Commonwealth is a more perfect form of Goverment thâ—n a Monarchy and more suitable to the condition of Mankind and in the opinion of God himself better for his own people for himself appointed it And could hardly be prevail'd withal a great while after and at their own importunate desire to let 'em change it into a Monarchy But to make it appear that he gave 'em their choice to be Govern'd by a single person or by more so they were justly Govern'd in case they should in time to come resolve upon a King he prescribes Laws for this King of theirs to observe whereby he was forbidden to multiply to himself Horses and Wives or to heap up Riches whence he might easily infer that no power was put into his hands over others but according to Law since even those actions of his life which related only to himself were under a Law He was commanded therefore to transcribe with his own hand all the Precepts of the Law and having writ 'em out to observe and keep 'em that his mind might not be lifted up above his Brethren 'T is evident from hence that as well the Prince as the people was bound by the Law of Moses To this purpose Josephus writes a proper and an able Interpreter of the Laws of his own Country who was admirably well vers'd in the Jewish Policy and infinitely preferable to a thousand obscure ignorant Rabbins He has it thus in the Fourth Book of his Antiquities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. An Aristocracy is the best form of Government wherefore do not you endeavour to settle any other 't is enough for you that God presides over ye But if you will have a King let him guide himself by the Law of God rather than by his own wisdom and lay a restraint upon him if he offer at more power than the state of your affairs will allow of Thus he expresseth himself upon this place in Deuteronomy Another Jewish Author Philo Judaus who was Josephus his Contemporary a very studious man in the Law of Moses upon which he wrote a large Commentary when in his Book concerning the Creation of the King he interprets this Chapter of Deuteronomy he sets a King loose from the Law no otherwise than as an enemy may be said to be so They says he that to the prejudice and destruction of the people acquire great power to themselves deserve not the name of Kings but that of Enemies For their actions are the same with those of an irreconcilable enemy Nay they that under a pretence of Government are injurious are worse than open enemies We may fence our selves against the latter but the malice of the former is so much the more Pestilent because it is not always easie to be discovered But when is is discover'd why should they not be dealt with as enemies The same Author in his second Book Allegoriar Legis A King says he and a Tyrant are Contraries And a little after A King ought not only to command but obey All this is very true you 'l say a King ought to observe the Laws as well as any other man But what if he will not What Law is there to punish him I answer the same Law that there is to punish other men for I find no exceptions there is no express Law to punish the Priests or any other inferior Magistrates who all of 'em if this opinion of the exemption of Kings from the Penalties of the Law would hold may by the same reason claim impunity what guilt soever they contract because there is no positive Law for their punishment and yet I suppose none of them ever challeng'd such a Prerogative nor would it ever be allow'd 'em if they should Hitherto we have learn'd from the very Text of God's own Law that a King ought to obey the Laws and not lift himself up above his Brethre Let us now consider whether Solomon preacht up any other Doctrine Ch. 8 v. 2. I counsel thee to keep the King's commandment and that in regard of the oath of God Be not hasty to go out of his sight stand not in an evil thing for he doth whatsoever pleaseth him VVhere the word of a King is there is power and who may say unto him what dost thou It is well enough known that here the Preacher directs not his Precepts to the Sanhedrim or to a Parliament but to private persons and such he commands to keep the King's commandment and that in regard of the oath of God But as they swear Allegiance to Kings do not Kings likewise swear to obey and maintain the Laws of God and those of their own Country So the Reubenites and Gadites promise obedience to Jeshua Josh 1. 17. According as we harkned unto Moses in all things so will we harken unto thee only the Lord thy God be with thee as he was with Moses Here 's an express condition Hear the Preacher else Chap. 9. v. 17. The words of wise men are heard in quiet more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools The next caution that Solâ—mon gives us is Be not hasty to go out of his sight stand not in an evil thing for he doth whatsoever pleaseth him That is he does what he will to Malefactors whom the Law authorizeth him to punish and against whom he may proceed with mercy or severity as he sees occasion Here 's nothing like Tyranny Nothing that a good man needs be afraid of Where the word of a King is there is power and who may say to him VVhat dost thou And yet we read of one that not only said to a King VVhat dost thou but told him Thou hast done foolishly But Samuel you may say was an Extraordinary Person I answer you with your own words which follow in the 49th Page of your Book VVhat was there extraordinary say you in Saul or in David And so say I what was there in Samuel extraordinary He was a Prophet you 'l say so are they that now follow his example for they act according to the will of God either his reveal'd or his secret will which your self grant in your 50th Page The Preacher therefore in this place prudently adviseth private persous not to contend with Princes for it is even dangerous to contend with any man that 's either rich or powerful But what then must therefore the Nobility of a Nation and all the inferior Magistrates and the whole body of the people not dare to mutter when a King raves and acts like a mad-man Must they not oppose a foolish wicked outragious Tyrant that perhaps seeks the destruction of all good men Must they not endeavour to prevent his turning all Divine and Humane things upside down must they suffer him to massacre his People burn their Cities and commit such Outrages upon them daily and finally to have perfect liberty to do what he list without controul O de Cappadocis eques catastis Thou slavish Knight
A DEFENCE OF THE People of ENGLAND BY JOHN MILTON In ANSWER to Salmasius's Defence of the King Printed in the Year 1692. TO THE ENGLISH READER THE Author of this Book is sufficiently known and so is the Book it self both at Home and Abroad to the Curious and Inquisitive but never having been rendred into English many whose Veneration for the Author would induce them to read any thing of his and who could not máster it in the Language in which he wrote it were deprived of the pleasure of perusing it and of the Information they might justly expect from it To gratifie them it is that this Translation long since made is now published for the person who took the pains to Translate it did it partly for his own private entertainment and partly to gratifie one or two of his Friends without any design of makâ—… it publick and is since deceased And the Publisher thinks it necessary to advertise the Reader some few things concerning it As First That the Author does with a great Freedom of Language and Strength of Reason detect the Fallacy of all the Cobweb Arguments made use of by the Flatterers of Princes to prove their Power to be derived immediately from God and to be superior to that of the Law whether deduced from Scripture Reason or Authority Secondly That whereas some things are inserted that contain Personal Reflections upon the late King Charles the First and pains taken to justifie all the Proceedings of the Parliament from first to last which may sound harsh in some of our ears the Reader ought to consider the time when these things were written and the occasion of the Author ' s Undertaking this Defence which were such as put him under a necessity of Vindicating whatever his Masters had done The Translator has not gelt him nor was the Publisher willing to do it especially since the Book has for many years been so publick tho in another Language And the great Use which it yields for the most part ought not to be lost because some things are here and there interspersed which the â—…blisher could wish there had been no occasion for Thirdly That some Passages here and there may seem obscure because the Author presupposeth his Readers to have read Salmasius to some or other of whose Authorities and Reasons such Passages relate Fourthly That where Salmasius ' s words are inserted they are for the most part if not always in Italick Tho the Coherence of the Discourse would sufficiently disclose to one that reads with care when Salmasius speaks and when the Author Fifthly That if the Author may seem to lay aside even rules of Decency in treating his Adversary whom indeed he ridicules and exposes with a great deal of Smartness Freedom and Contempt it must be considered That the Author wrote on the behalf and in Defence of the Powers then in being and in answer to a privaâ—e person who had loaded them with all Reproaches imaginable and who could not possibly give worse language to the meanest the most contemptible and the most unworthy person upon earth than he does in his Defensio Regia to men that had then the Government of one of the most Potent Nations in Christendom Sixthly That the Translator has kept perhaps too close to his Copy and not taken that liberty which is allowed to a Translation especially in the angry and peevish parts of it But it 's hoped the Faithfulness of the Translation may in some measure recompence for that and it is very well known to those that knew him that he neither could nor did pretend to lash so well in English as the Author could in Latin Lastly That some of the Author's Sarcasmes depending upon the sound and ambiguity of Latin words do as they needs must lose their Beauty and Elegance in a Translation THE AUTHOR'S Preface ALTHO I fear lest if in defending the People of England I should be as copious in Words and empty of Matter as most Men think Salmasius has been in his Defence of the King I might seem to deserve justly to be accounted a verbose and silly Defender yet since no Man thinks himself obliged to make so much haste tho in the handling but of any ordinary Subject as not to premise some Introduction at least according as the weight of his Subject requires if I take the same course in handling well-nigh the greatest Subject that ever was without being too tedious in it I am in hopes of attaining two things which indeed I earnestly desire The one not to be at all wanting as far as in me lies to this most Noble Cause and most worthy to be recorded to all future Ages The other That I shall appear to have avoided my self that frivolousness of Matter and redundancy of Words which I find fault with in my Antagonist For I am about to discourse of Matters neither inconsiderable nor common but how a most Potent King after he had trampled upon the Laws of the Nation and given a shock to its Religion and was ruling at his own Will and Pleasure was at last subdu'd in the Field by his own Subjects who had undergone a long Slavery under him how afterwards he was cast into Prison and when he gave no ground either by Words or Actions to hope better things of him he was finally by the Supreme Council of the Kingdom condemned to dye and beheaded before the very Gates of the Palace I shall likewise relate which will much conduce to the easing mens minds of a great Superstition by what Right especially according to our Law this Judgment was given and all these Matters transacted and shall easily defend my Valiant and Worthy Countrymen and who have extremely well deserved of all Subjects and Nations in the World from the most wicked Calumities both of Domestick and Foreign Railers and especially from the Reproaches of this most vain and empty Sophister who sets up for a Captain and Ringleader to all the rest For what King 's Majesty sitting upon an Exalted Throne ever shone so brightly as that of the People of England then did when shaking off that old Superstition which had prevailed a long time they gave Judgment upon the King himself or rather upon an Enemy who had been their King caught as it were in a Net by his own Laws who alone of all Mortals challenged to himself impunity by a Divine Right and scrupled not to inflict the same punishment upon him himself being guilty which he would have inflicted upon any other But why do I mention these things as performed by the People which almost open their Voice themselves and testify the Presence of God throughout Who as often as it seems good to his Infinite Wisdom uses to throw down proud and unruly Kings exalting themselves above the Condition of Humane Nature and utterly to exâ—irpate them and all their Family By his manifest Impulse being set on work to recover our almost lost Liberty following
him as our Guide and adoring the impresses of his Divine Power manifested upon all occasions we went on in no obscure but an illustrious Passage pointed out and made plain to us by God himself Which things if I should so much as hope by any diligence or ability of mine such as it is to discourse of as I ought to do and commit them so to writing as perhaps all Nations and all Ages may read them it would be a very vain thing in me For what stile can be august and magnificent enough what man has parts sufficient to undertake so great a Task since we find by Experience that in so many Ages as are gone over the World there has been but here and there a man found who has been able worthily to recount the Actions of Great Heroes and Potent States can any man have so good an opinion of himself as to think himself capable to reach these glorious and wonderful Works of Almighty God by any Language by any stile of his Which Enterprize though some of the most Eminent Persons in our Commonwealth have prevailed upon me by their Authority to undertake and would have it be my business to vindicate with my Pen against Envy and Calumny which are proof against Arms those Glorious Performances of theirs whose opinion of me I take as a very great honour that they should pitch upon me before others to be serviceable in this kind to those most Valiant Deliverers of my Native-Countrey and true it is that from my very youth I have been bent extremely upon such sort of Studies as inclin'd me if not to do great things my self at least to celebrate those that did yet as having no confidence in any such Advantages I have recourse to the Divine Assistance And invoke the Great and Holy God the Giver of all good Gifts that I may as substantially and as truly discuss and refute the Sawciness and Lies of this Foreign Declamator as our Noble Generals piously and successfully by force of Arms broke the King's Pride and his unruly Domineering and afterwards put an end to both by inflicting a memorable Punishment upon himself and as throughly as a single person did with case but of late confute and confound the King himself rising as it were from the Grave and recommending himself to the People in a Book publish'd after his death with new Artisices and Allurements of Words and Expressions Which Antagonist of mine though he be a Foreigner and though he deny it a thousand times over but a poor Grammarian yet not contented with the Salary due to him in that Capacity chose to turn a Pragmatical Coxcomb and not only to intrude in State-Affairs but into the Affairs of a Foreign State tho he brings along with him neither Modesty nor Understanding â—or any other qualification requisite in so great an Arbitrator but Sawciness and a little Grammar only Indeed if he had publish'd here and in English the same things that he has now wrote in Latin such as it is I think no man would have thought it worth while to return an Answer to them but would partly despise them as common and exploded over and over already and partly abhor them as sordid and Tyrannical Maxims not to be endured even by the most abject of Slaves Nay men that have even sided with the King would have had these thoughts of his Book But since he has swol'n it to a considerable bulk and dispers'd it amongst Foreigners who are altogether ignorant of our Affairs and Constitution it 's sit that they who mistake them should be better informed and that he who is so very forward to speak ill of others should be treated in his own kind If it be asked why we did not then attack him sooner why we suffered him to triumph so long and pride himself in our silence For others I am not to answer for my self I can boldly say That I had neither had words nor Arguments long to seek for the defence of so good a Cause if I had enjoyed such a measure of health as would have endur'd the fatigue of writing And being but yet weak in Body I am forced to write by piece-meal and break off almost every hour though the Subject be such as requires an unintermitted study and intenseness of mind But though this bodily Indisposition may be a hindrance to me in setting forth the just Praises of my most worthy Countreymen who have been the Saviours of their Native Country and whose Exploits worthy of Immortality are already famous all the World over yet I hope it will be no difficult matter for me to defend them from the Insolence of this silly little Scholar and from that sawey Tongue of his at least Nature and Laws would be in an ill case if Slavery should find what to say for it self and liberty be mute and if Tyrants should find men to plead for them and they that can master and vanquish Tyrants should not be able to find Advocates And it were a deplorable thing indeed if the Reason Mankind is endu'd withal and which is the gift of God should not furnish more Arguments for mens Preservation for their Deliverance and as much as the nature of the thing will bear for making them equal to one another than for their oppression and for their utter ruine under the Domineering Power of One single Person Let me therefore enter upon this Noble Cause with a chearfulness grounded upon this Assurance That my Adversary's Cause is maintain'd by nothing but Fraud Fallacy Ignorance and Barbarity whereas mine has Light Truth Reason the Practice and the Learning of the best Ages of the World of its side But now having said enough for an Introduction since we have to do with Criticks let us in the first place consider the Title of this Choice Piece Defensio Regia pro Car. Primo ad Car. Secundum A Royal Defence or the King's Defence for Charles the First to Charles the Second You undertake a wonderful piece of work whoever you are to plead the Father's Cause before his own Son a hundred to one but you carry it But I summon you Salmasius who heretofore sculk'd under a wrong name and now go by no name at all to appear before another Tribunal and before other Judges where perhaps you may not hear those little Applauses which you use to be so fond of in your School But why this Royal Defence dedicated to the King 's own Son We need not put him to the torture he confesses why At the King charge says he O mercenary and chargeable Advocate could you not afford to write a Defence for Charles the Father whom you pretend to have been the best of Kings to Charles the Son the most indigent of all Kings but it must be at the poor King 's own Charge But though you are a Knave you would not make your self ridiculous in calling it the King's Defence for you having sold it it
