been as certainly Recorded as the Destruction of Troy. Since therefore we have no Evidence either for the Possession or so much as for the Loss of this supposed Privilege we may certainly conclude we never had it or at least must grant that no claim can be grounded upon such an Improbable conjecture for Idem est non Esse non Apparere Secondly Our Author urges That when there seems to be a Contradiction between Two Articles in the Constitution the Interpretation ought to be given in favour of that Article which is most evident and important From whence he proceeds to assert That there is a seeming Contradiction between the provisions for the publick Liberty and the renouncing all Resistance And therefore the Constitution ought to be expounded in behalf of the former as being most advantageous to Government Now one who had never read the Statute Book would imagine by this Authors Argument that we had some Laws for the taking up Arms against the King as well as others which forbid it and both equally plain than which nothing is more false And upon supposition there was any such Clash in our Acts of Parliament the Law for Non-resistance being last Enacted must necessarily take place and Repeal whatever was before Established to the contrary But Secondly I Answer That I have already proved that the Rights of the Subject are best secured by Non-resistance and therefore they are no ways inconsistent or contradictory to each other So that our Liberties had much better lye at the Discretion of Kings who have much greater Motives than others to do Justice and give general Satisfaction than to depend upon the Management and Mercy of the People and be liable to such Fatal Convulsions which must happen as often as Discontent and Ambition can impose upon the Weakness and Inconstancy of the Multitude Thirdly His Third Argument is the same with his Second which he has given us in different Words That what we want in Weight may be made up in Number It begins somewhat Remarkably Since it is by Law that Resistance is condemned we ought not to understand it in such a Sense as that it does destroy all other Laws First Now one would have thought that the condemning Resistance or any other Action by a Law had been the only way of doing it to any purpose But this Author seems to draw a consequence of Abatement upon this Doctrine from its Authority as if it was to be less observed because it is Established by Law. But Secondly To give him rather more advantage than the Construction of his Period will allow I Answer That I have already made it appear that to wrest the Laws from their plainest and most obvious Sense is to make them perfectly Useless and that Non-resistance is the best Expedient to preserve the Laws and every thing else that is valuable And therefore though its plain that the Law did not design to lodge the wole Legislative Power in the King yet as its plain that it intended to forbid Resistance in case he should set about it For the Law-makers declare in in as full Intelligible Words as can be conceived that the Militia the Posse Regni was always the undoubted Right of his Majesty and his Predecessors and that its Unlawful to take up Arms against him upon any Pretence whatever Now if its possible for a Law to make or declare a Monarch Irresistible which I suppose no man will deny I desire to know whether it can be drawn up in more significant and demonstrative Terms than this Act before us If it cannot then our Author has no imaginable reason to dispute this Part of the King's Prerogative As for his Instance That the Legislative Power is Invaded and the Constitution of Parliaments Dissolved This Charge is Aggravated beyond all Decency and matter of Fact For it s well known that the King did not pretend to make his Proclamations Equivalent to an Act of Parliament and what his Majesty acted by way of Dispensation was not only directed by the present Judges but grounded upon a solemn Resolution of all the Twelve in Hen. 7th Reign in a Case seemingly Parralell which Sentence has been followed by eminent Lawyers since and never Reversed by Act of Parliament As to the Regulation of Corporations That was a Method begun by Charles the Second a Protestant Prince and Applauded by all the Loyal Party of the Nation Besides the Burroughs were not so prodigiously altered but that we might have had a good Protestant Parliament out of them as appears from the Elections made upon the Writs Issued out in August last where those who were against Repealing the Penal Laws and Tests carried it with great odds against the other Party And since we know his Majesty has returned the Charters to the State of 79. And here it may not be improper to observe That Prerogative has been as Remarkably misunderstood at Court in former Ages of which several Instances might be given but I shall consine my self to the Reign of one who on all Hands is accounted a most Excellent Prince I mean King Charles the
