41. quotes out of Dan. 5. 18 19. That God gave Nebuchadnezzar such an Absolute Kingdom that whom he would he slew and whom he would he made alive and whom he would he set up and whom he would he pulled down And I hope no Man tyrannizes over his People who uses the Prerogatives which God has given him tho' He does over Authors who quotes what he will and suppresses what he will and construes them how he will and renders Lex facit Regem To govern by Law makes a Sovereign Prince a King and distinguishes him from a Tyrant which will pass with none but such Ordinary Readers as he writ his Book for and who never saw Bracton Chancellor Fortescue likewise says That a Limited Monarch receives his Power a Populo efluxam which unriddles our Author's Riddle in the same place How the Law can make the King when the King makes the Law But is it such a wonderful thing that there should be a Law to create a King and to enable him so far in the making of Laws as to make his Consent necessary to the Being of all future Laws Was it not thus when the Two Houses were erected and endowed with the like Power For our Author says amiss when he says The Law has no Authority but what it receives from the King for the Laws are made Authoritate Parliamenti which is by the Authority of the King Lords and Commons But to lay aside Bracton and Fortescue at present let us a little reason the matter This Personal Authority of the King antecedent to all the Laws of the Land independent on them and superiour to them whence is it Has He a Throne like God Is he of Himself and for Himself Or has he a Personal Authority from God antecedent to Laws to be a King Then shew a Revelation from God where he is named Or has he the Natural Authority of a Father to govern his Children Then it must be proved that he has begotten his Three Kingdoms and all the People in all other His Majesty's Dominions Or has he a Personal Patriarchal Authority which is set up as a Shadow of the Authority of a Father whereby the eldest Son is his Father by Representation Then it must be proved that the King is the Eldest Son of the Eldest House of all the Families of the Earth Or were Mankind made in the day of their Creation by Nations and created Prince and People as they were created Male and Female But if none of these things can be said then it remains that a Civil Authority that is a mutual Consent and Contract of the Parties first founded this Civil Relation of King and Subject as we see it every day does of Master and Servant which is another Civil Relation and that the Consent of a Community or Society is a Law and the Foundation of all Civil Laws whatsoever is proved beyond all Contradiction by Mr. Hooker Eccl. Pol. Lib. 1. Cap. 10. And as this Personal Authority of the King which is antecedent to all the Laws of the Land and independent on them is airy and imaginary and has no Foundation but is of this Author 's own making so he has been pleased to make it very large and lawless and though he be but a Subject yet like Araunah the Iebusite he gives like a King. For it is a Personal Authority Superiour to the Laws of the Land whereby all manner of Arbitrary Acts are binding whereby the Prince may trample upon all the Laws and in vertue whereof he still governs in the violation of all these Laws by which he is bound to govern Whereas the Law of England absolutely denies that the King has any such Personal Authority For not to mention King Edward's Laws Chap. 17th De Officio Regis which were confirmed by William the Conqueror and sworn to by all succeeding Kings nor to mention the Mirror which page 8. gives us a far different account of things nor to mention Magna Charta which Chap. 37. says That if any thing be procured by any person contrary to the Liberties contained in that Charter it shall be had of no force or effect So that a Personal Authority which can trample upon the Liberties of the Subject and violate the Laws is an Authority of no force nor effect a void Authority or in other words it is nothing I say not to insist upon any of these I shall quote some passages out of my Lord Chancellor Fortescue where he professedly handles the difference betwixt an Absolute Monarchy and a Limited Monarchy and after he has shewn the different Original of them he thus proceeds in the 13th Chap. Now you understand most Noble Prince the form of Institution of a Kingdom Politick or limited Monarchy whereby you may measure the Power which the King thereof may exercise over the Law and Subjects of the same For such a King is made and ordained for the Defence of the Law of his Subjects and of their Bodies and Goods whereunto he receiveth Power of his People so that he cannot govern his People by any other Power To whom the Prince thus answer'd in the 14th Chap. You have good Chancellor with the clear light of your Declaration dispelled the Clouds wherewith my Mind was darkened so that I do most evidently see that no