is no longer yours but the King 's indeed who bought it at the price of a hundred Jacobusses a great Sum for a poor King to disburse I know very well what I say and 't is well enough known who brought the Gold and the Purse wrought with Beads We know who saw you reach out greedy fists under pretence of embracing the King's Chaplain who brought the Present but indeed to embrace the Present it self and by accepting it to exhaust almost all the King's Treasury But now the man comes himself the Door creaks the Actor comes upon the Stage In silence now and with attention wait That yee may learn what th' Eunuch has to prate Terent. For whatever the matter 's with him he blusters more than ordinary A horrible message had lately struck our Ears but our minds more with a heinous wound concerning a Parricide committed in England in the Person of a King by a wicked Conspiracy of Sacrilegious men Indeed that horrible Message must either have had a much longer Sword than that which Peter drew or those Ears must have been of a wonderful length that it could wound at such a distance for it could not so much as in the least offend any Ears but those of an Ass For what harm is it to you that are Foreigners are any of you hurt by it if we amongst our selves put our own Enemies our own Traytors to death be they Commoners Noble men or Kings Do you Salmasius let alone what does not concern you for I have a horrible Message to bring of you too which I 'm mistaken if it strike not a more heinous wound into the Ears of all Grammarians and Criticks provided they have any Learning and Delicacy in them To wit your crowding so many Barbarous Expressions together in one period in the person of Aristarchus a Grammarian and that so great a Critick as you hired at the King's charge to write a Defence of the King his Father should not only set so fulsome a Preface before it much like those Lamentable Ditties that used to be sung at Funerals and which can move compassion in none but a Cox-comb but in the very first sentence should provoke your Readers to laughter with so many Barbarisms all at once Persona Regir you cry Where do you find any such Latin Or are you telling us some tale or other of a Perkin Warchick who taking upon him the Person of a King has forsooth committed some horrible Parricide in England Which expression though dropping carelesly from your Pen has more truth in it than you are aware of For a Tyrant is but like a King upon a tage a man in a Vizor and acting the part of a Kâ—ng in a Play he is not really a King But as for thesâ— Gallicisms that are so frequent in your Book I wâ—…t lash you for them my self for I am not at leisure but shall deliver you over to your fellow Grammarians to be laught to scorn and whipt by them What follows is much more heinous that what was decreed by our Supreme Magistrates to be done to the King should be said by you to have been done by a wicked Conspiracy of Sacrilegious persons Have you the impudence you Rogue to talk at this rate of the Acts and Decrees of the chief Magistrates of a Nation that lately was a most Potent Kingdom and is now a more Potent Commonwealth Whose proceedings no Ring ever took upon him by word of mouth or otherwise to vilifie and set at nought The Illustrious States of Holland therefore the Genuine Off spring of those Deliverers of their Country have deservedly by their Edict condemn'd to utter darkness this Defence of Tyrants so pernicious to the Liberty of all Nations the Author of which every free State ought to forbid their Country or to banish out of it and that State particularly that feeds with a Stipend so ungrateful and so savage an Enemy to their Commonwealth whose very Fundamentals and the causes of their becoming a free State this Fellow endeavours to undermine as well as ours and at one and the same time to subvert both and loads with Calumnies the most worthy Asserters of Liberty there under our Names Consider with your selves ye most Illustrious States of the United Netherlands who it was that put this Asserter of Kingly Power upon setting Pen to Paper who it was that but lately began to play Rex in your Country what Counsels were taken what endeavours used and what disturbances ensued thereupon in Holland and to what pass things might have been brought by this time how Slavery and a new Master were ready prepar'd for you and how near expiring that Liberty of yours asserted and vindicated by so many years War and Toil would have been e're now if it had not taken breath again by the timely death of a certain rash young Gentleman But our Author begins to strut again and to feign wonderful Tragedies Whomsoever this dreadful news reacht to wit the news of Salmasius his Parricidial Barbarisms all of a sudden as if they had been struck with lightning their hair stood an end and their tongues clove to the roof of their mouth Which let Natural Philosophers take notice of for this secret in nature was never discovered before that lightning makes mens hair stand an end But who knows not that little effeminate minds are apt to be amaz'd at the news of any extiaordinary great Action and that then they show themselves to be what they really were before no better than so many Stocks Some could not refrain from tears some little Women at Court I suppose or if there be any more effeminate than they of whose number Salmasius himself being one is by a new Metamorphosis become a Fountain near akin to his Name Salmacis and with his counterfeit flood of tears prepared over night endeavours to emasculate generous minds I advise therefore and wish them to have a care Infamis ne quem malè fortibus undis Salmacis Enervet Ne si vir cum venerit exeat indè Semivir tactis subitò mollescat in undis Abstain as Manhood you esteem From Salmacis pernicious Stream If but one moment there you stay Too dear you 'l for your Bathing pay Depart nor Man nor Woman but a Sight Disgracing both a loath'd Hermaphrodite They that had more courage which yet the expresses in miserable bald Latin as if he could not so much as speak of men of courage and Magnanimity in proper words were set on fire with indignation to that degree that they could hardly contain themselves Those furious Hectors we value not of a rush We have been accustomed to rout such Bullies in the Field with a true sober courage a courage becoming men that can contain themselves and are in their right Wits There were none that did not curse the Authors of so Horrible a Villany But yet you say their tongues clove to the roof of their mouths and if you mean this
of our Fugitives only I wish they had clove there to this day for we know very well that there 's nothing more common with them than to have their mouths full of Curses and Imprecations which indeed all good men abominate but withal despise As for others it 's hardly credible that when they heard the news of our having inflicted a Capital Punishment upon the King there should any be found especially in a Free State so naturally adapted to Slavory as either to speak ill of us or so much as to censure what we had done Nay 't is highly probable that all good men applauded us and gave God thanks for so illustrious so exalted a piece of Justice and for a caution so very useful to other Princes In the mean time as for those fierce those steel hearted men that you say take on for and bewall so pitifully the lamentable and wonderful death of I know not who them I say together with their tinkling Advocate the dullest that ever appeared since the Name of a King was born and known in the world we shall e'en let whine on till they cry their eyes out But in the mean time what School-boy what little insignificant Monk could not have made a more elegant Speech for the King and in better Latin than this Royal Advocate has done But it would be folly in me to make such particular Animadversions upon his Childishness and Frenzies throughout his Book as I do here upon a few in the beginning of it which yet I would be willing enough to do for we hear that he is swollen with Pride and Conceit to the utmost degree imaginable if the ill-put-together and immethodical bulk of his book did not protect him He was resolved to take a course like the Soldier in Terence to save his Bacon and it was very cunning in him to stuff his Book with so much Childishness and so many silly whimsies that it might nauseate the smartest man in the world to death to take notice of 'em all Only I thought it might not be amiss to give a specimen of him in the Preface and to let the serious Reader have a taste of him at first that he might guess by the first dish that 's serv'd up how noble an Entertainment the rest are like to make and that he may imagine within himself what an infinite number of Fooleries and Impertinencies must heeds be heaped up together in the body of the Book when they stand so thick in the very Entrance into it where of all other places they ought to have been shunned His tittle-tattle that follows and his Sermons fit for nothing but to be worm eaten I can easily pass by as for any thing in them relating to us we doubt not in the least but that what has been written and published by Authority of Parliament will have far greater weight with all wise and sober men than the Calumnies and Lies of one single impudent little Fellow who being hired by our Fugitives their Countrey 's Enemies has scrap'd together and not scrupled to publish in Print whatever little Story any one of them that employed him put into his head And that all men may plainly see how little conscience he makes of setting down any thing right or wrong good or bad I desire no other Witness than Salmasius himself In his book entituled Apparatus contra Primatum Papae he says There are most weighty Reasons why the Church ought to lay aside Episcopacy and return to the Apostolical Institution of Presbyters That a far greater â—ischief has been introduced into the Church by Eâ—…copacy than the Schisms themselves were which were before apprehended That the Plague which Episcopacy introduced depressed the whole body of the Church under a miserable Tyranny Nay had put a yoke even upon the necks of Kings and Princes That it would be more beneficial to the Church if the whole Hierarchy it self were extirpated than if the Pope only who is the Head of it were laid aside page 160. That it would be very much for the good of the Church if Episcocy were taken away together with the Papacy That if Episcopacy were once taken down the Papacy would fall of it self as being founded upon it page 171. He says he can show very good reasons why Episcopacy ought to be put down in those Kingdoms that have renounced the Pope's Supremacy but that he can see no reason for retaining it there That a Reformation is not entire that is defective in this point That no reason can be alledged no probable cause assigned why the Supremacy of the Pope being once disowned Episcopacy should notwithstanding be retained page 197. Tho he had wroâ—e all this and a great deal more to this effect but four years ago he is now become so vain and so impudent withal as to accuse the Parliament of England for not only turning the Bishops out of the House of Lords but for abolishing Episcopacy it self Nay he persuades us to receive Episcopacy and defends it by the very same Reasons and Arguments which with a great deal of earnestness he had confuted himself in that former Book to wit That Bishops were necessary and ought to have been retained to prevent the springing up of a Thousand pernicious Sects and Heresies Crafty Turn-coat Are you not asham'd to shift hands thus in things that are Sacred and I had almost said to betray the Church whose most solemn Institutions you seem to have asserted and vindicated with so much noise that when it should seem for your interest to change sides you might undo and subvert all again with the more disgrace and infamy to your self It 's notoriously known That when both Houses of Parliament being extremely desirous to Reform the Church of England by the pattern of other Reformed Churches had resolved to abolish Episcopacy the King first interposed and afterwards waged War against them chiefly for that very cause which proved fatal to him Go now and â—oast of your having Defended the King who that you might the better defend him do now openly betray and impugn the Cause of the Church whose Defence you your self had formerly undertaken and whose severest Censures ought to be inflicted upon you As for the present form of our Government since such a Foreign insignificant Professor as you having laid aside your Boxes and Desks stufft with nothing but Trifles which you might have spent your time better in putting into order will needs turn busie-body and be troublesome in other mens matters I shall return you this answer or rather not to you but to them that are wiser than your self viz. That the Form of it is such as our present distractions will admit of not such as were to be wish'd but such as the obstinate Divisions that are amongst us will bear What State soever is pestered with Factions and defends it self by Force of Arms is very just in having regard to those only that are found and untainted and
your Bones well-thrash'd with a Fool 's staff for thinking to stir up Kings and Princes to War by such Childish Arguments Then you cry aloud to all Nations who I know full well will never heed what you say You call upon that Wretched and Barbarous Crew of Irish Rebels too to assert the King's Party Which one thing is sufficient evidence how much you are both a Fool and a Knave and how you out-do almost all Mankind in Villany Impudence and Madness who scruple not to implore the Loyalty and Aid of an execrable People devoted to the Slaughter whom the King himself always abhorr'd or so pretended to have any thing to do with by reason of the guilt of so much innocent Blood which they had contracted And that very perfidiousness and Cruelty which he endeavoured as much as he could to conceal and to clear himself from any suspition of you the most villanous of Mortals as fearing neither God nor Man voluntarily and openly take upon your self Go on then undertake the Kings Defence at the Encouragement and by the Assistance of the Irish You take care and so you might well lest any should imagine that you were about to bereave Cicero or Demosthenes of the praise due to their Eloquence by telling us before hand that you conceive you ought not to speak like an Orator 'T is wisely said of a Fool you conceive you ought not to do what is not in your Power to do and who that knows any thing of you ever expects any thing like an Orator from you Who neither uses nor is able to publish any thing that 's Elaborate Distinct or has so much as Sense in it but like a second Crispin or that little Grecian Tzetzes so you do but write a great deal take no pains to write well nor could write any thing well though you took never so much pains This Cause shall be argued say you in the hearing and as it were before the Tribunal of all Mankind That 's what we like so well that we could now wish we had a discreet and intelligent Adversary and not such a hair-brain'd Blunderbuss as you to deal with You conclude very Tragically like Ajax in his Raving I will proclaim to Heaven and Earth the Injustice the Villany the Perfidiousness and Cruelty of these Men and will deliver them over convicted to all Posterity O Flowers that such a witless senseless Bawler one that was born but to spoil or transcribe good Authors should think himself able to writ any thing of his own that will reach Posterity Whom together with his frivolous Scribles the very next Age will bury in Oblivion unless this Defence of the King perhaps may be beholden to the Answer I give to it for being looked into now and then And I would entreat the Illustrious States of Holland to take off their Prohibition and suffer the Book to be publickly sold For when I have detected the Vanity Ignorance and Falshood that it is full of the farther it spreads the more effectually it will be supprest Now let us hear how he Convicts us A DEFENCE OF THE People of England CHAP. I. I Persuade my self Salmasius that you being a vain flashy man are not a little proud of being the King of Great Britain's Defender who himself was stil'd the Defender of the Faith For my part I think you deserve your titles both alike for the King defended the Faith and you have defended him so that betwixt you you have spoil'd both your Causes which I shall make appear throughout the whole ensuing Discourse and particularly in this very Chapter You told us in the 12th Page of your Preface that so good and so just a cause ought not to be embelisht with any flourishes of Rhetorick that the King needed no other defence than by a bare Narrative of his Story and yet in your first Chapter in which you had promised us that bare Narrative you neither tell the Story aright nor do you abstain from making use of all the skill you have in Rhetorick to set it off So that if we must take your own judgment we must believe the King's Cause to be neither good nor just But by the way I would advise you not to have so good an opinion of your self for no body else has so of you as to imagin that you are able to speak well upon any subject who can neither play the part of an Orator nor an Historian nor express your self in a stile that would not be ridiculous even in a Lawyer but like a Mountebank's Jugler with big swelling words in your Preface you rais'd our expectation as if some mighty matter were to ensue in which your design was not so much to introduce a true Narrative of the King's Story as to make your own empty intended flourished go off the better For being now about to give us an account of the matter of fact you find your self encompassed and affrighted with so many Mâ—nstâ—rs of Novelty that y' are at a loss what to say first what next and what last of all I le tell ye what the matter is with you In the first place you find your self affrighted and astonish'd at your own monstrous Lies and then you find that empty head of yours not encompass'd but carried round with so many trifles and fooleries that you not only now do not but never did know what was â—it to â—e spoken and in what method Among the mâ—…y 〈◊〉 that you find in expressing the â—â—inousness of so 〈◊〉 a piece of impiety this one offers iâ— self you say which 〈◊〉 â—…y 〈◊〉 and must often be repeated to wit that the Sâ—◠〈◊〉 self never bâ—hâ—ld a more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But by your good leave Sir the Sun has beheld many things that blind Bernard never saw But we are content you should mention the Sun over and over And it will be a piece of Prudence in you so to do For though our wickedness does not require it the coldness of the 〈◊〉 that you are making does The original of Kings you say is as ancient as that of the Sun May the Gods and Goddesses Damasippus bless thee with an everlasting Solstice that thou maist always be warm thou that canst not stir a foot without the Sun Perhaps you would avoid the imputation of being called a Doctor Umbraticus But alas you are in perfect darkness that make no difference betwixt a Paternal power and a Regal and that when you had called Kings Fathers of their Country could fancy that with that Metaphor you had persuaded us that whatever is applicable to a Father is so to a King Alas there 's a great difference betwixt them Our Fathers begot us Our King made not us but we him Nature has given Fathers to us all but we our selves appointed our own King So that the people is not for the King but the King for them We bear with a Father though he be harsh and severe and so we do with
