One King to Reign over them to Govern the People of God and to maintain the Christian Faith and defend their Goods and Persons in quiet by the Rules of Right and to be obedient to the Rules of Right if he did not so he should lose the Name of a King. Old Fleta speaking of the King's Oath says The King by Vertue of his Oath is especially obliged to the preservation of the Laws and he is therefore Crowned that he may Rule the People committed to him per Judicia by the Laws 15 Edw. 3. Stat. 1. We considering how by the Bond of our Oath we are bound to the observance and defence of the Laws and Customs of the Realm c. And 20 Edw. 3. Moâ—e at large the King declares We perceiving that the Law of the Land which we by our Oath are bound to maintain is less well kept and the execution of the same disturbed we greatly moved in Conscience in this matter desiring as much for the pleasure of God and ease of our Subjects as to save our Conscience and to keep our said Oath c. The like is in the Statute of Provisors King James told his Parliament the same March 21. 1609. That the King is bound by a double Oath to preserve the Laws tacitly as being King and so bound to protect his People and the Laws and expresly by his Coronation-Oath So as every just King is bound to observe that Paction made with his People by his Laws framing the Government thereunto And a King leaves to be a King. and degenerates into a Tyrant as soon as he leaves off to Govern by Law in which case the King's Conscience may speak to him as the poor Woman to Philip of Macedon Either Govern according to Law or cease to be King. And else-where he says If he should not keep the Laws to which he was Sworn he should be perjured But I proceed to the Statute of 11 H. 7. That from thence-forth no Person attending on the King for the time being and doing him true and faithful Service of Allegiance in his Wars should in any-wise be Convict or Attaint of High Treason nor of other Offence for that cause but to be for that Service utterly discharged of any vexation trouble or loss The Lord Bacon p. 144. Hist of Hen. 7. gives a Reason of this Law as agreeable with Reason of State that the Subject should not enquire of the justness of the King's Title or Quarrel And it was agreeable to good Conscience that whatever the Fortune of the King were the Subject should not suffer for his Obedience The Spirit of this Law saith he was wonderful Pious and Noble being like in matter of War to the Spirit of David in matter of the Plague who said If I have finned strike me but what have these Sheep done Neither wanted this Law parts of Prudence and deep fore-sight for it did the better take away from the People occasion to busie themselves to pry into the King's Title for that however it fell out their Safety was provided for besides it could not but greatly draw to him the love and hearts of the People because he seemed more careful for them than for himself To this purpose the Lord Cook p. 7. of his third Book of Institutes speaking of Treason says That the Act for Treason is to be understood of a King in Possession of the Crown and Kingdom for if there be a King Regnant in Possession although he be de Facto only and not de Jure yet is he within the purview of this Statute and the other which hath Right and is out of Possession is not within this Statute And if Treason be committed against a King de Facto and not de Jure and afterwards the King de Jure cometh to the Crown he shall punish the Treason against the King de Facto and a Pardon granted by the King de Jure that is not also King de Facto is void It is the Opinion of Lawyers That Melior est conditio possidentis And Judge Hales gives the same sense of that Statute in his Remarks on the Pleas of the Crown Chap. of Treason The Lord Cook says 'T is against all Reason that the King 's Politick Capacity may not be separated from his Personal seeing his private Will is distinct from his publick Will exprest in the Law. Littleton in his Tenures Title of Homage Sect. 85. says Allegiance is due to every one in Possession that becomes King and to no other And Judge Popham in his Reports fol. 16 17. mentioneth a Case to our purpose Richard the Third granted certain Priviledges to the City of Gloucester with a Salvo to him and his Heirs And in Queen Elizabeth's days it was questioned whether the Salvo did pass to her she not being Heir to King Richard and all the Judges did Resolve that the Salvo did pass to her Sir Edward Cook in his Institutes on Magna Charta alloweth That the King hath no Power over the Militia to Muster his Subjects but only in such cases and manner as the Parliament by special Acts hath prescribed And p. 147. That the Right of Electing Sheriffs was anciently in the People as in London York Bristol c. So the Heretochs or Lord-Lieutenants in every County were chosen by a Folkmote in their Counties Lambard Arch. p. 135. And Spelman on the word Legiantia says it is Archius vinculum inter principem subdites It would be tedious to relate all that Grotius hath said though very pertinently and rationally I shall name a few of such Observations as come home to our Case l. 1. c. 4. § 7. n. 3. It is to be observed that Men did not at first unite in Civil Communities by any