Nation did ever of their own voluntary mind incorporate themselves into a Kingdom for any other intent but only to the end that they might enjoy their Lives and Fortunes which they were afraid of losing with greater security than before And of this intent should such a Nation be utterly defrauded if then their King might spoil them of their Goods which before was lawful for no Man to do And yet should such a People be much more injured if they should afterwards be Governed by foreign and strange Laws yea and such as they peradventure deadly hated and abhorred and most of all if by those Laws their Substance should be diminished for the safegaurd whereof as also for the security of their Persons thcy of their own accord submitted themselves to the Governance of a King. No such Power for certain could proceed from the People themselves and yet unless it had been from the People themselves such a King could have had no Power at all over them Now this Discourse of the Institution of a Political Kingdom was to shew the Prince of Wales that he ought to study the Laws of England and not the Civil Laws by which an English King cannot Govern whereof the Prince stood in doubt Chap. 9. But now you see that Cloud is dispelled and he is convinced by this That a Political Kingdom cannot be govern'd by foreign and strange Laws which had signified nothing toward his Conviction if England were not a Political Kingdom And I think there cannot be a plainer Comment upon those former words of Bracton Lex facit Regem attribuat igitur Rex Legi quod Lex attribuit ei videli
Nuncio upon the Nation with that insolence that he must dine at Guildhall But the Things I shall mention are The keeping a Mercenary in constant Pay to deprave ridicule and pervert the English Constitution and to Banter the Nation out of all their Laws by two or three authorized Observators every Week The Murthering of great Numbers in the West in cold Blood without any Process of Law The garbling of Iudges and perverting of all Iustice in Westminster-Hall The breaking the Peace of the Nation the keeping whereof was a principal part of his Office by keeping up a standing Army for several Years together in the Bowels of the Kingdom not only at the Charge but to the Terror and Disherison of his People Whereas as I remember it was a considerable Article in the Deposing of Edward the Second That he went into Glocestershire with a thousand Horse The five Positions of the Eleven Iudges The Yearly Declarations of Dispensing with the Laws that is violating them by whole-sale instead of Annual Parliaments The High-Commission Court and at the latter end of the Day the Tyranny and Oppression was coming home to those who had long been made the Instruments of Oppressing and Destroying all others Besides these were all of them Instances of an open and avowed Tyranny which was to have been the Inheritance of our miserable Posterity under a Pretence of Prerogative Soveraignty Imperial Laws Dispensing Power and the like So that our Children should never have known but that they had been born Slaves at Common-Law and so never have aspired after their English Freedom more And to make all sure by Packing the only Parliament in that Reign by Closetting the Members of it by Regulating Corporations and by their last Project of a Supernumerary Nobility we were likewise in a fair way to have been made Slaves by Statute I have not mentioned his Desertion all this while neither will I take any Advantage of it because I look upon it as the very best Action of his whole Life and the stopping him in it was an ill Day 's Work And if he had absented himself for-ever as for me he had carried his Tyranny and all the Faults of his Mis-rule along with him neither should I ever have mentioned them in this manner But being he has altered his Measures and Deserted his Desertion and wants more Blood and is come back in a War upon the Kingdom whereby the Subjects of England will have occasion to stake down their Lives in the Field against him I thought it necessary thus far to open the Merits of our Country's Cause against him And to shew that we shall venture our Lives in the best Cause in the World against the very worst in Defence of our Religion and Countrey against the irreconcileable Enemy of both who has been just such a Father of our Countrey as he was a Defender of our Faith. Besides we are able to produce the Original of an English King and the very Fundamental Contract made with him before they made him King out of the 8th Page of the Mirror out of the Saxon History and Laws out of Bracton and Chancellour Fortescue who writ his Book on Purpose to shew the English Constitution where it is demonstrated to be a perfect Stipulation and a down-right English Bargain Part of which was For the King to be obeysant to suffer the Law as others of his People And it is likewise declared to be the First and Soveraign Fraud Abusion and Perversion