they had delivered up as it were to the Parliament to be dispoil'd of his Royalty and pursu'd with a Holy War They now complain that the Sectarie's are not extirpated which is a most absurd thing to expect the Magistrates should be able to do who never yet were able do what they could to extirpate avarice and ambition those two most pernicious Heresies and more destructive to the Church than all the rest out of the very order and tribe of the Ministers them-themselves For the Sects which they inveigh against I confess there are such amongst us but they are obscure and make no noise in the world The Sects that they are of are publick and notorious and much more dangerous to the Church of God Simon Magus and Diotrephes were the Ring-leaders of ' em Yet are we so far from persecuting these men tho' they are pestilent enough that for all we know them to be ill affected to the Government and desirous of and endeavouring to work a change we allow them but too much Liberty You that are both a French-man and a Va gabond seem displeas'd that the English more fierce and cruel than their own Mastiffs as your barking Eloquence has it have no regard to the lawful Successor and Heir of the Crown Take no care of the King 's Youngest Son nor of the Queen of Bohemia I l'e make ye no answer you shall answer your self VVhen the frame of a Government is changed from a Monarchy to any other the new Modellers have no regard to succession the Application is easy it 's in your Book de primatu Papae The great change throughout Three Kingdoms you say was brought about by a small number of men in one of them If this were true that small number of men would have deserved to have Dominion over the rest Valiant men over faint-hearted Cowards These are they that presumptuously took upon them to change antiquum Regni Regimen in alium qui à pluribus Tyrannisteneatur 'T is well for them that you cannot find fault with them without committing a Barbarous Soloecism you shame 〈◊〉 Grammarians The English will never be able to wash out this stain Nay you though a blot and a stain to all Learned men were never yet able to stain the renown and everlasting Glory of the English Nation that with so great a Resolution as we hardly find the 〈◊〉 recorded in any History having strugled with 〈…〉 not only their Enemies in the Field but the supertitious Persuasions of the common People 〈…〉 to themselves in general amongst all 〈…〉 the name of Deliverers The Body of the people having undertook and performed an enterprise which in other Nations is thought to proceed only from a magnanimity that 's peculiar to Heroes What the protesstants and Primitive Christians have done or would do upon such an occasion â—le tell ye hereafter when we come to debate the merits of the Cause In discoursing it before I should be guilty of your fault who outdo the most impertinent Talkers in Nature You wonder how wee 'l be able to answer the 〈◊〉 Meddle with your own matters you Râ—…gate and be asham'd of your actions since the Church is asham'd of you who though but of late you set your self so fiercely and with so much Ostentation against the Pope's Supremacy and Episcopal Government are now become your self a very Creature of the Bishops You confess that some Protestants whom you do not name have asserted it lawful to depose a Tyrant But though you do not think fit to name them I will because you say they are far wâ—rse than the very Jesuits themselves they are no other than Luther and Zuinglius and Calvin and Buâ—er and Pareus and many others But then you say they refer it to the Judgment of Learned and Wise men who shall be accounted a Tyrant But what for men were these Were they wise men were they men of Learning VVere they anywise remarkable either for Vertue or Nobility You may well allow a People that has felt the heavy Yoke of Slavery to be Wise and Learned and Noble enough to know what is fit to be done to the Tyrant that has oppress'd them though they neither consult with Foreigners nor Grammarians But that this man was a Tyrant not only the Parliaments of England and Scotland have declared by their actions and express words but almost all the people of both Nations assented to it till such time as by the tricks and Artifices of the Bishops they were divided into two Factions and what if it has pleased God to chuse such men to execute his Vengeance upon the greatest Potentates on Earth as he chose to be made partakers of the benefit of the Gospel Not many Wise not many Learned not many Powerful not many Noble That by those that are not be might bring to nought those that are and that no flesh might glory in his sight And who are you that babble to the contrary Dare you affect the Reputation of a Learned man I confess you are pretty well vers'd in Phrase-Books and Lexicons and Glossaries Insomuch that you seem to have spent your time in nothing else But you do not make appear that you have read any good Authors with so much Judgment as to have benefited by them Other Copies and various Lections and words omitted and corruptions of Texts and the like these you are full of but no foot-step of any solid Learning appears in all you have writ Or do ye think your self a wise man that quarrel and contend about the meanest Trifles that may be That being altogether ignorant in Astronomy and Physick yet are always raâ—â—ing at the Professors of both whom all men credit in what things belong to their own Sciences that would be ready to curse them to the Pit of Hell that should offer to deprive you of the vain Glory of having corrected or supply'd the least word or letter in any Copy you 've criticiz'd upon And yet y' are mad to hear your self call'd a Grammarian In a certain triflig Discourse of yours you call Dr. Hammond Knave in plain terms who was one of this King's Chaplains and one that he valu'd above all the rest for no other reason but because he had call'd you a Grammarian And I don't question but you would have been as ready to have thrown the same reproach upon the King himself if you had heard that he had approv'd his Chaplains Judgment of ye Take notice now how much I who am but one of those many English that you have the impudence to call mad men and unlearned and ignoble and wicked slight and despise you for that the English Nation in general should take any notice in publick of such a worm as you are would be an infinite undervaluing of themselves who though one should turn you topsic-turvy and inside out are but a Grammarian Nay as if you had made a foolisher wish than Midas did what ever you
of Cappadocia Whom all free People if you can have the confidence hereafter to set your foot within a free Countrey ought to cast out from amongst them and send to some remote parts of the World as a Prodigy of dire portent or to condemn to some perpetual drudgery as one devoted to slavery solemnly obliging themselves if they ever let you go to undergo a worse slavery under some cruelâ— silly Tyrant No man living can either devise himself or borrow from any other Expressions so full of Cruelty and Contempt as may not justly be apply'd to you But go on VVhen the Israelites asked a King of God they said they would set up a King that should have the same Rule and Dominion over them that the Kings of their neighbour Countries exercis'd over their Subjects But the Kings of the East we know had an unlimited Power as Virgil testifies Regem non sic Aegyptus ingens Lydia nec Populi Parthorum Medus Hydaspes Observant No Eastern Nation ever did adore The Majesty of Soveraign Princes more First What is that to us what sort of Kings the Israelites desired especially since God was angry with them not only for desiring such a King as other Nations had and not such a King as his own Law describes but barely for desiring a King Nor is it credible that they should desire an unjust King and one that should be out of the reach of all Laws who could not bear the Government of Samuel's Sons though under the power of Laws but from their Covetousness sought refuge in a King And lastly The Verse that you quote out of Virgil does not prove that the Kings of the East had an absolute unlimited Power for those Bees that he there speaks of and who reverence their Kings he says more than the Egyptians or Medes do theirs by the Authority of the same Poet magnis agitant sub legibus aevum Live under certain Fundamental Laws They do not live under a King then that 's tyed to no Law But now I 'le let you see how little reason you have to think I bear you an ill will Most people think you are a Knave but I 'le make it appear that you have only put on a Knaves Vizor for the present In your Introduction to your Discourse of the Pope's Supremacy you say that some Divines in the Council of Trent made use of the Government that is said to be amongst Bees to prove the Pope's Supremacy This fancy you borrow from them and urge it here with the same malice that they did there Now that very same answer that you gave them whilst you were an honest man now that you are become a Knave you shall give your self and pull off with your own hand that Vizor you 've now put on The Bees say you are a State and so natural Philosophers call them they have a King but a harmless one he is a Leader or Captain rather than a King he never beats nor pulls nor kills his subject Bees No wonder they are so observant of him then But in good Faith you had but ill luck to meddle with these Bees for though they are Bees of Trent they show you to be a Drone Aristotle a most exact writer of Politicks affirms that the Asiatique Monarchy which yet himself calls Barbarous was according to Law Politic. 3. And whereas he reckons up five several sorts of Monarchies four of those five he makes Governments according to Laws and with the consent of the People and yet he calls them Tyrannical forms of Government because they lodg so much power in one man's hand But the Kingdom of the Lacedaemonians he says is most properly a Kingdom because there all power is not in the King The fifth sort of Monarchy which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is where the King is all in all and to which he refers that that you call the right of Kings which is a Liberty to do what they list he neither tells us when nor where any such form of Government ever obtain'd Nor seems he to have mention'd it for any other purpose than to show how unjust absurd and tyrâ—nnical a Government it is You say that when Samuel would deter the people from chusing a King he propounded to them this right of Kings But whence had Samuel it Had he it from the written Law of God That can't be We have observ'd already that the Scriptures afford us a quite other Scheme of Soveraignty Had Samuel it then immediately from God himself by Revelation That 's not likely neither for God dislikes it discommends it â—…ds fault with it So that Samuel does not expound to the People any right of Kings appointed by God â—ut a corrupt and deprived mâ—nner of Governing â—…en 〈◊〉 by the Pride â—nd Ambition of Princes He tells not the people what their Kings ought to do but what they would do He told them the manner of their King as before he told us of the manner of the Priests the Sons of Eli for he useth the same word in both places which you in the 33d Page of your Book by an Hebrew Soloecism too call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That manner of theirs was Wicked and Odious and Tyranical It was no right but great wrong The Fathers have commented upon this place too I 'le instance in one that may stand for a great many and that 's Sulpitius Severus a contemporary and intimate Friend of St. Jerom and in St. Augustin's opinion a man of great Wisdom and Learning He tells us in his sacred History that Samuel in that place acquaints the people with the imperious Rule of Kings and how thâ—y use to Lord it over their Subjects Certainly it cannot be the right of Kings to domineer and be imperious But according to Salust that lawful Power and Authority that Kings were entrusted with for the Preservation of the publick Liberty and the good of the Common-wealth quickly degenerated into Pride and Tyranny And this is the sense of all Orthodox Divines and of all Lawyers upon that place of Samuel And you might have learn't from Sichardus that most of the Rabbins too were of the same mind at least not any one of them ever asserted that the absolute inherent right of Kings is there discoursed of Your self in your 5th Chapter Page 106. complain that not only Clemens Alexandrinus but all other Expositors mistake themselves upon this Text And you I 'le warrant ye are the only man that have had the good luck to hit the mark Now what a piece of folly and impudence is this in you to maintain in opposition to all Orthodox Expositors that those very actions which God so much condemns are the right of Kings And to pretend Law for them Though your self confess that that right is very often exercis'd in committing Outrages being injurious contumelious and the like Was any man ever to that degree sui juris so much his own Master as
rejoyce that he is so pray that his Kingdom may come for he is worthy Nor is there any other either equal or next to him And yet a Kingly Government being put into the hands of unworthy and undeserving persons as most commonly it is may well be thought to have done more harm than good to Mankind Nor does it follow for all this that all Kings as such are Tyrants But suppose it did as for argument sake I 'le allow it does least you should think I 'm too hard with ye Make you the best use of it you can Then say you God himself may properly be said to be the King of Tyrants nay himself the worst of all Tyrants If the first of these conclusions does not follow another does which may be drawn from most parts of your Book viz. That you perpetually contradict not only the Scriptures but your own self For in the very last fore-going Period you had affirmed that God was the King of all things having himself created them Now he created Tyrants and Devils and consequently by your own reason is the King of such The 2'd of these Conclusions we detest and wish that blasphemous Mouth of yours were stopt up with which you affirm God to be the worst of Tyrants If he be as you often say he is the King and Lord of such Nor do you much advantage your Cause by telling us that Moses was a King and had the absolute and supream power of a King For we could be content that any other were so that could refer our matters to God as Moses did and consult with him about our affairs Exod. 18. v. 19. But neither did Moses notwithstanding his great familiatity with God ever assume a Liberty of doing what he would himself What says he of himself The people come unto me to enquire of God They came not then to receive Moses his own Dictates and Commands Then says Jethro ver 19. Be thou for the people to God-ward that thou mayst bring their causes unto God And Moses himself says Deut. 4. v 5. I have taught you statutes and judgments even as the Lord my God commanded me Hence it is that he is said to have been faithful in all the hause of God Numb 12 v. 7. So that the Lord Jehovah himself was the people's King and Moses no other than as it were an Interpreter or a Messenger betwixt him and them Nor can you without In piety and Sacriledg transfer this absolute supream Power and Authority from God to a man not having any Warrant from the word of God so to do which Moses used only as a Deputy or Substitute to God under whose Eye and in whose presence himself and the people always were But now for an aggravation of your wickedness though here you make Moses to have exercis'd an absolute and unlimitted Power in your apparat ad primat Page 230. You say that he together with the seventy elders ruled the people and that himself was the chief of the people but not their Master If Moses therefore were a King as certainly he was and the best of Kings and had a Supream and Legal Power as you say he had and yet neither was the people's Master nor Govern'd them alone then according to you Kings though indued with the Supream Power are not by Vertue of that Sovereign and Kingly Right of theirs Lords over the people nor ought to Govern them alone much less according to their own Will and Pleasure After all this you have the Impudence to feign a command from God to that people to set up a King over them as soon as they should be possessed of the holy land Deut. 17. For you craftily leave out the former words and shalt say I will set a King over me c. And now call to mind what you said before Page 42d and what I said I should have occasion to make use of viz. That the power was then in the people and that they were entirely free What follows argues you either Mad or irreligious take whether you lift God say you having so long before appointed a Kingly Government as best and most proper for that people what shall we say to Samuel's opposing it and God's own acting as if himself were against it How do these things agree He finds himself caught and observe now with how great malice against the Prophet and impiety against God he endeavours to disentangle himself We must consider says he That Samuel's own Sons then Judged the people and the people rejected them because of their corruption now Samuel was loth his Sons should be lay'd aside and God to gratify the Prophet intimated to him as if himself were not very well pleased with it Speak out ye wretch and never mince the matter You mean God dealt deceitfully with Samuel and he with the people It is not your Advocate but your self that are Frantick and Distracted who cast off all reverence to God Almighty so you may but seem to Honour the King Would Samuel prefer the Interest of his Sons and their Ambition and their Covetousness before the general good of all the people when they asked a thing that would be good and profitable for them Can we think that he would impose upon them by cunning and subtilty and make them believe things that were not Or if we should suppose all this true of Samuel would God himself countenance and gratify him in it would he dissemble with the people So that either that was not the right of Kings which Samuel taught the people or else that right by the Testimony both of God and the Prophet was an evil thing was burdensom injurious unprofitable and chargeable to the Common-wealth Or Lastly which must not be admitted God and the Prophet â—eceiv'd the People God frequently protests that he was extreamly displeas'd with them for asking a King v. 7th They have not rejected thee but they have rejected me that I should not reign over them As if it were a kind of Idolatry to ask a King that would even suffer himself to be ador'd and assume almost Divine Honour to himself And certainly they that subject themselves to a worldly Master and set him above all Laws come but a little short of chusing a strange God And a strange one it commonly is brutish and void of all sense and reason So 1st of Sam. Chap. 10th v. 19th And ye have this day rejected your God who himself saved you out of all your adversities and your tribulation and ye have said unto him Nay but set a king over us c. and Chap 12th v. 12th Ye said unto me Nay but a king shall reign over us when the Lord your God was your king and v. the 17th See that your wickedness is great that ye have done in the sight the Lord in asking you a king And Hosea speaks contemptibly of the King Chap. 13. v. 10th 11th I will be thy king where is any other