Authority of the Kingdom Declares their Prince Irresistible this makes him as much so as if he had given himself this Power by Conquest and had been the most Absolute Monarch in the World. And as this Priviledge is clear so he may make it Immortal if he pleases provided he has a Negative upon the Remainder of the Legislative Power as the King has upon the Two Houses so that the Constitution cannot be alter'd without his own Consent Nay if the People have given up their Rights of Resistance by their own voluntary Motion they are bound in Honour as well as Justice to maintain their own Act. So that it seems more unaccountable not to Acquiesce in this Case than if they had been forc'd into such a submission Though it 's not improper to Observe That the Act which I have now in view viz. 13 Car. 2 which tells us It 's unlawfull to Levy War Offensive or Defensive against the King. Does not so much pretend to vest the King with any new Authority as to acknowledg his Antecedent Right where it 's likewise Declar'd that The Militia has ever been the undoubted Right of his Majesty and his Predecessors Which is as plain a Concession as can be that this Parliament did not believe our Government began upon Hobs his Pacts or that the King had his Power Originally from the People But supposing the Government was Founded in the Voluntary consent of the People the contrary of which has been proved yet after they have once by the most Solemn and Deliberate Act bound up their Hands and made it Unlawful under the highest Penalties to use Force against the Magistrate in this Case it 's unreasonable to suppose they can resume their Antient Liberty at pleasure For that which a Man has Alienated by his own free Grant is as much out of his Power as if he had never been possess'd of it at all So that it 's as great Injustice to wrest back that which I have once given away as to invade my Neighbour in his Original Property If it 's Objected That such Laws of Non-resistance as this are to be understood with a Tacit Exception Viz. Provided the Magistrate does not press too hard upon the Constitution and Violate the most Fundamental Parts of it To this I Answer First If a Law which is so absolutely against all Resistance as appears both by the clear and comprehensive stile it 's Pen'd in and by the time in which it was Enacted which was immediately after we were emerged out of the Miseries of a long Rebellion so that we have all imaginable reason to believe the Wisdom of the Nation design'd to make the most effectual Provision to secure us from the like Calamity If I say a Law thus remarkquibly worded and circumstantiated may be eluded by Distinctions and Reservations then the Statute Book is little better than wast Paper for at this rate there is nothing so plain but may be glossed away into insignificancy If he Objects That the Natural Right we have to preserve and protect our selves will justify the Defence of our Lives and Liberties against all Invaders whasoever notwithstanding any positive Municipal Prohibitions to the contrary To this I Answer That to Object thus is to Argue against himself as well as against Reason For he grants by undenyable Consequence Sect. 9. That the Primitive Christians were obliged to Non-resistance because they Lived under a Constitution in which Paganism was Established by Law. He should have said In which Christianity was prohibited for it was possible for both Religions to have been Established as they were in the time of Constantine Now if a Municipal Law ought to be over-ruled by the Law of Nature when they happen to clash then the Christians who lived under the Heathen Emperors might Lawfully have taken up Arms against the Government because they were deprived of their Lives and Fortunes against all Equity and Humanity For to persecute Men so remarquibly Regular and Peaceable both in their Principles and Practices is as manifest a Violation of the Law of Nature as is possible And if it was Lawful for them to resist then they seem bound in Conscience to do it whenever they had a probability of prevailing For without doubt it 's a great fault for a Man to throw away his Life impoverish his Family and encourage Tyranny when he has a fair Remedy in his Hand But our Author has not yet been so severe as to bring in the Martyrs Felo de se. But Secondly The Law of Nature obliges all Men to stand to their Contracts though they have made them to their Disadvantage They must not as the Scripture speaâ—â— change though they Have sworn to their own hurt Psal. 15. Except the Matter of the Contract be Malum in se. But for Men to bar themselves the use of some Liberties though never so unquestionable with respect to some particular Persons and to tye up their Hands in reference to their Governors is no Malum in se for in such a case they dispose of nothing but what is their own and that upon a valuable consideration Thus much is acknowledged by our Author Sect. 1. For he tells us That by the Law of Nature a Man may bind himself to be a Servant or sell himself to be a Slave by which he becomes in the Power of another so far as it was provided by