of the Law for the King to be Lawless whereas he ought to be subject to it as is contained in his Oath And he that makes strange and wonders at such a National Covenant never yet knew where he lived whether Here or in Turkey or at Algiers neither could he ever tell whether he and his Children were born Freemen or Slaves And tho the Phrase and Form of this Contract has varied upon occasion in the Coronation-Oath yet the Effect and Substance of it has always been Preserved We are able further to prove That the Oath of Allegiance being the Counterpart of the Coronation-Oath and containing the Subjects Duty as the other does the King's is of the nature of all Covenants and is a Conditional Oath Suppose in a lower Instance an Apprentice were sworn to his Indenture would he be bound in Conscience to perform his Master's Service when his Master instead of finding him Maintenance and Lodging would allow him neither but turned him out of Doors Such a Master must even do his own Business himself or Travel abroad to find him out a new Apprentice if he can notwithstanding his former Apprentices Oath Moreover we are able to prove That the Oath of Allegiance taken to a Tyrant would be a void unlawful and wicked Oath Void because it is an Obligation of Obedience according to the Laws which a Tyrant makes it his business to destroy so that it is swearing to things Inconsistent Vnlawful because the English Constitution will not admit such a Person to be King it knows no King but such a one as can do no wrong and Wicked because it strengthens his Hands in the Destruction of our Countrey He that swears Allegiance to a known publick Enemy and engages to be aiding and assisting to him is so far a publick Enemy himself If some Persons knew him not to be a Tyrant when at the first they were sworn to him yet as soon as they do know him to be such or especially if the Realm declare him to be such their Oath of Allegiance becomes a void unlawful and wicked Oath to them and they cannot possibly keep it any longer if they would And therefore to ask Who shall Absolve us from our Oath to King James is to ask Who shall Absolve us from an Oath which cannot bind from an Oath which ought not to have been made and is now at least as if it had never been made which was ill made and would be worse kept Such an Oath is so far from needing any Absolver that on the other hand an Angel from Heaven cannot oblige us to keep it And whereas it is the Maxim of the Malecontents to the same Purpose Better Popery than Perjury They may remember if they please That the Popery and the Perjury have always gone together and have been both of a Side They may remember That their Popish King while he was Duke was the Cause of almost an Vniversal Perjury in Corporations by delivering up their Charters and that he got the best Franchises of his greatest Village in Europe to be betrayed and surrendred by the help of such another Maxim Better half a Loaf than no Bread. That he was Perjured in the very taking of the Coronation-Oath which he did not and could not take in Good Faith and all the World knows how well he kept it That he likewise by his own Perjury-Prerogative of a Dispensing Power brought an Vniversal Perjury upon the Magistrates of England who
were sworn to the Execution of the Laws And throughout the late Reign of Treason I would fain know the Man that kept his Oath of Allegiance in discovering to a Magistrate the High-Treason against the King and the Realm of Persons being Reconciled to the Church of Rome and of those who endeavoured to Reconcile others and that did not conceal these Treasons which he knew of and thereby make himself guilty of Misprision No they were Happy Men who laid down their Lives betimes and did not stay to see the Guilt and Misery in which a Popish Successor has since involved their Country the Foresight of which made them not count their Lives dear to them but they endeavoured to prevent such a Calamity at the expence of their last Blood and died the true Martyrs of their Religion and Countrey But as for us who are left behind we must see the Wretches who shed that more than Innocent Blood wash their Hands in it and justify the shedding of it and cause it to cry afresh This is particularly done in an Infamous Libel entituled The Magistracy and Government of England Vindicated wherein the Murthering of the Greatest English-man we had for endeavouring to save his Country is still avowed If these Men had the Trying of Causes once more no doubt we should have our late Deliverance Arraigned for an Invasion and every brave English-man who joined with that unexpected Helping Hand out of the Clouds Indicted and Condemned for a Traytor I shall only say in general That that Vindication wants another as much as the Magistracy and Government which it pretends to Vindicate for there is not one material Word of it true For instance A Consult to levy War is not an Overt Act of