that may save in all thy cities and thy judges of whom thou saidest give me a king and princes I gave thâ—â— a king in mine anger and took him 〈…〉 my wrath And Gidem that warlike Judg that was greater than a King I will not rule over you says he 〈…〉 shall my son rule over you the Lord shall rule over you Judges Chap the 8th Intimating thereby that it is not fit for a man but for God only to exercise Dominion over men And hence Josephus in his Book against Aâ—… an Egyptian Grammarian and a â—oulmouth'd fellow like you calls the Commonwealth of the Hebrews a Theocracy because the principality was in God only In Isaiah Chap. 26. v. 13. The people in their repentance complain that it had been mischievous to them that other Lords besides God himself had had Dominion over them All which places prove clearly that God gave the Israelites a King in his anger but now who can forbear laughing at the use you make of Abimelech's story Of whom it is said when he was kill'd partly by a woman that hurl'd a piece of a Mill-stone upon him and partly by his own Armour-Bearer that God rendred the wickedness of Abimelech This History say you proves strongly that God only is the Judge and Avenger of Kings Yea if this Argument holds he is the only Judge and Punisher of Tyrants Villanous Rascals and Bastards whoever can get into the Saddle whether by right or by wrong has thereby obtain'd a Soveraign Kingly right over the people is out of all danger of punishment all inferior Magistrates must lay down their Arms at his feet the people must not dare to mutter But what if some great notorious robber had perished in War as Abimelech did would any man infer from thence That God only is the Judge and Punisher of High-way men Or what if Abimelech had been condemn'd by the Law and died by an Executioner's hand would not God then have rendred his wickedness You never read that the Judges of the Children of Israel were ever proceeded against according to Law And yet you confess That where the Government is an Aristocracy the Prince if there be any may and ought to be call'd in question if he break the Laws This in your 47th Page And why may not a Tyrant as well be proceeded against in a Kingly Government Why because God rendred the wickedness of Abimelech So did the Women and so did his own Armour-bearer over both which he pretended to a right of Soveraignty And what if the Magistrates had rendred his wickedness Do not they bear the Sword for that very purpose for the punishment of Malefactors Having done with his powerful argument from the History of Abimelech's death he bâ—takes himself as his custom is to Slanders and Calumnies nothing but dirt and filth comes from him but for those things that he promis'd to make appear he hath not prov'd any one of them either from the Scriptures or from the Writings of the Rabbins He alledges no reason why Kings should be above all Laws and they only of all mortal men exempt from punishment if they deserve it He falls foul upon those very Authors and Authorities that he makes use of and by his own Discourse demonstrates the truth of the opinion that he argues against And perceiving that he is like to do but little good with his arguments he endeavours to bring an odium upon us by loading us with slanderous accusations as having put to death the most Vertuous innocent Prince that ever reign'd VVas King Solomon says he better than King Charles the First I confess some have ventur'd to compare his Father King James with Solomon nay to make King James the better Gentleman of the 〈◊〉 Solomon was David's Son David had been Sauâ—… â—…n but king James was the Son of the End of Darly who as â—uchanan tells us because Dâ—… the Musitian get into the Queen's Bed-Chamber at an unseasonable time kill'd him a little after he could not get to him then because he had Bolted the Door on the inside So that King James being the Son of an Earâ— was the better Gentleman and was frequently called a second Solomon though it is not very certain that himself was not the Son of David the Musitian too But how could it ever come into your head to make a comparison betwixt King Câ—ries and Solomon For that very King Charles whom you praise thus to the sky that very man's obâ—…acy and covetousness and cruelty his hard usage of all good and honest men the Wars that he rais'd the Spoilings and Plunderings and Conflagrations that he occasioned and the death of innumerable of his Subjects that he was the cause of does his Son Charles at this very time whilest I 'm a writing confess and bewail in the Stool of Repentance in Scotland and renounces there that Kingly right that you assert but since you delight in Parallels let 's compare King Charles and King Solomon together a little Solomon began his reign with the death of his Brother who had justly deserved it King Charles began his with his Father's Funeral I do not say with his Murder and yet all the marks and tokens of Poyson that may be appeared in his dead body but the suspition lighted upon the Duke of Buckingham only whom the 〈◊〉 notwithstanding cleared to the Parliament though he had killed the King and his Father and not only soâ— but he dissolved the Parliament lest the matter should be enquired into Solomon oppressed the people with heavy Taxes but he spent that â—…upon the Temple of God and in raising other publick Buildings King Charles spent his in Extravag 〈◊〉 Solomon was enticed to Idolatry by many Wives This man by one Solomon though he were seduced himself we read not that he seduced others but King Charles seduced and enticed others not only by large and ample rewards to corrupt the Church but by his Edicts and Ecclesiastical Constitutions he compelled them to set up Altars which all Protestants abhor and to bow down to Crucifixes painted over them on the Wall But yet for all this Solomon was not condemned to die Nor does it follow because he was not that therefore he ought not to have been Perhaps there were many Circumstances that made it then not expedient But not long after the people both by words and actions made appear what they took to be their right when Ten Tribes of Twelve revolted from his Son and if he had not saved himself by flight it is very likely they would have stoned him notwithstanding his Threats and big swelling words CHAP. III. HAving proved sufficiently that the Kings of the Jews were subject to the same Laws that the people were That there are no exceptions made in Scripture That 't is a most false assertion grounded upon no reason nor warranted by any Authority to say That Kings may do what they list with Impunity That God has exempted them
the same principle and notion of Government has obtained all along in Civiliz'd Nations Pindar as he is cited by Herodotus calls the Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 King over all Orpheus in his Hymns calls it the King both of Gods and Men. And he gives the reason why it is so Because says he 't is that that sits at the helm of all humane affairs Plato in his Book de Legibus calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that that ought to have the greatest sway in the Common-wealth In his Epistles he commends that Form of Government in which the Law is made Lord and Master and no scope given to any Man to tyrannize over the Laws Aristotle is of the same Opinion in his Politicks and so is Cicero in his Book De Legibus That the Laws ought to Govern the Magistrates as they do the people The Law therefore having always been accounted the highest Power on Earth by the judgment of the most Learned and wise men that ever were and by the Constitutions of the best ordered States and it being very certain that the Doctrine of the Gospel is neither contrary to reason nor the Law of Nations that man is truly and properly subject to the higher Powers that obeys the Law and the Magistrates so far as they govern according to Law So that St. Paul does not only command the people but Princes themselves to be in subjection who are not above the Laws but bound by them For there is no power but of God that is no form no lawful Constitution of any Government The most ancient Laws that are known to us were formerly ascribed to God as their Author For the Law says Cicero in his Philipp is no other than a rule of well grounded reason derived from God himself enjoyning whatever is just and right and forbidding the contrary So that the institution of Magistracy is Jure Divino and the end of it is that Mankind might live under certain Laws and be govern'd by them but what particular form of Government each Nation would live under and what Persons should be entrusted with the Magistracy without doubt was left to the choice of each Nation Hence St. Peter calls Kings and Deputies Humane Ordinances And Hâ—sea in the 8th Chapter of his Prophesy They have set up Kings but not by me they have made Princes and I knew it not For in the Commonwealth of the Hebrews where upon matters of great and weighty Importance they could have access to God himself and consult with him they could not chuse a King themselves by Law but were to refer the matter to him Other Nations have received no such Command Sometimes the very Form of Government if it be amiss or at lest those Persons that have the Power in their hands are not of God but of Men or of the Devil Luke 4. All this power will I give unto thee for it is delivered unto me and I give it to whom I will Hence the Devil is called the Prince of this World and in the 12th of the Revelations the Dragon gave to the Beast his Power and his Throne and great Authority So that we must not understand St. Paul as if he spoke of all sorts of Magistrates in general but of lawful Magistrates and so they are described in what follows We must also understand him of the Powers themselves not of those Men always in whose hands they are lodged St. Chrysostome speaks very well and clearly upon this occasion What says he is every Prince then appointed by God to be so I say no such thing says he St. Paul speaks not of the Person of the Magistrate but of the Magistracy it self He does not say there is no Prince but who is of God He says there is no Power but of God Thus far St. Chrysostome for what Powers are are ordained of God So that St. Paul speaks only of a lawful Magistracy For what is Evil and amiss cannot be said to be ordain'd because 't is disorderly order and disorder cannot consist together in the same Subject The Apostle says The Powers that be and you interpret his words as if he had said The Powers that now be that you may prove that the Romans ought in Conscience to obey Nero who you take for granted was then Emperor I 'm very well content you should read the words so and draw that Conclusion from them The Consequence will be that English Men ought to yield Obedience to the present Government as 't is now establisht according to a new Model because you must needs acknowledge that it is the present Government and ordain'd of God as much at least as Nero's was And lest you should object that Nero came to the Empire by a Lawful Succession it 's apparent from the Roman History that both he and Tiberius got into the Chair by the Tricks and Artifices of their Mothers and had no right at all to the Succession So that you are inconsistent with your self and retract from your own Principles in affirming that the Romans owed Subjection to the Government that then was and yet denying that Englishmen owe Subjection to the Government that now is But 't is no wonder to hear you contradict your self There are no two things in the World more directly opposite and contrary to one another than you are to your self But what will become of you poor Wretch You have quite â—â—done the young King with your Witicisms and ruin'd his Fortunes utterly for according to your own Doctrine you must needs confess that this present Government in England is ordain'd of God and that all Englishmen are bound in Conscience to submit to it â—ake notice all ye Criticks and Texâ—…ries Do not you presume to meddie with this Text. Thus Salmasius corrects that Passage in the Epistle to the Romans He has made a discovery that the Words ought not to be read The Powers that are but The Powers that now are And all this to prove that all Men owed Subjection and Obedience to Nero the Tyrant whom he supp sed to have been then Emperor This Epistle which you say was writ in Nero's time was writ in his Predecessor's time who was an honest well-meaning Man And this Learned Men evince by undeniable Arguments But besides the five first years of Nero's Reign were without Exception So that this thread-bare Argument which so many Men have at their Tongue 's end and have been deceived by to wit that Tyrants are to be obeyed because St. Paul injoyns a Subjection to Nero is evident to have been but a cunning Invention of some ignorant Parson He that resists the Powers to wit a lawful Power resists the Ordnance of God Kings themselves come under the Penalty of this Law when they resist the Senate and act contrary to the Laws But do they resist the Ordinance of God that resist an unlawful Power or a Person that goes about to overthrow and destroy a lawful one No Man living
misfortune could befall Soveraign Princes than to have such an Advocate as you are Poor unhappy wretch what blindness of mind has seiz'd you that you should unwittingly take so much pains to discover your Knavery and folly and make it visible to the world which before you conceal'd in some measure and disguis'd that you should be so industrious to heap disgrace and ignominy upon your self What offence does Heaven punish you for in making you appear in publick and undertake the defence of a desperate Cause with so much impudence and childishness and instead of defending it to betray it by your ignorance What enemy of yours would desire to see you in a more forlorn despicable condition than you are who have no refuge left from the depth of misery but in your own imprudence and want of sense since by your unskilful and silly defence you have rendred Tyrants the more odious and detestable by ascribing to them an unbounded liberty of doing mischief with Impunity and consequently have created them more enemies than they had before But I return to your Contradictions When you had resolved with your self to be so wicked as to endeavour to find out a foundation for Tyranny in the Law of Nature you saw a necessity of extolling a Monarchy above other sorts of Government which you cannot go about to do without doing as you use to do that is contradicting your self For having said but a little before That all forms of Government whether by more or fewer or by a single person are equally according to the Law of Nature now you tell us that of all thâ—se sorts of Government That of a single person is most natural Nay though you had said in express terms but lately That the Law of Nature does not allow that any Government should reside entirely in one man Now upbraid whom you will with the putting of Tyrants to death since you your self by your own folly have â—ut the Throats of all Monarchs nay even of Monarchy it self But it is not to the purpose for us here to dispute which form of Government is best by one single person or by many I confess many eminent and famous men have extolled a Monarchy but it has always been upon this supposition that the Prince were a very excellent person and one that of all others deserved best to reign without which Supposition no form of Government can be so prone to Tyranny as Monarchy is And whereas you resemble a Monarchy to the Government of the World by one Divine Being I pray answer me Whether you think that any other can deserve to be invested with a power here on earth that shall resemble his power that Governs the World than such a person as doth infinitely excel all other men and both for Wisdom and Goodness in some measure resemble the Deity and such a person in my opinion none can be but the Son of God himself And whereas you make a Kingdom to be a kind of a Family and make a comparison betwixt a Prince and a Master of a Family observe how lame the Parallel is For a Master of a Family begot part of his Houshold at least he feeds all those that are of his house and upon that account deserves to have the Government but the reason holds not in the case of a Prince nay 't is quite contrary In the next place you propose to us for our imitation the