the Contract So that where the Contract is clear it ought to be punctually observed From whence it follows That when a Nation shall Deliberately and Authoritatively declare either that it always was Unlawful for them to take up Arms against their King or at least that it should be so for the future After they have thus Solemnly disclaim'd all manner of Right or pretence to Resistance to defend themselves by Force is a notorious Infraction of their Promise and as much a breach of the Moral Law as of the Statute Book Thirdly Because the Authority of the Constitution must be weakned and the Ends of Government lost by allowing the Subject a Latitude of Exposition therefore the Wisdom of the Nation has thought fit to stick by the Letter when it 's plain and unquestionable though it is apparently against the intention of the Law. Of this Practice I shall give a considerable Instance In the Reign of Henry the Sixth there was an Act made which I have already cited to another purpose in which all Persons not possessed of Forty Shillings per Annum Free-hold are declared uncapable of Electing Knights for the County The Design of which Act was to strike the Mobile out of the Government and that none but Persons of presum'd Discretion might have a share in choosing their Representatives But the value of Money being so prodigiously altered since that time Fifteen Shillings now probably being not more than one then This alteration has thrown the Elections upon Multitudes of People who are apparently excluded by the intention of
first of Edward the Fouâ—h which Act continues still unrepealed I shall proceed to prove the Norman Conquest for I need go no higher which I shall make good from the best Historians who lived either in or near that time from Doomeseday Book and Acts of Parliament 1. From Historians c. Eadmer Hist. Nov. Fol. 6. a Monk of Canterbury at the time of the Conquest and very intimate with Arch-bishop Lanfrank and with him when News came of the Conqueror's Death Writes That William designing to Establish those Laws and Usages in England which his Ancestors and Himself observed in Normandy made such Persons Bishops Abbots and other Principal Men who could not be thought so unworthy as to be guilty of any incompliance with his new Model knowing by whom and to what Station they were raised All Religious and Secular Affairs He managed at his pleasure And after the Historian had related in what Points he disallowed the Authority of the Pope and Archbishop he concludes thus But what he did in Secular Matters I forbear to Write because it 's not to my purpose and likewise because any one may guess by what has been delivered already at what rate He ordered the State. The next Testimony shall be fetched out of Ingulph Abbot of Croyland an English Man born Secretary to William when Duke of Normandy and made Abbot by him This Author informs us That by hard Usage He made the English submit that He gave the Earldems Baronies Bishopricks and Prelacies of the whole Nation to his Normans and scarce permitted any English Man to enjoy any place of Honour Dominion or Power Hist. Croyl f. 512. But Gervace of Tilbury a considerable Officer in the Exchequer in the Time of Henry the Second and who received his Information from Henry of Blois Bishop of Winchester and Grand-child to the Conquerour is more full to this purpose which he thus delivers After the Conquest of the Kingdom and the just Subversion of Rebels when the King himself and his great Men had viewed and surveyed their new acquests there was a strict Enquiry made who there were which had fought against the King and secured themselves by Flight From these and the Heirs of such as were Slain in the Field all hopes of Possessing eiâ—er Lands or Rents were cut off for they counted it a great Favour to have their Lives given them But such as were called and solicited to Fight against King William and did not if by an humble Submission they could gain the Favour of their Lords and Masters they then had the Liberty of Possessing somewhat in their own Persons but without any right of leaving it to their Posterity Their Children enjoying it only at the Will of their Lords To whom when they became unacceptable they were every where outed of their Estates neither would any restore what they had taken away And when the miserable Natives represented their Grievances publickly to the King informing him how they were spoiled of their Fortunes and that without Redress they must be forced to pass into other Countries At length upon Consultation it was Ordered That what they could obtain of their Lords by way of Desert or Lawful Bargain they should hold by unquestionable Right but should not Claim any thing from the Time the Nation was Conquered under the Title of Succession or Descent Upon what great Consideration this was done is manifest says Gervace For they being obliged to compliance and obedience to purchase their Lords Favour therefore whoever of the Conquered Nation Possessed Lands c. Obtained them not as if they were