Command from God but voluntarily and from the experience they had that private Families were unable to resist Foreign Force from hence grew Civil Power which St. Peter calls a Humane Ordinance though elsewhere it be called a Divine because God approved it as convenient for the good of Mankind but when God approves of a Humane Law he must be supposed to do it after a Humane manner L. 2. c. 14. § 4. That Promises fully made and accepted do naturally transfer a Right and this holds as well in Kings as in private Persons L. 2. c. 13. n. 16. If a Promise confirmed by Oath be grounded on a Condition whereto it related that Condition not being performed makes the Promise void or if the Quality of the Person cease the Oath sworn to that Person in relation to his Quality doth cease also L. 2. c. 13. n. 18. Every Contract though sworn is to be understood with this reserved Condition That matters continue in the same state A wise Man saith Seneca changeth not his Resolution all things continuing as they were when he made it nor can he be said to repent because at that time no better Counsel could be followed than that he resolved on l. 2.
and granted Commissions in the King's Name And the Case of the present Irish comes home to the point who being invaded by the French pretending Commissions from the late King James who now acts under them may undoubtedly defend themselves by Arms. Mr. Faulkner pleaded the Case of Non-Resistance as far as any yet p. 542. he considers this Case If the Supreme Governour should according to his own Pleasure and contrary to the Established Laws and his Subjects Property actually ingage upon the destroying and ruining a considerable part of his People whether they might defend themselves by taking Arms And he instanceth in the Parisian Massacree where about 100000 were slain in cold Blood most of which were innocent persons never accused or tryed by Law which he says is such a Cruelty as can hardly be parallel'd under Mahometism And he grants if ever such a Case should happen it would have great difficulties Grotius says he thinks That in this utmost extremity the use of such Defence Uâ—timo necessitatis praesidio is not to be condemned provided the Common Safety be preserved Which may be true says he because such Attempts of ruining do ipso facto disclaim the Governing those Persons as Subjects i. e. according to Law and consequently of being their Prince or King. And so the Expressions in the Declaration That it is not lawful on any Pretence whatsoever c. would be secured And p. 529. he quotes Barclay l. 3. c. 16 Se omni principatu dominatu exuit atque ipso jure sine ipso facto Rex esse desiit l. 6. c. 23. With whom he joyns Grotius l. 1. c. 4. n. 11. Si Rex vere Hostili animo exitium totus populi feratur To resist such a one is not to resist the King but him who ceaseth to be such and his Reason is Consistere simul non possunt voluntas imperandi voluntas perdendi quare qui se hostem totius populi profitetur to ipso abdicat regnum And p. 531. Mr. Faulkner says That on yielding such Suppositions to be true I shall grant the Answer to be true The Historian is much troubled how to evade the Judgment of Bishop Bilson which he delivers in these two passages among other The first is in p. 520. If a Prince submit his Kingdom to a Forreiguer or change the Form of the Common-wealth or neglecting the Laws Established by common consent or execute his own pleasure the Lords and Commons may joyn to defend the Laws Established The other is where he speaks of the Roman Cruelties Which are such saith he as are able to set good Men at their Wits end and make them justly doubt since you refuse all good Laws Divine and Humane whether by the Law of Nature they may not defend themselves against such barbarous Blood-suckers To these passages the Historian acting the part of a Disputant replies That this is but one Doctors Opinion contrary to the Doctrine of the Church Which is apparently false for both the Parliament and Convocation gave ready and liberal Contributions to assist the Queen in the Wars of Holland against the Spaniards at that time of which I have spoken already 2. He says Bilson was not infallible for he was deceived in other things Answ And most probably he was so when he wrote contrary to those passages which were approved by all Protestants abroad as well as by our own Nation 3. He would invalidate the Judgment of Bilson by the Censure of Charles the First in these words I remember well what Opinion my Father King James had of him for these Opinions and how he shewed him some Favour in hope of a Recantation but whether he did or not I cannot say Answ King James was of the same Opinion as to the Wars against the Spaniards and so was King Charles in the Case mentioned by our Historian viz. His assisting the Protestants of Rochel under the Oppressions of Lewis the Thirteenth And it is improbable that he would ever Recant that Opinion wherein the whole Nation and the two succeeding King's did agree For the Historian says 4ly That Bilson's Book was written when the Queen was assisting the Dutch against her and their Common Enemy Answ The War then was undoubtedly lawful and the Bishop's Determination seemed sound as to that War but the Historian may see