example of inferiour Creatures especially of Birds and amongst them of Bees which according to your skill in Natural Philosophy are a sort of Birds too The Bees have a King over them The Bees of Trent you mean do'nt you remember all other Bees you your self confess to be â—…wealths But leave off playing the fool with Bees they 〈◊〉 to the Muses and hate and you see confute â—…etle as you are The Quails are under a Captain Lay 〈◊〉 snares for your own Bitterns you are not Fowler good enough to catch us Now you begin to be personally concerned Galius Gallinaceus a Cock say you has both Cocks and Hens under him How can that be since you your self that are Gallus and but too much Gallinaceus by report cannot Govern your own single Hen but let her Govern you So that if a Gallinaceus Bee a King over many Hens you that are a slave to one must own your self not to be so good as a Gallinaceus but some Sterâ—orarius Gallus Dunghill-Cock or other For matter of Books there is no body publishes huger Dunghills than you and you disturb all people with your shitten Cock-crow that 's the only property in which you resemble a true Cock I 'le throw you a great many Barley-corns if in ransacking this Dunghill Book of yours you can show me but one Jewel but why should I promise you Barley that never pâ—â—kt at corn as that honest plain Cock that we read of in Aesop but at Gold as that Roguey Cock in Plautus though with a different event for you found a hundred Jacobusses and he was struck dead with Euclio's Club which you deserve more than he did But let us go on That same natural reason that designs the good and safely of all mankind requires that whoever is once promoted to the Sâ—…ignty be preserved in the possession of it Whoever question'd this as long as his preservation is consistent with the safety of all the rest But is it not obvious to all men that nothing can be more contrary to natural reason than that any one man should be preserved and defended to the utter ruin and destruction of all others But yet you say it is better to keep and defend a bad Prince nay one of the worst that ever was than to change him for another because his ill Government cannot do the Commonwealth so much harm as the disturbances will occasion which must of necessity be raised before the people can get rid of him But what is this to the right of Kings by the Law of Nature If nature teacheth me rather to suffer my self to be robbed by High-way men rather if I should be taken captive by such to purchase my Liberty with all my Estate than to fight with them for my life can you infer from thâ—… that they have a natural right to rob and spoil me Nature teacheth men to give way sometimes to the violence and outrages of Tyrants the necessity of affairs sometimes enforceth a Toleration with their enormities what foundation can you find in this forced patience of a Nation in this compulsory submission to build a right upon for Princes to Tyrannize by the Law of Nature that right which Nature has given the people for their own preservation can you affirm that she has invested Tyrants with for the people's ruin and destruction Nature teacheth us of two evils to chuse the least and to bear with oppression as long as there is a necessity of so doing and will you infer from hence that Tyrants have some right by
as that with the same breath that you commend the Obedience and Submissiveness of those Nations of your own accord you make mention of Sardanapalus'r being deprived of his Crown by Arbaces Neither was it he alone that accomplished that Enterprise for he had the assistance of the Priests who of all others were best versed in the Law and of the people and it was wholly upon this account that he deposed him because he abused his authority and power not by giving himself over to cruelty but to luxury and effeminacy Run over the Histories of Herodotus Ctâ—sias Diodorus and you will find things quite contrary to what you assert here you will find that those Kingdoms were destroyed for the most part by subjects and not by foreigners that the Assyrians were brought down by the Medes who then were their subjects and the Medes by the Persians who at that time were like wise subject to them Your self confess that Cyrus rebell'd and that at the same time in divers parts of the Empire little upstart Governments were formed by those that shook off the Medes But does this agree with what you said before does this prove the obedience of the Medes and Persians to their Princes and that Jus Regium which you had asserted to have been universally received amongst those Nations What Potion can cure this brainsâ—… frenzy of yours You say It appears by Herodotus how absolute the Persian Kings were Cambyses being desirous to marry his Sister consulted with the Judges who were the Interpreters of the Laws to whose Judgment all difficult matters were to be referred What answer had he from them They told him They knew no Law which permitted a Brother to marry his Sister but another Law they knew that the Kings of Persia might do what they listed Now to this I answer if the Kings of Persia were really so absolute what need was there of any other to interpret the Laws besides the King himself Those superfluous unnecessary Judges would have had their abode and residence in any other place rather than in the Palace where they were altogether useless Agâ—in if those Kings might do what ever they would it is not credible that so ambitious a Prince as Cambyses was should be so ignorant of that grand Prerogative as to consult with the Judges whether what he desired were according to Law What was the matter then either they designed to humour the King as you say they did or they were afraid to cross his inclination which is the account that Herodotus gives of it and so told him of such a Law as they knew would please him and in plain terms made a fool of him which is no new thing with Judges and Lawyers now a days But say you Artabanus a Persian told Themistocles that there was no better Law in Persia than that by which it was Enacted That Kings were to be honoured and adored An excellent Law that was without doubt which commanded subjects to adore their Princes but the Primitive Fathers have long ago damned it and Artabanus was a proper person to commend such a Law who was the very man that a little while after slew Xerxes with his own hand You quote Regicides to assert Royalty I am afraid you have some design upon Kings In the next place you quote the Poet Claudian to prove how obedient the Persians were But I appeal to their Histories and Annals which are full of the Revolts of the Persians the Medes the Bactrians and Babylonians and give us frequent instances of the Murders of their Princes The next person whose authority you cite is Otanes the Persian who likewise killed Smerdis then King of Persia to whom out of the hatred which he bore to a Kingly Government he reckons up the impieties and injurious actions of Kings their violation of all Laws their putting men to death without a legal conviction their rapes and adulteries and all this you will have called the right of Kings and slander Samuel again as a teacher of such Doctrine You quote Homer who says that Kings derive their authority from Jupiter to which I have already given an answer For King Philip of Macedon whose asserting the right of Kings you make use of I 'le believe Charles his description of it as soon as his Then you quote some Sentences out of a fragment of Diogenes a Pythagorean but you do not tell us what sort of a King he speaks of Observe therefore how he begins that Discourse for whatever follows must be understood to have relation to it Let him be King says he that of all others is most just and so he is that acts most according to Law for no man can be King that is not just and without Laws there can be no Justice This is directly opposite to that Regal right of yours And Ecphantas whom you likewise quote is of the same opinion Whosoever takes upon him to be a King ought to be naturally most pure and clear from all imputation And a little after Him says he we call a King that governs well and he only is properly so So that such a King as you speak of according to the Philosophy of the Pythagoreans is no King at all Hear now what Plato says in his eighth Epistle Let Kings says he be liable to be called to account for what they do Let the Laws controul not only the people but Kings themselves if they do any thing not warranted by Law I 'le mention what Aristotle says in the Third Book of his Politicks It is neither for the Publick Good nor is it just says he where all men are by nature alike and equal that any one should be Lord and Master over all the rest neither where there are no Laws nor is it for the Publick Good or Just that one man should be a Law to the rest nor is it so where there are Laws nor that any one tho a good man thould be Lord over other good mâ—n nor a bad man over bad men And in the Fifth Book says he That King whom the people refuse to be govern'd by is no longer a King but a Tyrant Hear what Xenophon says in Hiero People are so far from revenging the Deaths of Tyrants that they confer great Honour upon him that Kills one and erect Statues in their Temples to the Honour of Tyrannicides Of this I can produce an 〈◊〉 witness Marcus Tullius in his Oration pro Milone The Grecians says he ascribe Divine Worship to such as kill Tyrants What things of this nature have 〈◊〉 my self seen at Athens and in other Cities of Greece How many Religious Observances have been inâ—…ted in honour of such men How many Hymns They are consecrated to Immortality and Adoration and their Memory endeavoured to be perpetuated And â—…ly Polybius an Historian of great Authority and Gravity in the Sixth Book of his 〈◊〉 says thus When Princes began to in 〈◊〉 their own Lusts and sensual Appetites then â—…doms
even against Kings themselves if they act contrary to Law Aristotle likewise in the third Book of his Politicks Of all Kingdoms says he that are govern'd by Laws that of the Lacedemonians seems to be most truly and properly so And he says all forms of Kingly Governments are according to setled and establisht Laws but one which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Absolute Monarchy which he does not mention ever to have obtain'd in any Nation So that Aristotle thought such a Kingdom as that of the Lacedemonians was to be and deserve the name of a Kingdom more properly than any other and consequently that a King tho subordinate to his own people was nevertheless actually a King properly so called Now since so many and so great Authors assert that a Kingly Government both in name and thing may very well subsist even where the people tho they do not ordinarily exercise the Suâ—… Power yet have it actually residing in them and exercise it upon occasion Be not you of so mean a soul as to fear the down-fall of Grammer and the 〈◊〉 of the signification of words to that deâ—… as to betray the Liberty of Mankind and the State rather than your Glossary should not hold water And know for the future that words must be conformable to things not things to words By this means you 'l have more wit and not run on in infinitum which now you 're afraid of It was to no purpose then for Seneca you say to describe those three forms of Government as he has done Let Seneca do a thing to no purpose so we enjoy our Liberty And if I mistake us not we are other sort of men than to be enslav'd by Seneca's flowers And yet Seneca though he says that the Soveraign Power in a Kingly Government resides in a single person says withal that the power is the people's and by them committed to the King for the welfare of the whole not for their ruin and destruction and that the people has not given him a propriety in it but the use of it Kings at this rate you say do not reign by God but by the people As if God did not so over-rule the people that they set up such Kings as it pleases God Since Justinian himself openly acknowledgeth that the Roman Emperours derived their Authority from that Royal Law whereby the people granted to them and vested in them all their own power and authority But how oft shall we repeat these things over and over again Then you take upon you to intermeddle with the Constitution of our Government in which you are no ways concerned who are both a stranger and a foreigner but it shows your sawciness and want of good manners Come then let us hear your Soloecisms like a busie Coxcomb as you are You tell us but 't is in false Latin that what those Desperadoes say is only to deceive the people You Rascal was it for this that you a Renegado Grammarian were so forward to intermeddle with the affairs of our Government that you might introduce your Soloecisms and Barbarisms amongst us But say how have we deceiv'd the people The form of Government which they have set up is not Popular but Military This is what that herd of Fugitives and Vagabonds hired you to write So that I shall not trouble my self to answer you who bleat what you know nothing of but I 'le answer them that hired you Who excluded the Lords from Parliament was it the people Yea it was the people and in so doing they threw an intollerable yoke of Slavery from off their necks Those very Soldiers who you say did it were not foreigners but our own Country-men and a great part of the people and they did it with the consent and at the desire of almost all the rest of the people and not without the authority of the Parliament neither Was it the people that cut off part of the House of Commons forcing some away c. Yes I say it was the people For whatever the better and sounder part of the Senate did in which the true power of the people resided why may not the people be said to have done it What if the greater part of the Senate should chuse to be slaves or to expose the Government to sale ought not the lesser number to interpose and endeavour to retain their Liberty if it be in their power But the Officers of the Army and their Soldiers did it And we are beholden to those Officers for not being wanting to the State but repelling the Tumultary violence of the Citizens and Mechanicks of London who like that Rabble that appear'd for Clodius had but a little before beset the very Parliament House Do you therefore call the right of the Parliament to whom it properly and originally belongs to take care of the Liberty of the people both in Peace and War a Military power But 't is no wonder that those Traytors that have dictated these passages to you should talk at that rate so that profligate faction of Anthony and his adherents used to call the Senate of Rome when they armed themselves against the enemies of their Country The Camp of Pompey And now I 'm glad to understand that they of your party envy Cromwell that most valiant General of our Army his undertaking that Expedition in Ireland so acceptable to Almighty God surrounded with a joyful crowd of his Friends and prosecuted with the well-wishes of the people and the prayers of all good men For I question not but at the news of his many Victories there they are by this time bursten with spleen I pass by many of your impertinencies concerning the Roman Soldiers What follows is most notoriously false The power of the people say you ceases where there is a King By what Law or Right is that Since it is known that almost all Kings of what Nations soever received their Authority from the people upon certain conditions which if the King do not perform I wish you would inform us why that Power which was but a Trust should not return to the people as well from a King as from a Consul or any other Magistrate For when you tell us that 't is necessary for the Publick Safety you do but trifle with us for the safety of the Publick is equally concerned whether it be from a King or from a Senate or from a Triumvirate that the power wherewith they were entrusted revert to the people upon their abuse of it and yet you your self grant that it may so revert from all sorts of Magistrates a King only excepted Certainly if no people in their right wits ever committed the Government either to a King or other Magistrates for any other purpose than for the common good of them all there can be no reason why to prevent the utter ruin of them all they may not as well take it back again from a King as from other Governors nay