their Right by Succession or Inheritance but as a Reward of their Service or by some Intervening Agreement Gervase of Tilbury or the Black Book in the Exchequer Lib. 1. Cap. de Murdro de necessar observ The next Testimony I shall produce is out of Gulielmus Pictaviensis who lived about the time of Ingulph This Writer speaking of King William's Coronation adds cujus Liberi atque nepotes c. i. e. whose Children and Posterity shall Govern England by a just Succession which he Possessed by an Hereditary Bequest Confirmed by the Oaths of the English and by the Right of his Sword Gul. Pict fol. 206. Farther Ordericus Vitalis who lived in the Reign of William the Second tells us How William the First Circumvented the Two great Earls of Mercia and that after Edwin was Slain and Morcar Imprisoned then King William began to show himself and gave his Assistants the best and most considerable Counties in England and made Rich Colonels and Captains of very mean Normans Oder Vital fol. 251. The same Author relates That after the Norman Arms overcame England and King William had reduced it under the Government of his own Laws he made Fulcard a Monk of St. Omers Abbot of Thorney Ibid. fol. 853. Henry Arch-deacon of Huntington who lived in the Reign of King Stephen is full to the same purpose Anno Gratiae 1066. perfecit Dominus Dominator c. i. e. In the Year c. the great Ruler of Kingdoms brought that to pass which he had long intended against the English for he delivered them over to be destroyed by the Rough and Politick Nation of the Normans fol. 210. And in another place more particularly When the Normans had Executed the just Decree of God upon the English and there was not any Person of Quality of English Extraction remaining but all were reduced to Servitude and Distress insomuch that it was Scandalous to be called an English Man William the Author of this Iudgment dyed in the Twenty first Year of his Reign Ibid. fol. 212. Matthew Paris Who wrote towards the end of the Reign of Henry the Third agrees with the forementioned Testimonies his Words are these fol. 5. Dux Normannorum Willielmus c. i. e. Duke William having fortified the Cities and Castles and Garrisoned them with his own Men Sailed into Normandy with English Hostages and abundance of Treasure whom when he had Imprisoned and Secured he hastened back into England that he might liberally distribute the Lands of the English who were forcibly disseized of their Estates amongst his Norman Soldiers who had helped him at the Battle of Hastings to subdue the Country and that little that was left he put under the Yoak of perpetual Servitude And in another place he tells us That King William brought Bishopricks and Abbys under Military Service which before that time had been free from all Secular Servitude but then every Bishoprick and Abby was Enrolled according to his Pleasure and charged how many Knights or Horse-men they should find for him and his Successors in times of War fol. 7. I might add many more Authorities of Antient Historians but these I suppose are sufficient As for Modern Writers I shall only cite Mr. Cambden who thus delivers his Sence of this matter Britan. p. 109. Victor Gulielmus c. i. e. William the Conqueror as it were to make his
the Patience and Constancy of its Professors To speak properly a Church can never flourish so much as when we have frequent Instances of Fortitude Resignation and Contempt of the World and all other unquestionable Marks of an Heroick and Invincible Honesty Secondly by our Religion therefore can only be meant the free and unmolested Profession of it which though it 's a very desirable Priviledge yet we must not contend for it in Opposition to the Laws of God and our Country To repel a Persecution by the assistance of Perjury and Treason is a most unjustifiable and fatal Remedy 'T is a Cure far above the Malignity of the Distemper and conveys Plague and Poyson in the Operation It makes us destroy the very Life and Essence of that which we are so zealous to maintain and damn our selves to secure our Religion The Primitive Christians were perfect Strangers to these Salves for Ease and Self-Preservation and yet their Laws could not be plainer against all manner of Resistance than ours Besides no State can subsist upon such Reserves of Interpretation as these For as has been observed already if Resistance is warrantable in any case then every individual Person must be made a judge of his Prince's Conduct and determine what sort of Provocations and Opportunities are sufficient to justify a Revolt Now if such a Liberty was granted the Foundations of the Earth would quickly be out of Course Such lose Maxims as these do no less than Proclaim an Indulgence for Anarchy and Licentiousness and tear up the very Principles of Society by the Roots For granting the People were generally Honest though this I am afraid is a supposition which has much more of Charity than Judgment in it yet in regard of distance into experience credulity and shortness of Thought they are neither