that he applies his Opinion to the English Government when in the Cases mentioned by him viz. If a Prince submit his Kingdom to a Forreigner or change the Form of the Common-wealth or neglect the Laws and execute his own Pleasure the Lords and Commons may in such Cases defend the Laws Established and therefore it is very unlikely that he was hired to write only in justification of the Wars of Holland And if our Constitution be founded on a Compact there is no difference But 5ly he says If the Bishops Opinion be contrary to that of Christ and his Apostles we ought to renounce it As if the Bishop had not considered that the Gospel doth no where abridge the Civil Constitutions of particular Governments and that it requires subjection to the powers that are in being But he objects again That the Presbyterian made very dangerous use of that Book against King Charles the First Answ They were therein inexcusable by seeking to justifie a Rebellion against so good a Prince by what was chiefly intended against the Spanish Usurpations and Cruelties who invaded all their Priviledges Sacred and Civil contrary to Agreement introduced the Inquisition slighted all Petitions and barbarously Murthered some Hundreds of Thousands which much altered the Case against so pious and merciful a Prince And lastly That which that Bishop says doth not concern the Clergy of England who always did and are still resolved to maintain and practice the Doctrine of Non-Resistance for to that the Bishop applys his Discourse in which the Divines whom the Historian accuseth have not transgressed But to go on with the Historians Preface some affirm saith he That the Tenet was no older than Archbishop Laud and was introduced by a few Court Bishops for the attainment and establishing of their own grandeur To which I answer It must be acknowledged that in Bishop Lauds time this Doctrine was scrued up to the highest and frequently urged and with great reason the people being prepared for a Rebellion against the best of Kings and had the Doctrine of Non-Resistance been so well practised as it was prest the effusion of that Deluge of Blood might have been stopped but even then there was an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and more than what was due was demanded that the people might not yield less which that ancient Rule Iniquum petas ut aequum feras might justifie Yet the Doctrine of Sibthorp and Manwaring who would have raised the Prerogative to an Absolute Power as Cartwright and Parker of later days did also attempt hath been generally exploded by all sober Divines and Statesmen and yet the design of
atque ipso jure sive ipso facto Rex esse desiit l. 6. c. 23. In the next Paragraph he tells us Of studying the Laws of Providence and of considering the indispensible Obligations of taking up the Cross but when Providence hath in a signal manner without any unlawful Acts of our own delivered us from the Cross a little study will inform us that we ought not to draw it down on our backs again and to murmur against our Deliverers as the Israelites did against Moses and Aaron who brought them out of the House of Bondage and their cruel Oppressors As for the Opinions of the Gnosticks and Machiavel I suppose that learned Person whom the Author names hath sufficiently condemned them and so do all those Reverend Persons whom this Author hath accused explode the wild Opinions of Hobs Milton and Cressey and have acted in a direct Opposition to them And therefore he hopes in vain That no Man can imagine he intends any disturbance by his Writing for what could be intend by charging such a number of the Church of England as Apostates from their own Principles and guilty of Perjury only for taking the Oath of Allegiance to the present King and Queen There needs a better Apology than he hath yet made for himself to clear him from that Crime whereof his Conscience doth accuse him viz. that devilish Office of Accusing his Brethren for what tho' he truly relate the Opinions of those great Men his mis-applying of them and calling them to a Recantation and intimating that they are the greatest Incendiaries from whom we may justly fear greater Judgments is as great a Reproach as the most malicious Jesuite could cast on them for though the Preaching up the necessity of Suffering and the unlawfulness of Resisting be not a Doctrine likely to disturb the present Government yet when that Doctrine is applyed to the Person of King James and because we did not for his sake that would have destroyed us resist him that came to save us and as the Jews did Crucifie our Saviour to make way for those Romanists that will destroy us and our Nation This is the sole ground of all his Clamour against us but we are not such Children as to be affrighted by such Clamours we keep steady to our Principles and yielded both Active and Passive Obedience to the late King until he made it morally impossible for us to Obey him any longer and now that God hath set over us more gentle Governours by the same Methods that from the beginning he did set Rulers over all other Nations that is Mediante Populo which I could never yet see disproved we think our selves still bound to yield them that Obedience without which our Author says no Government