Aristotle whom you name so often if you had read him would have taught you as much in the beginning of his Politicks where he says they judge amiss that think there is but little difference betwixt a King and a Master of a Family For that there is not a numerical but a specifical Difference betwixt a Kingdom and a Family For when Villages grew to be Towns and Cities that Regal Domestick Right vanished by degrees and was no more owned Hence Diodorus in his first Book says That anciently Kingdoms were transmitted not to the former King's Sons but to those that had best deserved of the People And Justine Originally says he the Government of Nations and of Countries was by Kings who were exalted to that height of Majesty not by popular Ambition but for their Moderation which commended them to good Men. Whence it is manifest that in the very beginning of Nations that Fatherly and Hereditary Government gave way to vertue and the peoples right Which is the most natural reason and cause and was the true rise of Kingly Government For at first men entred into Societies not that any one might insult over all the rest but that in case any should injure other there might be Laws and Judges to protect them from wrong or at least to punish the wrong doers When men were at first dispers'd and scattered asunder some wise and eloquent man perswaded them to enter into Civil Societies that he himself say you might exercise Dominion over them when so united Perhaps you meant this of Nimrod who is said to have been the first Tyrant Or else it proceeds from your own malice only and certainly it cannot have been true of those great and generous spirited men but is a fiction of your own not warranted by any authority that I ever heard of For all ancient Writers tell us that those first Instituters of Communities of men had a regard to the good and safety of Mankind only and not to any private advantages of their own or to make themselves great or powerful One thing I cannot pass by which I suppose you intended for an Emblem to set off the rest of this Chapter If a Consul say you had been to be accused before his Magistracy expired there must have been a Dictator created for that purpose though you had said before that for that very reason there were two of them Just so your Positions always agree with one another and almost every Page declares how weak and frivolous whatever you say or write upon any subject is Under the ancient English-Saxon Kings you say the people were never called to Parliaments If any of our own Country-men had asserted such a thing I could easily have convinced him that he was in an error But I am not so much concerned at your mistaking our affairs because y' are a Foreigner This in effect is all you say of the Right of Kings in general Many other things I omit for you use many digressions and put things down that either have no ground at all or are nothing to the purpose and my design is not to vye with you in impertinence CHAP. VIII IF you had published your own opinion Salmasius concerning the Right of Kings in general without affronting any persons in particular yet notwithstanding this alteration of affairs in England as long as you did but use your own liberty in writing what your self thought fit no English man could have had any cause to have been displeased with you nor would you have made good the opinion you maintain ever a whit the less For if it be a positive command both of Moses and of Christ himself That all men whatsoever whether Spaniards French Italians Germans English or Scotch should be subject to their Princes be they good or bad which you asserted Page 127. to what purpose was it for you who are a foreigner and unknown to us to be tampering with our Laws and to read us Lectures out of them as out of your own Papers and Miscellanies which be they how they will you have taught us already in a great many words that they ought to give way to the Laws of God But now it is apparent that you have undertaken the defence of this Royal Cause not so much out of your own inclination as partly because you were hired and that at a good round price too considering how things are with him that set you on work and partly 't is like out of expectation of some greater reward hereafter to publish a scandalous Libel against the English who are injurious to none of their Neighbours and meddle with their own matters only If there were no such thing as that in the case is it credible that any man should be so impudent or so mad as though he be a stranger and at a great distance from us yet of his own accord to intermeddle with our affairs and side with a party What the Devil is it to you what the English do amongst themselves What would you have Pragmatical Puppy what would ye be at Have you no concerns of your own at home I wish you had the same concerns that that famous Olus your fellow busie-bosie body in the Epigram had and perhaps so you have you deserve them I 'm sure Or did that Hotspur your Wife who encouraged you to write what you have done for out-law'd Charles his sake promise you some profitable Professors place in England and God knows what Gratifications at Charles his Return But assure your selves my Mistress and my Master that England admits neither of Wolfes nor Owners of Wolfes So that it 's no wonder you spit so much venom at our English Mastiffs It were better for you to return to those Illustrious Titles of yours in France first to that hunger-starved Lordship of yours at St. Lou and in the next place to the Sacred Consistory of the most Christian King Being a Counsellor to the Prince you are at too great a distance from your own Country But I see full well that she neither desires you nor your Counsel nor did it appear she did when you were there a few years ago and began to lick a Cardinal's Trencher she 's in the right by my troth and can very willingly suffer such a little fellow as you that are but one half of a man to run up and down with your Mistress of a Wife and Desks full of Trifles and Fooleries till you light some where or other upon a Stipend large enough for a Knight of the Grammar or an Illustrious Critick on Horseback if any Prince or State has a mind to hire a Vagabond Doctor that is to be sold at a good round Price But here 's one that will bid for you whether you 're a Merchantable Commodity or not and what you are worth we shall see by and by You say The Parricides assert that the Government of England is not meerly Kingly but that it is a mixt
said in our Law to be an Infant and to possess his Rights and Dignities as a Child or a Ward does his See the Mirror cap. 4. Sect. 22. And hence is that common saying amongst us That the King can do no wrong Which you like a Raseal interpret thus Whatever the King does is no Injury because be is not â—…ble to be punished for it By this very Comment if there were nothing else the wonderful Impudence and Villany of this fellow discovers it self sufficiantly It belongs to the Hâ—ad you say to command and 〈◊〉 to the Members The King is the Head of the Parliament You would not trifle thus if you had any guts in your brains You are mistaken again but there 's no end of your mistakes in not distinguishing the King's Counsellors from the States of the Realm For neither ought he to make choice of all of them nor of any of these which the râ—st do not approve of but for electing any Member of the House of Commons he never so much as pretended to it Whom the people appointed to that Service they were severally chosen by the Votes of all the people in their respective Cities Towns and Counties I speak now of things universally known and therefore I am the shorter But you say 'T is â—alâ—e that the Parliament was instituted by the people as the Worshippers of Saint Independency assert Now I see why you took so much pains in endeavourâ—â—g to subvert the Paâ—â—cy you carry another Pope in your belly as we say For what else should you be in labour of the Wiâ—e of a Woman a He-Wolf impregnated by a She-Wolf but either a Monster or some new sort of Pâ—…cy You now make He-Saints and She-Saints at your pleasure as if you were a true genuine Pope You absolve Kings of all their sins and as if you had utterly vanquish'd and subdu'd your Antagonist the Pope you adorn your self with his spoils But because you have not yet profligated the Pope quite till the Second and Third and perhaps the Fourth and Fifth Part of your Book of his Supremacy come out which Book will nauseate a great many Readers to death sooner than you 'll get the better of the Pope by it let it suffice you in the mean time 〈◊〉 you to become some Antipope or other There 's another She-Saint besides that Independency that you deâ—ide which you have Canonized in good earnest and that is the Tyranny of Kings You shall therefore by my consent be the High Priest of Tyranny and that you may have all the Pope's Titles you shall be a Servant of the Servants not of God but of the Court. For that Curse pronounced upon Canaan seems to stick as close to you as your Shirt You call the People a Beast What are you then your self For neither can that Sacred Confistory nor your Lordship of St. Lou exempt you its Master from being one of the People nay of the Common People nor can make you other than what you really are a most loathsome Beast Indeed the Writings of the Prophets shadow out to us the Monarchy and Dominion of Great Kings by the Name and under the Resemblance of a Great Beast You say That there is no mention of Parliaments held under our Kings that reigned before William the Conqueror It is not worth while to Jangle about a French word The thing was always in being and you your self allow that in the Saxon times Concilia Sapientum Wittena-gemots are mentioned And there are wise Men among the Body of the People as well as amongst the Nobility But in the Statute of Merton made in the twentieth year of King Henry the 3d the Earls and Barons are only named Thus you are always imposed upon by words who yet have spent your whole Life in nothing else but words for we know very well that in that age not only the Guardians of the Cinque-Ports and Magistrates of Cities but even Tradesmen are sometimes called Barons and without doubt they might much more reasonably call every Member of Parliament tho never so much a Commoner by the Name of a Baron For that in the fifty second Year of the same King's Reign the Commoners as well as the Lords were summoned the Statute of Marlbridge and most other Statutes declare in express words which Commoners King Edward the Third in the Preface to the Statute-Staple calls Magnates Comitatum The Great Men of the Counties as you very learnedly quote it for me those to wit That came out of the several Counties and served for them which number of Men constituted the House of Commons and neither were Lords nor could be Besides a Book more Ancient than those Statutes called Modus habendi Parliamenta i. e. The manner of holding Parliaments tells us That the King and the Commons may hold a Parliament and enact Laws tho the Lords the Bishops are absent but that with the Lords and the Bishops in the Absence of the Commons no Parliament can be held And there 's a reason given for it viz. because Kings held Parliaments and Councils with their People before any Lords or Bishops were made besides the Lords serve for themselves only the Commons each for the County City or Burrough that sent them And that therefore the Commons in Parliament represent the whole Body of the Nation in which respect they are more worthy and every way preferable to the House of Peers But the power of Judicature you say never was invested in the House of Commons Nor was the King ever possessed of it Remember tho that originally all Power proceeded and yet does proceed from the People Which Marcus Tullius excellently well shows in his Oration De lege Agraria Of the Agrarian Law As all Powers Authorities and publick Administrations ought to be derived from the whole Body of the People so those of them ought in an especial manner so to be derived which are ordained and appointed for the Common Benefit and Interest of all to which Impolyments every particular Person may both give his Vote for the chusing such Persons as he thinks will take most care of the Publick and withal by voting and making Interest for them lay such Obligations upon them as may entitle them to their Friendship and good Offices in time to come Here you see the true rise and original of Parliaments and that it was much ancienter than the Saxon Chronicles Whilst we may dwell in such a light of Truth and Wisdom as Cicero's Age afforded you labour in vain to blind us with the darkness of obseurer times By the saying whereof I would not be understood to derogate in the least from the Authority and Prudenâ—e of our Ancestors who most certainly went further in the enacting of good Laws than either the Ages they lived in or their own Learning or Education seem to have been capable of and tho sometimes they made Laws that were none of the best yet as being conscious to
themselves of the Ignoranceâ— and Infirmity of Humane Nature they have conveyed this Doctrine down to Posterity as the foundation of all Laws which likewise all our Lawyers admit That if any Law or Custom be contrary to the Law of God of Nature or of Reason â—â—ought to be looked upon as null and void Whence it follows that tho it were possible for you to discover any Statute or other publick Sanction which ascribed to the King a Tyrannical Power since that would be repugnant to the Will of God to Nature and to right Reason you may learn from that general and primary Law of ours which I have just now quoted that it will be null and void But you will never be able to find that any such Right of Kings has the least Foundation in our Law Since it is plain therefore that the Power of Judicature was originally in the People themselves and that the People never did by any Royal Law part with it to the King for the Kings of England neither use to judge any Man nor can by the Law do it otherwise than according to Laws settled and agreed to Fleta Book 1. Cap. 17. It follows that this Power remains yet whole and entire in the People themselves For that it was either never committed to the House of Peers or if it were that it may lawfully be taken from them again you your self will not deny But It is in the King's Power you say to make a Village into a Burrough and that into a City and consequently the King does in effect create those that constitute the Commons House of Parliament But I say that even Towns and Burroughs are more Ancient than Kings and that the People is the People tho they should live in the open Fields And now we are extreamly well pleased with your Anglicisms COUNTY COURT THE TURNE HUNDREDA you have quickly learnt to count your hundred Jacobusses in English Quis expedirit Salmasio suam HUNDREDAM Picamque docuit verba nostra conari Magister artis venter Jacobaei Centum exulantis viscera marsupii Regis Quod si dolâ—si spes refulserit nummi Ipse Antichristi modò qui Primatum Papae Minatus uno est dissipare sufflatu Cantabit ultrò Cardmalitium melos Who taught Salmasius that French chatt'ring Pye To aim at English and HUNDRED A cry The starving Rascal flusht with just a Hundred English Jacobusses HUNDRED A blunder'd An out-law'd King 's last stock A hundred more Would make him Pimp for th' Anchristian Whore And in Rome ' s praise employ his poyson'd Breath Who threatn'd once to stink the Pope to death The next thing you do is to trouble us with a long Discourse of the Earls and the Barons to show that the King made them all which we readily grant and for that reason they were most commonly at the King's beck and therefore we have done well to take care that for the future they shall not be Judges of a free People You affirm That the Power of calling Parliaments as often as he pleases and of dissolving them when he pleases has belonged to the King time out of mind Whether such a vile mercenary Foreigner as you who transcribe what some Fugitives dictate to you or the express Letter of our own Laws are more to be credited in this matter we shall enquire hereafter But say you there is another argument and an invincible one to prove the Power of the Kings of England Superior to that of the Parliament the King's Power is perpetual and of course whereby he administers the Government singly without the Parliament that of the Parliament is extraordinary or out of course and limited to particulars only nor can they Enact any thing so as to be binding in Law without the King Where does the great force of this argument lye in the words of course and perpetual Why many inferior Magistrates have an ordinary and perpetual power those whom we call Justices of Peace Have they therefore the Supreme Power and I have said already that the King's Power is committed to him to take care by interposing his Authority that nothing be done contrary to Law and that he may see to the due observation of our Laws not to top his own upon us and consequently that the King has no Power out of his Courts nay all the ordinary power is rather the proples who determine all Controversies themselves by Juries of Twelve Men. And hence it is that when a Malefactor is asked at his Arraignment How will you be tried he answers always according to Law and Custom by God and my Country not by God and the King or the King's Deputy But the authority of the Parliament which indeed and in truth is the Supreme power of the people committed to that Senate if it may be called Extraordinary it must be by reason of its Eminence and Superiority else it is known they are called Ordines and therefore cannot properly be said to be extra ordinem out of order and if not actually as they say yet vertually they have a perpetual power and authority over all Courts and ordinary Magistrates and that without the King And now it seems our barbarous terms grate upon your Critical ears forsooth whereas if I had leisure or that it were worth my while I could reckon up so many Barbarisms of yours in this one Book as if you were to be chastiz'd for them as you deserve all the School-boys Ferulers in Christendom would be broken upon you nor would you receive so many Pieces of Gold as that wretched Poet did of old but a great many more Boxes o' th' ear You say 'T is a Prodigy more monstrous than all the most absurd Opinions in the world put together that the Bedlams should make a distinction betwixt the King's Power and his Person I will not quote what every Author has said upon this subject but if by the words Personam Regis you mean what we call in English the Person of the King Chrysostome who was no Bedlam might have caught you that it is no absurd thing to make a distinction betwixt that and his power for that Father explains the Apostles command of being subject to the Higher Powers to be meant of the thing the Power it self and not of the Persons of the Magistrates And why may not I say that a King who acts any thing contrary to Law acts so far forth as a private person or a Tyrant and not in the capacity of a King invested with a Legal Authority If you do not know that there may be in one and the same man more Persons or Capacities than one and that those Capacities may in thought and conception be severed from the man himself you are altogether ignorant both of Latin and Common sense But this you say to absolve Kings from all sin and guilt and that you may make us believe that you are gotten into the Chair voâ—r self which you have pull'd the Pope