Compassing the Death of the King because the Actual levying of War is often done without any such Tendency as I could instance over and over again in former Times but I love to quote what is fresh in Memory My Lord Delamere whom I mention out of Honour to him did very lately levy War and when he had the late King in his Power at Whitehall was so far from Compassing his Death that he only delivered him a Message to remove in Peace And being that Illegal Tryal is still justified I must needs add this That if there had been Law enough left to have Tried a Felon in the Counties of London and Middlesex that Great Man had never been brought upon his Tryal But because the Parties concern'd desire to answer it only in Parliament I only desire that there they may be put to make out how known Vnlawful Sheriffs de Facto obtruded upon the City of London against their own Lawful Choice on purpose to be Instruments of destroying the Lives Liberties and Estates of the best Subjects could be at the same time Lawful Sheriffs de Jure And on the other Hand it is easy to make it good That the Validity of that Tryal and Proceedings depending upon the Legality of the Sheriffs and Iury that pretended Court was of no Authority and was such another Low Court of Iustice as the Black-Guard are able to make among themselves every Day Perhaps they may plead Ignorance of so notorious a Matter and that they could take no Cognizance of it because it did not come Iudicially before them But that cannot be said for the Nullity of those very Sheriffs was before that brought in that very Place in a Special Plea and Over-ruled Their best and their truest Plea is this That they never Dreamed of the Prince of Orange's coming over to restore Iustice to this lost Nation which we doubt not he will cause to run down like a Mighty Stream For otherwise as appears by the repeated Choice of the Never-to-be-forgotten Sir John Moor these Men must have the Destroying of their Countrey over again only to Iustify their having Destroyed it once before REMARKS UPON Dr. Sherlock's late Book ENTITULED The Case of Resistance of the Supreme Powers Stated and Resolved according to the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures THE Case which the Title of this Book promises to Resolve is a very plain Case and soon resolved for it never was made a Question Whether Men might lawfully Resist any Legal Subordinate Powers much less the Supreme Powers and they are ordinary Readers indeed that are to be instructed That Resistance is unlawful in this Case But under the shelter and countenance of this plain and unquestioned Case and under the covert of these Names Sovereign King Prince Authority and the like this Author has slily convey'd into his Book the Resolution of another Case of a far different nature and determines That as well inferiour Magistrates as others imploy'd by a Popish or Tyrannical Prince in the most illegal and outragious Acts of Violence such as cutting of Throats or the like are as Irresistible as the Prince himself under pretence of having the Prince's Commission and Authority to do these Acts and must be submitted to under pain of Hell and Eternal Damnation I fully agree with this Author in his Resolution of the first Case but I crave leave to dissent from him in the Resolution of the latter Case and to enter the Reasons of my dissent But though I agree with him in his Resolution of the first Case yet I do not in his Reasons of that Resolution which are utterly insufficient and betray the Cause which he seems to maintain His Reasons why the King is Irresistible in all Cases are such as these 1. That the King has a Personal Authority antecedent to all the Laws of the Land independent on them and superiour to them Which is not true for the King is King by Law and Irresistible by Law and has his Authority from the Law. Indeed our Author says That the Great Lawyer Bracton by those very words of his Lex facit Regem was far enough from understanding that the King receives his Sovereign Power from the Law. I confess I never was so well acquainted with Bracton as to know what secret meanings he had contrary to the sense of his words and therefore cannot tell how far he was from understanding that the King receives his Sovereign Power from the Law but I am sure he was not far from saying so for he says it in the very next words Attribuat igitur Rex Legi quod Lex attribuit ei videlicet Dominationem Potestatem He proves that the King is under the Law and ought to govern by Law because he is made King by the Law and receives his Power and Authority from the Law and then adds what this Author is pleased to cite Non est enim Rex ubi dominatur Voluntas non Lex He is no King who governs by Arbitrary Will and not by Law that is no lawful English King Bracton must mean for still he may be a good outlandish and Assyrian King and no Tyrant though his Arbitrary Will does all For our Author pag.