can subsist If we compare what this Author designs by his Collections with that which the Jesuits and other Papists have written it will evidently appear that he intends to make the late King as Absolute in all Causes and over all Persons in his Dominions as ever they intended the Pope should be i. e. to be Infallible to be the Supream Judge of all Controversies to declare what is Good and what is Evil what is Vertue and what is Vice. And as hath been observed of Finch he attributes all the Divine Perfections to the King viz. Soveraignty Omnipotence Omniscience Majesty Infinity Vbiquity Perpetuity Justice Truth and Clemency and all these to be inseparable from his Person So that he is the very Hobbs of this Age whose Principles he would have all Men to espouse as himself hath done who in his Book de Cive c. 12. § 1 2. says That the Rules of good and evil just and unjust honest and dishonest are the Civil Laws and therefore whatever the Law Commands is to be accounted good and valid and that it is a wicked speech that Kings are not to be obeyed unless they Command Just things That before Empires were established there was nothing just or unjust which are Relatives to a Command that Emperors make things just which they command to be done and unjust what they forbid that private Men who assume the cognizance of good and evil do aspire to be like Kings which cannot consist with the safety of Government These seem to be the Articles of our Author's as well as of Hobbs his Creed Now let the Author review all the Writings of those learned Men whom he hath defamed and see whether he can Collect any such Problems out of them whether they ever declared that the King of England hath as Extensive and Absolute Power as either the Turk or the Pope or that the Person of the Prince had such an indelible Character of Majesty on him as could by no means be erazed Have any of them said that he could not be conquered in a just War or that on such a Conquest we were bound to pay him our Allegiance still and by no means transfer it to any other Have they said that the King might submit his Dominions to the Pope or the French King or that in so doing his Subjects were bound to assist him even to the utter destruction of the established Religion and the Fundamental Laws and Liberties of the Nation That it was in the King's Power to alter the Succession and set up a Suppositious Child to the Exclusion of his own Children and Lawful Successors King James never declared that he would assume to himself such an excess of Power though he declared that he was an Absolute Prince and would be obeyed without a Reserve as this Author hath for him who hath exceeded in this his Design all those flattering and fulsome Addresses which any the most infatuated Fanaticks presented to him But to go on did any of the Church of England say that it was not in the Power of the King exuere Regis personam to cease to be a King and either for his Religion or some other cause betake himself to a Cloyster and live as a Recluse leaving the Administration of the Government to a Successor Or if he were a Mad-man and bent on the Ruine of his People that no Restraint ought to be laid on him In such cases you might have required a Recantation of their Errors but when they never acknowledged more Power or Authority to be his due than what the Laws gave him when they never withdrew their Obedience Active or Passive until they were left in a state of Nature and Confusion and could never expect that he would return to them again or not without a Foreign Power that would make them and their successive Generations as unhappy in respect of things Spiritual and Eternal as in things Temporal what have they done to deserve those black Characters which the Author stigmatizeth them with which they do better deserve who would give the Powers of the World a kind of Omnipotence to do all that they will and to exceed the Devil himself who hath his Bonds and
Chains beyond which he cannot go and even tempt Men to be of the Opinion of the Gnosticks That all the Governments of the World are a contrivance of some evil Spirits to destroy the lives of Men and to abridge them of their Liberties which God and Nature have given them And with what Countenance can this Author aver that he doth only the Office of an Historian when the whole Design is a Satyr and an Indictment of Treason and Perjury against all those Divines that he quoteth who have since their Writings submitted to the present Government and sworn Allegiance to King William and Queen Mary and seems willing that King James should return with his French and Irish to be their Executioners It is not material to enquire whether he hath misquoted any passages but it is plain he hath mis-applyed them and stretch'd them beyond the meaning of their Authors for which I Appeal to the Author himself and shall only demand of him whether he himself doth or any of those whom he quotes ever did declare their Approbation of those Tenets of Sibthorp and Manwaring in the days of Charles the First or of the Bishops of Chester and Oxon in the Reign of James the Second whose Authorities in their own times were as he confesseth excepted against as of Men that did not write soberly on the Subject as our