out of The King you say is supposed not capable of committing any crime because no punishment is consequential upon any crime of his Whoever therefore is not punisht offends not it is not the theft but the punishment that makes the thief Salmasius the Grammarian commits no Soloecisms now because he is from under the Ferular when you have overthrown the Pope let these for God's sake be the Canons of your Pontificate or at least your Indulgences whether you shall chuse to be called the High Priest St. â—yranny or of St. Slavery I pass by the Reproachful language which towards the latter end of the Chapter you give the State of the Commonwealth and the Church of England 't is common to such as you are you contemptible Varlet to rail at those things most that are most praise-worthy But that I may not seem to have asserted any thing rashly concerning the Right of the Kings of England or rather concerning the Peoples Right with respect to their Princes I will now alledg out of our ancient Histories a few things indeed of many but such as will make it evident that the English lately tried their King according to the setled Laws of the Realm and the Customs of their Ancestors After the Romans quitted this Island the Britains for about forty years were sui Juris and without any Kings at all Of whom those they first set up some they put to death And for that Gildas reprehends them not as you do for killing their Kings but for killing them uncondemned and to use his own words Non pro veri examinatione without inquiring into the matter of fact Vortigerne was for his Incestuous Marriage with his own Daughter condemn'd as Nennius informs us the most ancient of all our Historians next to Gildas by St. German and a General Council of the Britains and his Son Vortimer set up in his stead This came to pass not long after St. Augustine's death which is enough to discover how â—utilous you are to say as you have done that it was a Pope and Zachary by name who first held the lawfulness of judging Kings About the year of our Lord 600 Morcantius who then Reign'd in Wales was by Oudeceus Bishop of Landaff condemn'd to Exile for the Murther of his Uncle though he got the Sentence off by bestowing some Lands upon the Church Come we now to the Saxons whose Laws we have and therefore I shall quote none of their Presidents Remember that the Saxons were of a German Extract who neither invested their Kings with any absolute unlimited power and consulted in a Body of the more weighty affairs of Government whence we may perceive that in the time of our Saxon Ancestors Parliaments the name it self only excepted had the Supreme Authority The name they gave them was Councils of Wise-men and this in the Reign of Ethelbert of whom Bede says That he made Laws in imitation of the Roman Laws cum concilio sapientum by the advice or in a Council of his Wise-men So Edwyn King of Northumberland and Ina King of the VVest-Saxons having consulted with their VVise-men and the Elders of the people made new Laws Other Laws K. Alfred made by the advice in like manner of his Wise-men and he says himself That it was by the consent of them all that they were commanded to be observed From these and many other like places it is as clear as the Sun that chosen Men even from amongst the Common People were Members of the Supreme Councils unless we must believe that no Men are wise but the Nobility We have likewise a very Ancient Book called the Mirror of Justices in which we are told That the Saxons when they first subdued the Brittains and chose themselves Kings required an Oath of them to submit to the Judgment of the Law as much as any of their Subjects Cap. 1. Sect. 2. In the same place 't is said that it is but just that the King have his Peers in Parliament to take Cognizance of wrongs done by the King or the Queen and that there was a Law made in King Alored's time that Parliaments should be holden twice a year at London or oftner if need were Which Law when through neglect it grew into disuse was revived by two Statutes in King Edward the Third's time And in another ancient Manuscript called Modus tenendi Parliamenta we read thus If the King dissolve the Parliament before they have dispatcht the business for which the Council was summon'd he is guilty of Perjury and shall be reputed to have broken his Coronation Oath For how can he be said to grant those good Laws which the people chuse as he is sworn to do if he hinders the People from chusing them either by summoning Parliaments seldomer or by dissolving them sooner than the Publick Affairs require or admit And that Oath which the Kings of England take at their Coronation has always been looked upon by our Lawyers as a most sacred Law And what remedy can be found to obviate the great Dangers of the whole State which is the very end of summoning Parliaments if that Great and August Assembly may be dissolved at the pleasure many times of a silly head-strong King To absent himself from them is certainly less than to dissolve them and yet by our Laws as that Modus lays them down the King neither can nor ought to absent himself from his Parliament unless he be really indisposed in Health nor then neither till twelve of the Peers have been with him to inspect his Body and give the Parliament an account of his Indisposition Is this like the Carriage of Servants to a Master On the other hand the House of Commons without whom there can be no Parliament held tho summoned by the King may withdraw and having made a Secession expostulate with the King concerning Male-administration as the same Book has it But which is the greatest thing of all amongst the Laws of King Edward commonly called the Confessor there is one very excellent relating to the Kingly Office which Office if the King do not discharge as he ought Then says the Law He shall not retain so much as the Name of a King And lest these words should not be sufficiently understood the Example of Chilperic King of France is subjoyn'd whom the People for that Cause deposed And that by this Law a wicked King is liable to Punishment that Sword of King Edward called Curtana denotes to us which the Earl of Chester used to carry in the Solemn Procession at a Coronation A token says Mathew Paris that he has Authority by Law to punish the King if he will not do his Duty and the Sword is hardly ever made use of but in Capital Punishments This same Law together with other Laws of that good King Edward did William the Conqueror ratifie in the Fourth Year of his Reign and in a very full Council held at Verulam confirm'd it with a
most solemn Oath And by so doing he not only extinguish'd his Right of Conquest if he ever had any over us but subjected himself to be judged according to the Tenor of this very Law And his Son Henry swore to the observance of King Edward's Laws and of this amongst the rest and upon these only terms it was that he was chosen King whilst his Elder Brother Robert was alive The same Oath was taken by all succeeding Kings before they were Crowned Hence our Ancient and Famous Lawyer Bracton in his first Book Chap. 8. There is no King in the case says he where Will rules 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Law does not take place And in his Third Book Chap. 9. A King is a King so long as he Rules well he becomes a Tyrant when he oppresses the People committed to his Charge And in the same Chapter The King ought to use the Power of Law and Right as God's Minister and Vice-gerent the Power of wrong is the Devils and not Gods when the King turns aside to do Injustice he is the Minister of the Devil The very same words almost another Ancient Lawyer has who was the Author of the Book called Fleta both of them remembred that truly Royal Law of King Edward that Fundamental Maxim in our Law which I have formerly mentioned by which nothing is to be accounted a Law that is contrary to the Laws of God or of Reason no more than a Tyrant can be said to be a King or a Minister of the Devil a Minister of God Since therefore the Law is chiefly right Reason if we are bound to obey a King and a Minister of God by the very same Reason and the very same Law we ought to resist a Tyrant and a Minister of the Devil And because Controversies arise oftner about Names than Things the same Authors tell us that a King of England tho he have not lost the Name of a King yet is as liable to be judged and ought so to be as any of the Common People Bracton Book 1. Chap. 8. Fleta Book 1. Chap. 17. No Man ought to be greater than the King in the Administration of Justice but he himself ought to be as little as the least in receiving Justice si peccat if he offend Others read it si petat Since our Kings therefore are liable to be judged whether by the Name of Tyrants or of Kings it must not be difficult to assign their Legal Judges Nor will it be amiss to consult the same Authors upon that point Bracton Book 1. Chap. 16. Fleta Book 1. Chap. 17. The King has his Superiors in the Government The Law by which he is made King and his Court to wit the Earls and the Barons Comites Earls are as much as to say Companions and he that has a Companion has a Master and therefore if the King will be without a Bridle that is not govern by Law they ought to bridle him That the Commons are comprehended in the word Barons has been shown already nay and in the Books of our Ancient Laws they are frequently said to have been called Peers of Parliament and especially in the Modus tenendi c. There shall be chosen says that Book out of all the Peers of the Realm Five and twenty Persons of whom five shall be Knight five Citizens and five Burgâ—ssâ—s and two Knights of a County have a greater Vote in granting and rejecting than the greatest Earl in England And it is but reasonable they should for they Vote for a whole County c. the Earls for themselves only And who can but perceive that those Patent Earls whom you call Earls made by Writ since we have now none that hold their Earldoms by Tenure are very unfit Persons to try the King who conferr'd their Honours upon them Since therefore by our Law as appears by that old Book call'd The Mirror the King has his Peers who in Parliament have Cognizance of wrongs done by the King to any of his People and since it is notoriously known that the meanest Man in the Kingdom may even in inferior Courts have the benefit of the Law against the King himself in Case of any Injury or Wrong sustained how much more Consonant to Justice how much more necessary is it that in case the King oppress all his People there should be such as have Authority not only to restrain him and keep him within Bounds but to Judge and Punish him For that Government must needs be very ill and most ridiculously constituted in which remedy is provided in case of little Injuries done by the Prince to private Persons and no Remedy no Redress for greater no care taken for the safety of the whole no Provision made to the contrary but that the King may without any Law ruin all his Subjects when at the same time he cannot by Law so much as hurt any one of them And since I have shown that it is neither good manners nor expedient that the Lords should be the Kings Judges it follows that the Power of Judicature in that case does wholly and by very good Right belong to the Commons who are both Peers of the Realm and Barons and have the Power and Authority of all the People committed to them For since as we find it expresly in our written Law which I have already cited the Commons together with the King make a good Parliament without either Lords or Bishops because before either Lords or Bishops had a being Kings held Parliaments with their Commons only by the very same reason the Commons apart must have the Sovereign Power without the King and a Power of Judging the King himself because before there ever was a King they in the Name of the whole Body of the Nation held Councils and Parliaments had the Power of Judicature made Laws and made the Kings themselves not to Lord it over the People but to Administer their publick Affairs Whom if the King instead of so doing shall endeavour to injure and oppress our Law pronounces him from time forward not so much as to retain the Name of a King to be no such thing as a King and if he be no King what need we trouble our selves to find out Peers for him For being then by all good Men adjudged to be a Tyrant there are none but who are Peers good enough for him and proper enough to pronounce Sentence of Death upon him judicially These things being so I think I have sufficiently proved what I undertook by many Authorities and written Laws to wit that since the Commons have Authority by very good Right to try the King and since they have actually tried him and put him to Death for the mischief he had done both in Church and State and without all hope of amendment they have done nothing therein but what was just and regular for the Interest of the State in discharging of their Trust becoming their Dignity and according to the Laws of
Will both of Senate and People gets as great a number as he can either of Enemies or profligate Subjects to side with him against the Senate and the People The Parliament therefore allowed the King as they did whatever he had besides the setting up of a Standard not to wage War against his own people but to defend them against such as the Parliament should declare Enemies to the State If he acted otherwise himself was to be accounted an Enemy since according to the very Law of St. Edward or according to a more sacred Law than that the Law of Nature it self he lost the name of a King and was no longer such Whence Cicero in his Philip. He forfeits his Command in the Army and Interest in the Government that employs them against the State Neither could the King compel those that held of him by Knight-Service to serve him in any other War than such as was made by consent of Parliament which is evident by many Statutes So for Customs and other Subsidies for the maintenance of the Navy the King could not exact them without an Act of Parliament as was resolved about twelve years ago by the ablest of our Lawyers when the King's Authority was at the height And long before them Fortescue an Eminent Lawyer and Chancellor to King Henry the 6th The King of England says he can neither alter the Laws nor exact Subsidies without the people's consent nor can any Testimonies be brought from Antiquity to prove the Kingdom of England to have been merely Regal The King says Bracton has a Jurisdiction over all his Subjects that is in his Courts of Justice where Justice is administred in the King's name indeed but according to our own Laws All are subject to the King that is every particular man is and so Bracton explains himself in the places that I have cited What follows is but turning the same stone over and over again at which sport I believe you are able to tire Sisiphus himself and is sufficiently answered by what has been said already For the rest if our Parliaments have sometimes complimented good Kings with submissive expressions tho neither favouring of Flattery nor Slavery those are not to be accounted due to Tyrants nor ought to prejudice the peoples Right good manners and civility do not infringe Liberty Whereas you cite out of Sir Edw. Coke and others That the Kingdom of England is an Absolute Kingdom that is said with respect to any Foreign Prince or the Emperor because as Cambden says It is not under the Patronage of the Emperor but both of them affirm that the Government of England resides not in the King alone but in a Body Politick Whence Fortescue in his Book de laud. leg Angl. cap. 9. The King of England says he governs his people not by a merely Regal but a Political power for the English are govern'd by Laws of their own making Foreign Authors were not ignorant of this Hence Philip de Comines a Grave Author in the Fifth Book of his Commentaries Of all the Kingdoms of the earth says he that I have any knowledge of there is none in my opinion where the Government is more moderate where the King has less power of hurting his people than in England Finally 'T is ridiculous say you for them to affirm that Kingdoms were ancienter than Kings which is as much as if they should say that there was Light before the Sun was created But with your good leave Sir we do not say that Kingdoms but that the people were before Kings In the mean time who can be more ridiculous than you who deny there was Light before the Sun had a being You pretend to a curiosity in other mens matters and have forgot the very first things that were taught you You wonder how they that have seen the King upon his Throne at a Session of Parliament sub aureo serico Coelo under a golden and silken Heaven under a Canopy of State should so much as make a question whether the Majesty resided in him or in the Parliament They are certainly hard of belief whom so lucid an Argument coming down from Heaven cannot convince Which Golden Heaven you like a Stoick have so devoutly and seriously gaz'd upon that you seem to have forgot what kind of Heaven Moses and Aristotle describe to us for you deny that there was any Light in Moses his Heaven before the Sun and in Aristotle's you make three temperate Zones How many Zones you observed in that Golden and Silken Heaven of the King 's I know not but I know you got one Zone a Purse well tempered with a Hundred Golden Stars by your Astronomy CHAP. X. SInce this whole Controversie whether concerning the Right of Kings in general or that of the King of England in particular is rendred difficult and intricate rather by the obstinacy of parties than by the nature of the thing it self I hope they that prefer Truth before the Interest of a Faction will be satisfied with what I have alledged out of the Law of God the Law of Nations and the Municipal Laws of my own Countrey That a King of England may be brought to Tryal and put to Death As for those whose minds are either blinded with Superstition or so dazeled with the Splendor and Grandure of a Court that Magnanimity and true Liberty do not appear so glorious to them as they are in themselves it will be in vain to contend with them either by Reason and Arguments or Examples But you Salmasius seem very absurd as in every other part of your Book so particularly in this who tho you â—ail perpetually at the Independents and revile them with all the terms of Reproach imaginable yet assert to the highest degree that can be the Independâ—ncy of the King whom you defend and will not allow him to owe his Soveraignty to the people but to his Descent And whereas in the beginning of your Book you complain'd that he was put to plead for his Life here yâ—u complain That he perish'd without being heard to spâ—… for himself But if you have a mind to look into the History of his Trial which is very faithfully publish'd in French it may be you 'l be of another opinion Whereas he had liberty given him for some day together to say what he could for himself he made use of it not to clear himself of the Crimes 〈◊〉 to his Charge but to disprove the Authority oâ— his Judges and the Judicature that he was called before And whenever a Criminal is either mute or says nothing to the purpose there is no Injustice in condemning him without hearing him if his Crimes are notorious and publickly known If you say that Charles dyed as he lived I agree with you If you say that he died piously holily and at ease you may remember that his Grandmother Mary Queen of Scots and infamous Woman dyed on a Scaffold with as much outward appearance of
