the Lawyers call it by the name of Domus Communium the House of Commons I am sure Livy who knew how to call things in Latin by their proper names as well as any man does now tells us that in a contest betwixt a Consul and a Tribune the Tribune bearing himself high upon the account of his Office the Consul said Scias te non Populi sed Plebis Romanae Magistratum esse You must know Sir that you are an Officer not of the People but of the Commonalty of Rome And yet this may be said in excuse of Mr. Baxter's mistake when he calls them the Representatives of the People that he saith no more of them than the House of Commons which he means said of it self for to the four first that Preached before them of whom I my self was one they gave each of them a piece of Plate with this Inscription Donum Populi Anglicani the Gift of the People of England by order of the House no doubt ingraven on it which perhaps they meant not to be Grammatically but Prophetically understood that is to be understood of them not as they were then but what they meant to be before they left sitting and as we saw they were after they had put down the Lords as well as the King and made themselves the High and Mighty States of England and Ireland and instead of Representatives and Trustees made themselves Lords and Masters of those that trusted them until He whom they had trusted with their Forces made himself Lord and Master of them also the People in the mean time the Free-born People of England having been made or rather having made themselves as arrant Slaves and Vassals as ever any People were unto them both But to return to what I was speaking of I do not find I say that any Parliament properly so called that is the King Lords and Commons or that both or either of the two Houses joyntly or severally did ever declare or vote the Kingdom of England to be no Monarchy or that the King of England was not the Sovereign and sole Sovereign of and in this and all other his Kingdoms and Dominions On the contrary I find that in all the Addresses made to the King as well by both Houses jointly as by either of them severally from the beginning of the War to the end of it they always acknowledged the King to be their Sovereign and themselves even in their publick and Parliamentary capacity to be his Subjects And if in their Parliamentary notion and capacity they were his Subjects I wonder in what notion or capacity they can be said to be Partners or partakers with him in the Sovereignty Besides he that will have either or both of the Houses to have a part of the Sovereignty must allow them a Title to Majesty also For Majesty and Sovereignty are Termini Convertibiles convertible terms as the Houses themselves confess when they treat the King sometimes with the title of Sovereign and sometimes with the title of Majesty as signifying by both these Words but one and the same thing namely the Supremacy of Power in the King Now I would fain know of Mr. Baxter whether if he were to Petition the House of Lords or the House of Commons or both of them he would address it to their Majesty the House of Lords or to their Majesty the House of Commons or to their Majesty the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament if he did I believe he would be laught at for his folly by them and perhaps punisht for his presumption by the King And yet if the Sovereignty be divided betwixt Them and the King as he saith it is I see no reason why the title of Majesty may not be given to Them as well as to the King or at least partly to them and partly to him though but proportionably to the division of the Sovereignty betwixt them of which if the Kings part be greater than that of the House of Lords and that of the House of Lords be greater than that of the House of Commons which I am afraid Mr. Baxter will hardly allow then if Majesty be the proper attribute of Sovereignty and Excellent a proper Epithet to Majesty then according to Mr. Baxter's distinctness of notion and expression the style of the House of Commons should be Their Excellent Majesty and the style of the House of Lords Their More Excellent Majesty as well as the Kings style is His Most Excellent Majesty and then there may be Treason against the House of Lords or against the House of Commons as well as against the King if laesa Majestas the offending or injuring of Majesty be Treason nay then we have three Sovereigns and not one only for whosoever hath any share in the Sovereignty is a Sovereign and then I wonder why we do not take an Oath of Allegiance to the two Houses as well as to the King nay I wonder much more why they of both Houses do all of them take an Oath of Allegiance to the King and cannot sit in either House till they do so Surely one Sovereign doth not owe Allegiance to another no not the least of Sovereigns to the greatest for as all Sovereigns the greatest as well as the least are equally under God so the least as well as the greatest are equally under none but God at least quatenùs so far forth as they are Sovereigns or in those things and places where and when they have a right to Sovereignty or to any part thereof CHAP. X. The King declared by an Act of Parliament injoyning the Oath of Supremacy to be the only Supreme Governour Mr. B 's sorry evasion of this Oath and Queen Elizabeths Declaration concerning it BUT what need is there of making such Collections or Inferences from the Addresses made to the King from either or both Houses of Parliament with their full subscriptions thereunto to prove that they acknowledg the King to be their Sovereign their fole Sovereign and themselves to be his Subjects his humble and loyal Subjects even in their Parliamentary capacity for in that capacity it was that they addressed themselves to him What need is there I say of insisting upon such more remote though very pregnant and concluding proofs when several Parliaments properly so called that is Parliaments consisting of the head the King and all the integral members that is of the Lords Spiritual as well as Temporal together with the House of Commons have in positive and express words and that not by a Vote Order or Ordinance but by an Act declared the King not only to be the Supreme but the only Supreme Governour of this Realm and of all other his Highnesses Dominions and Countries and that as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical things and causes as temporal These I say are the very words of an Act of Parliament properly so called that is of a full and free of a compleat and