fit to pronounce upon the Administration of their Governors nor capable of distinguishing Imposture from Truth nor discerning enough to foresee what Plunderings and Rapes what Faction and Atheism what extensive Ruin and Desolation are the inevitable consequences of a Civil War. Now what can we expect but frequent returns of such a Scene of Misery if every Man may hang out the Flag of Defiance against his Prince whenever his Weakness or his Wickedness shall promt him to it When the Subtle and Ambitious can practise without controul upon the unstable and unthinking Multitude and play their Spleen and their Rhetorick against the Government When Men of Turbulent and Tempestuous Spirits who love to live in a Storm that they may gratify their Malice with the Wreck and their Avarice with the Booty When such Men are allowed to blow up the Simple and over-credulous into Jealousie and Discontent and all the Seditious Incendiaries may throw their Flambeaus and their Wild-fire about a Nation When such dangerous Freedoms as these which yet are no more than the Natural consequences of the Doctrine of Resistance are given and varnished over with the specious Titles of The Laws of Nature and Self-Preservation We may then easily imagine that Justice and Peace would soon take their leaves of this World and Mankind would need no other Judgment but the Effects of their own Vice and Folly to destroy them But Thirdly Supposing extremity of rigour in Governours would absolve us from our Allegiance which we see it will not yet this was none of our Case Indeed if we were to form an Idea of his Majesties Government by the Tragycal Harangues of some Men we could not imagine any thing less than the Ten Persecutions had been amongst us and that a great part of the Nation had been Massacred and yet God be thanked we lived in great Prosperity free from the Exactions and Tributary Burthens of other Reigns and if nothing but his Majesties Severity could have taken us off we might for ought appears have been all Immortal Well say they Though we were not actually swallowed up yet we were upon the brink of Destruction and if our Deliverers had not timely Interposed the King's Dragoons were just going to make their Fire upon the Bible and the Statute Book and we must either have been converted to Popery or Ashes But First I would gladly know of these Men why they always twist Popery and Slavery together For this I can imagine no other reason except it be to make their Monster more frightful to the People For it 's certain there is no such inseparable Connexion between these Two things as is pretended For had our ForeFathers nothing which they could call their own till the Reformation Is not Magna Charta a Popish Law And are there not many liberal Concessions from the Crown before Edward the Sixth And as their Argument has notoriously failed for the time past so I hope it will never be tryed for the future Secondly This supposal of Severity has as little reason as Duty and Decency in it The Clemency and Goodness of his Majesty's Temper which Character his Enemies are so Just to allow him The generous Protection and Assistance he gave the Hugonots his Employing the Protestants in his Court and Camp and Trusting them with the most important Places and Secrets those are mighty Evidences that nothing of this horrid Nature was intended Besides what Force was there to perform this extraordinary Exploit I suppose few People are so far over-grown with the Spleen as to fancy the Protestants would have helped to destroy one another Now before the certainty of the Invasion I believe I may safely say there was not above 10000 Papists in Arms in the Three Kingdoms and probably not much more than the Tenth part of those in England Oh but the Irish came over Not above a Regiment or Two till the Dutch were ready to make a Descent upon us and when they were most numerous the English Roman Catholicks and themselves scarcely held the Propotion of One to Two hundred Protestants And I believe they did not perceive we were so charmed with the Spirit of Loyalty or Religion as to let them cut our Throats without Opposition For we Protestants at that time gave broad Signs that though our Principles were Passive yet our Hands upon a provocation would be as Active as our Neighbours Therefore as to those Irish who were last sent over the Kingdom was then threatned with such a powerful Enemy and the necessity of Affairs was such that there needs no manner of Apology for their coming and as for the others who were Transported before their Numbers were very inconsiderable and though we did not foresee the Dutch Storm it 's likely his Majesty did This is certain the preparations in Holland were visible long before their Design was owned and therefore his Majesty had reason to be upon his Guard. Besides at that time the English were under apparent Discontents for then the Mistery of Iniquity began to work and those Hellish Stories which drove his Majesty out of his Dominions were reported with great confidence and a Man