and teach such a Doctor as you That the word Tyrant for all your concern is barely to have some understanding of words may be applied to one who is neither a Traytor nor a Murtherer But the Laws of England do not make it Treason in the King to stir up Sedition against himself or the people Nor do they say That the Parliament can be guilty of Treason by deposing a bad King nor that any Parliament ever was so tho they have often done it but our Laws plainly and clearly declare that a King may violate diminish nay and wholly lose his Royalty For that expression in the Law of St. Edward of losing the name of a King signifies neither more nor less than being deprived of the Kingly Office and Dignity which befel Chilperic King of France whose example for illustration-sake is taken notice of in the Law it self There is not a Lawyer amongst us that can deny but that the highest Treason may be committed against the Kingdom as well as against the King I appeal to Glanvile himself whom you cite If any man attempt to put the King to death or raise Sedition in the Realm it is High Treason So that attempt of some Papists to blow up the Parliament-House and the Lords and Commons there with Gunpowder was by King James himself and both Houses of Parliament declared to be High Treason not against the King only but against the Parliament and the whole Kingdom 'T would be to no purpose to quote more of our Statutes to prove so clear a Truth which yet I could easily do For the thing it self is ridiculous and absurd to imagine That High Treason may be committed against the King and not against the people for whose good nay and by whose leave as I may say the King is what he is So that you babble over so many Statutes of ours to no purpose you toil and wallow in our Ancient law-Law-Books to no purpose for the Laws themselves stand or fall by Authority of Parliament who always had power to confirm or repeal them and the Parliament is the sole Judge of what is Rebellion what High Treason Iaesa Majestas and what not Majesty never was vested to that degree in the Person of the King as not to be more conspicuous and more August in Parliament as I have often shown But who can endure to hear such a senseless Fellow such a French Mountebank as you declare what our Laws are And you English Fugitives so many Bishops Doctors Lawyers who pretend that all Learning and Ingenuous Literature is fled out of England with your selves was there not one of you that could defend the King's Cause and your own and that in good Latin too to be submitted to the judgment of other Nations but that this brain-sick beggarly Frenchman must be hired to undertake the Defence of a poor indigent King surrounded with so many Infant-Priests and Doctors This very thing I assure you will be a great imputation to you amongst Foreigners and you will be thought deservedly to have lost that Cause that you were so far from being able to defend by Force of Arms as that you cannot so much as write in behalf of it But now I come to you again good-man goose-cap who scribble so finely if at least you are come to your self again for I find you here towards the latter end of your Book in a deep sleep and dreaming of some voluntary Death or other that 's nothing to the purpose Then you deny that 't is possible for a King in his right wits to embroil his people in Seditions to betray his own Forces to be slaughtered by Enemies and raise Factions against himself All which things having been done by many Kings and particularly by Charles the late King of England you will no longer doubt I hope especially being addicted to Stoicism but that all Tyrants as well as profligate Villains are downright mad Hear what Horace says Whoever through a senseless Stupidity or any other cause whatsoever hath his Understanding so blinded as not to discern truth the Stoicks account of him as of a mad-man And such are whole Nations such are Kings and Princes such are all Man kind except those very few that are Wise So that if you would clear King Charles from the Imputation of acting like a Mad-man you must first vindicate his integrity and show that he never acted like an ill man But a King you say cannot commit Treason against his own Subjects and Vassals In the first place since we are as free as any People under Heaven we will not be impos'd upon by any Barbarous Custom of any other Nation whatsoever In the second place Suppose we had been the King's Vassals that Relation would not have obliged us to endure a Tyrant to Reign and Lord it over us All Subjection to Magistrates as our own Laws declare is circumscribed and confined within the bounds of Honesty and the Publick Good Read Leg. Hen. 1. Cap. 55. The Obligation betwixt a Lord and his Tenants is mutual and remains so long as the Lord protects his Tenant this all our Lawyers tells us but if the Lord be too severe and cruel to his Tenant and do him some heinous Injury The whole Relation betwixt them and whatever Obligation the Tenant is under by having done Homage to his Lord is utterly dissolv'd and extinguish'd These are the very words of Bracton and Fleta So that in some Case the Law it self warrants even a Slave or a Vassal to oppose his Lord and allows the Slave to kill him if he vanquish him in Battle If a City or a whole Nation may not lawfully take the Course with a Tyrant the Condition of Freemen will be worse than that of Slaves Then you go about to excuse King Charles's shedding of Innocent Blood partly by Murders committed by other Kings and partly by some Instances of Men put to Death by them lawfully For the matter of the Irish Massacre you refer the Reader to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and I refer you to Eiconoclastes The Town of Rochel being taken and the Towns-men betray'd assistance shown but not afforded them you will not have laid at Charlos's door nor have I any thing to say whether he was faulty in that business or not he did mischief enough at home we need not enquire into what Misdemeanors he was guilty of abroad But you in the mean time would make all the Protestant Churches that have at any time defended themselves by force of Arms against Princes who were profess'd Enemies of their Religion to have been guilty of Rebellion Let them consider how much it concerns them for the maintaining their Ecclesiastical Discipline and asserting their own Integrity not to pass by so great an Indignity offered them by a Person bred up by and amongst themselves That which troubles us most is that the English likewise were betray'd in that Expedition He who had design'd long ago to convert
the Government of England into a Tyranny thought he could not bring it to pass till the Flower and Strength of the Military Power of the Nation were cut off Another of his Crimes was the causing some words to be struck out of the usual Coronation-oath before he himself would take it Unworthy and abominable Action The Act was wicked in it self what shall be said of him that undertakes to justifie it For by the Eternal God what greater breach of Faith and Violation of all Laws can possibly be imagin'd What ought to been more sacred to him next to the Holy Sacraments themselves than that Oath Which of the two do you think the more flagitious Person him that offends against the Law or him that endeavours to make the Law equally guilty with himself Or rather him who subverts the Law it self that he may not seem to offend against it For thus that King violated that Oath which he ought most religiously to have sworn to but that he might not seem openly and publickly to violate it he craftily adulterated and corrupted it and least he himself should be accounted perjur'd he turn'd the very Oath into a Perjury What other could be expected then that his Reign would be full of Injustice Craft and Misfortune who began it with so detestable an Injury to his People And who durst pervert and adulterate that Law which he thought the only Obstacle that stood in his way and hindred him from perverting all the rest of the Laws But that Oath thus you justify him lays no other Obligation upon Kings then the Laws themselves do and Kings pretend that they will be bound and limited by Laws tho indeed they are altogether from under the Power of Laws Is it not prodigious that a Man should dare to express himself so sacrilegiously and so senselesly as to assert that am Oath sacredly sworn upon the Holy Evangelists mary be dispensed with and set aside as a little insignifi cant thing without any Cause whatsoever Charles himself refutes you you Prodigy of Impiety Who thinking that Oath no light matter chose rather by a Subterfuge to avoid the force of it or by a Fallacy to elude it than openly to violate it and would rather falsifie and corrupt the Oath then manifestly forswear himself after he had taken it But The King indeed swears to his People as the People do to him but the People swear Fidelity to the King not the King to them Pretty Invention Does not he that promises and binds himself by an Oath to do any thing to or for another oblige his Fidelity to them that require the Oath of him Of a truth every King swâ—ears Fidelity and Service and Obedience to the People with respect to the performance of whatever he promiseth upon Oath to do Then you run back to William the Conqueror who was forced more than once to swear to perform not what he himself would bâ—…t what the People and the great Men of the Realm requir'd of him If many Kings are Crown'd without the usual Solemnity and Reign without taking any Oath the same thing may be said of the People a great many of whom never took the Oath of Allegiance If the King by not taking an Oath be at Liberty the People are so too And that part of the People that has sworn swore not to the King only but to the Realm and the Laws by which the King came to his Crown and no otherwise to the King than whâ—…st he should act according to those Laws that the Common People that is the House of Commons should chuse quas Vulgus elegerit For it were folly to alter the Phrase of our Law and turn it into more genuine Latin This Clause Quas Vulgus elegerit Which the Commons shall abuse Charles before he was Crown'd procured to be razed out But say you without the King's assent the People can chuse no Laws and for this you cite two Statutes viz. Anno 37 H. 6. Cap. 15. and 13 Edw. 4. Cap. 8. but those two Statutes are so far from appearing in our statute-Statute-books that in the years you mention neither of those Kings enacted any Laws at all Go now and complain That those Fugitives who pretended to furnish you with matter out of our Statutes imposed upon you in it and let other People in the mean time stand astonish'd at your Impudence and Vanity who are not asham'd to pretend to be throughly vers'd in such Books as it is so evident you have never look'd into nor so much as seen And that Clause in the Coronation-Oath which such a brazen-fac'd Brawler as you call fictitious The King's Friends you say your self acknowledge that it may possibly be extant in some Ancient Copies but that it grew into disuse because it had no convenient signification But for that very reason did our Ancestors insert it in the Oath that the Oath might have such a signification as would not be for a Tyrant's conveniency If it had really grown into disuse which yet is most false there was the greater need of reviving it but even that would have been to no purpose according to your Doctrine For that Custom of taking an Oath as Kings now-adays generally use it is no more you say then a bare Ceremony And yet the King when the Bishops were to be put down pretended that he could not do it by reason of that Oath And consequently that reverend and sacred Oath as it serves for the Kings turn or not must be solemn and binding or an empty Ceremony Which I earnestly entreat my Country-men to take notice of and to consider what manner of a King they are like to have if he ever 〈◊〉 back For it would never have entred into the thoughts of this Rascally-foreign Grammarian to write a Discourse of the Rights of the Crown of England unless both Charles Stuart now in Banishment and tainted with his Fathers Principles and those Prosâ—igate Tutors that he has along with him had induâ—uiously to suggested him what they would have writ They dictated to him That the whole Parliament were liable to be proceded against as Traitors because they declar'd without the Kings Assent all them to be Traitors who had taken up Arms against the Parliament of England and that the Parliaments were but the King's Vassals That the Oath which our Kings take at their Coronations is but a Ceremony And why not that a Vassal too So that no reverence of Laws no sacredness of an Oath will be sufficient to protect your Lives and Fortunes either from the Exorbitance of a furious or the Revenge of an exasperated Prince who has been so instructed from his Cradle as to think Laws Religion nay and Oaths themselves ought to be subject to his Will and Pleasure How much better is it and more becoming your selves if you desire Riches Liberty Peace and Empire to obtain them assuredly by your own Virtue Industry Prudence and Valour than to long after
at all Now you say That you will discourse by and by of the difference betwixt some Kings and others in point of Powâ—r some having had more some less You say You will prove that Kings cannot be judged nor câ—ndemn'd by their own Subjects by a most solid Argument but you do it by a very silly one and 't is this You say There was no other difference than that betwixt the Judges and the Kings of the Jews and yet the reason why the Jews required to have Kings over them was because they were weary of their Judges and hated their Government Do you think that because they might Judge and Condemn their Judges if they misbehaved themselves in the Government they therefore hated and were weary of them and would be under Kings whom they should have no Power to restrain and keep within Bounds tho they should break through all Laws Who but you ever argued so childishly So that they desired a King for some other reason than that they might have a Master over them whose Power should be superior to that of the Law which reason what it was it is not to our present purpose to make a Conjecture Whatever it was both God and his Prophets tells us it was no piece of prudence in the People to desire a King And now you fall foul upon your Rabbins and are very angry with them for saying That a King might be judged and condemned to undergo Stripes out of whose Writings you said before you had proved that the Kings of the Jews could not be judged Wherein you confess that you told a lye when you said you had proved any such thing out of their Writings Nay you come at last to forget the Subject you were upon of writing in the King's Defence and raise little impertinent Controversies about Solomon's Stales and how may Stalls he had for his Horses Then of a Jocky you become a Ballad-singer again or rather as I said before a raving distracted Cuckoo You complain That in these latter Ages Discipline has been more remiss and the Rule less observed and kept up to to wit because one Tyrant is not permitted without a â—heck from the Law to let loose the Roms of all Discipline and corrupt all Mens manners This Doctrine you say the Brownists introduced amongst those of the â—eform'd Religion so that Luther Calvin Zumâ—lius Bucer and all the most Celebrated Orthodox Divines are Brownists in your Opinion The English have the less reason to take your Reproaches ill because they hear you belching out the same Slanders against the most eminent Doctors of the Church and in effect against the whole Reformed Church it self CHAP. VI. AFter having discours'd upon the Law of God and of Nature and handled both so untowardly that you have got nothing by the bargain but a deserved reproach of Ignorance and Knavery I cannot apprehend what you can have farther to alledg in defence of your Royal Cause but meer trifles I for my part hope I have given satisfaction already to all good and learned men and shall have done this Noble cause Right should I break off here yet lest I should seem to any to decline your variety of arguing and ingenuity rather than your immoderate impertinence and tittle-tattle I 'le follow you where ever you have a mind to go but with such brevity as shall make it appear that after having perform'd whatever the necessary defence of the Cause required if not what the dignity of it merited I now do but comply with some mens expectation if not their curiosity Now say you I shall alledg other and greater arguments What greater arguments than what the Law of God and Nature afforded Help Lucina The mountain Salmasius is in labour It is not for nothing that he has got a she-husband Mortals expect some extraordinary birth If he that is and is called a King might be accused before any other power that power must of necessity be greater than that of the King and if so then must that power be indeed the Kingly power and ought to have the name of it For a Kingly power is thus defined to wit the Supreme power in the State residing in a single person and which has no superior O ridiculous birth a Mouse crept out of the Mountain Help Grammarians one of your number is in danger of perishing The Law of God and of Nature are safe but Salmasius his Dictionary is undone What if I should answer you thus That words ought to give place to things that we having taken away Kingly Government it self do not think our selves concerned about its name and definition let others look to that who are in love with Kings We are contented with the enjoyment of our Liberty such an answer would be good enough for you But to let you see that I deal fairly with you throughout I will answer you not only from my own but from the opinion of very wise and good men who have thought that the name and power of a King are very consistent with a power in the people and the Law superior to that of the King himself In the first place Lycurgus a man very eminent for his wisdom designing as Plato says to secure a Kingly Government as well as it was possible could find no better expedient to preserve it than by making the power of the Senate and of the Ephori that is the power of the people superior to it Theseus in Euripedes King of Athens was of the same opinion for he to his great honour restored the people to their liberty and advanced the power of the people above that of the King and yet left the Regal Power in that City to his Posterity Whence Euripedes in his Play called the Suppliants introduceh him speaking on this manner I have advanced the people themselves into the Throne having freed the City from Slavery and admitted the people to a share in the Government by giving them an equal right of Suffrage And in another place to the Herald of Thebes In the first place says he you begin your Speech Friend with a thing that is not true in stiling me a Monarch for this City is not governed by a single person but is a free State the people reigns here These were his words when at the same time he was both called and really was King there The Divine Plato likewise in his Eight Epistle Lycurgus says he introduced the power of the Senate and of the Ephori a thing very preservative of Kingly Government which by this means hath honourably flourished for so many ages because the Law in effect was made King Now the Law cannot be King unless there be some who if there should be occasion may put the Law in execution against the King A Kingly Government so bounded and limited he himself commends to the Sicilians Let the people enjoy their Liberty under a Kingly Government let the King himself be accountable let the Law take place