Author acknowledgeth And yet his whole Design is to shew that the King hath a plenitude of Power paramount to all that either of those four have mentioned over all the Laws of the Land over the established Religion and the Lives Liberties and Estates of all the Subjects with a quicquid libet licet This is not barely to plead for an inconsiderable rate of Ship-Money for granting Tolerations and Indulgences for a Power of Dispensing with some Laws but for the Legality of any Impositions even to the seizing our Freeholds of abrogating and making void all the Old Laws and giving the Prince's Will and Personal Commands the force of New and contrary Laws without any muttering or complaint of Grievances And if this Author have any spark of Ingenuity in him he must with shame acknowledge how Partial he hath been in relating the Opinions of many the most eminent of those Divines whom he hath quoted and leaving out the Opinions and Arguments of others whom though obvious to every ordinary Eye he hath wholly omitted I have already instanced in the decision of the present Case made by Mr. Faulkner and Barclay and Bilson and it were easie to fill a Volume far greater than I intend to shew only the Judgment of some of those Authors by him quoted when they considered what might be Lawfully done in some Cases against which being so odious and so rarely incident that the Laws have taken no notice of them or made any provision against them I shall give but two Instances more to this purpose The first is that of Grotius of whom p. 128. he says Whatever the learned Grotius says in his Books de Jure belli in his later works wherein he may be presumed to speak his truest sense he asserts this Doctrine on Mat. 26.52 If it be once admitted that private Men when injured by the Magistrate may forcibly resist him all places would be full of Tumult and no Laws or Judicatories would have any Authority since there is no Man who is not inclined to think well of himself This Comment is alledged with a Non obstante to whatsoever he had written in his Book de Jure belli because this was the latter Work whereas it is well known that his Book de Jure belli was not only written when he was in his full Maturity and acted in his proper Sphere as a Statesman and often reviewed it even after his Comment on the Gospels and was the Text on which almost all Civilians and Politicians did Comment as Authentick and for which we have his irrefragable Reasons as well as his Authority and in which he doth not deliver his Opinion in general but condescends to the consideration of particular Cases and Accidents whereas in that Comment he only delivers his Opinion as to the general and that not without restriction of the Resistance of private Men that were inclined to think well of themselves whereas when he considered the Constitution of particular Monarchies and Governments where the Legislative Power is not solely in a single Person as he knew it was not in England he hath otherwise determined for thus in that Famous Book p. 21. wherein having urged all the Arguments for Non-resistance he could think of he admonisheth his Reader of something else As first That such Persons as are under Compact with their People if they offend against the Laws may be restrained by force And secondly If a King abjure his Kingdom and desert it all things are Lawful against him as against a private Person for which he quotes Barclay That if a King alienate his Kingdom or subjects it to another he loseth it and then adds of his own Si Rex reipsa tradere regnum aut subjicere moliatur quin ei resisti in hoc possit non dubito nam aliud est imperium aliud habendi modus qui ne mutetur obstare potest populus id enim sub imperio non est Again he says If a King have one part of the Empire and the People another the King attempting to destroy the Peoples Right a just Force may be opposed and this I think to have place though it be said That the Power of War or Militia is in the King for that is to be understood of Foreign War for he that hath Right hath Power to defend that Right and he quotes Barclay That a Kingdom may be lost if a King be carried on to the destruction of his People Consistere enim non potest voluntas imperandi voluntas perdendi that if a King be intent on the destruction of his People to resist such a one is not to resist a Soveraign King but one who ceaseth to be such Qui se hostem totius populi profitetur eo ipsa abdicat regnum on which place Grotius his Annotator mentioneth a Note of Jo. Major in 4 Sentent Non posse populum à se abdicare potestatem destituendi principis si in destructionem vergeret and Grotius himself thinks that the Law of Nature allows it in his Notes on Esther 8.11 speaking of the Edict obtained by Mordecai for the Jews to defend themselves he says Jus naturae munit autoritate regia Much more might be added from Grotius to our purpose but he is so commonly quoted that I forbear and leave the Reader to judge how well the Author hath performed the Office of an Historian who picks and chooseth out of an obscure place and a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what may make for his own Opinion omitting those plain obvious and elaborate Discourses of the same Author which would confute it