them Laws by giving them an obliging power The King alone our Lawmaker Dr. Sandersons judgment in the case His Commendation for an excellent Casuist 1 Ep. Tim. Cap. 4. v. 3. The design of Mr. B. 's Holy Common-wealth He intitles the Vsurpers to the whole Soveraignty By the King 's having lost his part Vid. H. C. Thes. 145. 363. Thes. 368. And this too against a Thesis of his own Thes. 374. Mr. B. 's Thesis further examined Who in Mr. B. 's account the best Governours in all the World See the Preface to the Holy Common-wealth Whom yet he owns to be Intruders and Vsurpers II. C. p. 86. Thesis 375. His strange shuffling and self-contradiction A short account of those Vsurpers Mr. B. 's flattery to Oliver His compliance with Richard Three Remarks upon it His Eulogy of the Vsurpers * Pref. to Holy Com. W. Mr. B. rebuked for his Extravagance and his best Governors challeng'd All that slaid and sate in Parliament not censured The Recapitulation of the Legislative power being only in the King An Objection Mr. B. 's opinion that a Soveraign though limited by compact may act for the Peoples safety against their consent And why not make Laws then for that end without their consent His reason for that opinion v. p. 119. Thes. 120. The Answer according to that Opinion Ship-Money justified upon Mr. B. 's grounds The Bishop's own answer Though Laws are not made without the Peoples consent in Parliament yet that consent doth not make them Laws Ordinances of themselves not Laws The King's Assent gives being to the Laws How the two Houses concur to the making of Laws The matter of the Laws from the Parliament the Form from the King Why the Laws said to be enacted by King Lords Commons The Modern stile of enacting Laws H. C. p. 46â— The Antient stile or form When the change began The Old stile resumed afterward Mr. B. 's Argument for the Legislative power in the Parliament from the Preface of our Laws unconclusive Holy Com. p. 462. All the Ancient and several Modern Instances against him Why Henry the VIII changed the Old stile His meaning in it could not be to part with any of his Soveraignty Nor was it so understood by either King or Parliament Most likely it was to please the People Why the Old stile resumed since An Objection Those words And by the Authority of the same when added and why The Answer By Parliament here meant not Lords Commons only without the King What meant by the Authority of the same The Parliament the King 's great Council and High Court. Their Authority from the King They act in that respect as other Courts do Why our Laws called the King's Laws Why called Acts of Parliament Advice or consent sometimes intitles to the Act. 1 Cor. 6. 2. Matth. 19. 28. Joh. 5. 22. The Saints judging the World applied to this case The difference in the Case The four Causes of our Laws viz. Efficient Matter Form and End of them explain'd What kind of Cause the Consent of the two Houses is The Legislative power and the Soveraignty in the King only Two Conclusions of Mr. B. 's upon his supposition of the Soveraignty divided The Eastern Monarchs not altogether Arbitrary What it is denominates a Monarchy No Judicatory above the King The Parliament no such Judicatory The King can do no wrong how meant Another Maxime to that purpose King David accountable to God alone and punished by him David 's Monition to Kings The Peoples priviledge of consenting to their Laws a favour at first of the Kings William the Conqueror made Laws without their consent Parliament first so called in Henry I. time An antecedent compact of the People with the King a political whimsie of Mr. B ' s. Mr. Hobbs and Mr. Baxter agree The extreme unlikelihood of the supposition Our Government at first arbitrary T is likely the Custom of not making Laws without the Peoples consent began under Henry I. with that other of not raising Mony without their consent However it was it was not by Compact but by Grant Mr. B. 's vain and false distinction of two capacities in the People as Free and as Subjects H. C. p. 459. H. C. p. 458. Some Rights he saith reserved by the People in their Contract and the Parliament their Trustees Government not alway founded upon Contract as Mr. B. saith it is A free People as well as a free Man may give up themselves to be govern'd without any reservation of Rights Several free People have done so Grotius de jure Belli ac pacis Particularly in our Government no such thing as Contract or Reservation off Rights The Peoples Rights not by bargain but by Grants of their Kings The People had no Representatives till Henry I. Vid. Daniel's Hist. Baker's Chron. Mr. B. 's supposition a meer fiction The Priviledges and Representatives the People now have are not by any antecedent Compact The Peoples being represented in a double capacity as Mr. B. fancies made an Argument by him to justifie the late Rebellion Holy Com. W. H. C. Thes. 361. The King's Coronation Oath doth not prove any such compact or Reserves c. as Mr. B. affirms This made out in three Considerations Mr. B. makes the King a King in name only He hath no authentick Record for such a Contract as he supposeth Holy Com. W. p. 377. H. C. p. 468. Nor for the Parliaments being the Peoples Trustees for their reserved Rights Were the Original constitution such as Mr. B. makes it the King would not be sole Soveraign nor Soveraign at all A brief account of the Government and its changes during the Vsurpation till the Kings Return A serious Expostulation with people for their uneasiness Numb c. 14. v. 4. No reason for it The pretended ground of it The ill effect of causless fears The Constitution of our Government The Subjects Rights and Priviledges Their representatives in Parliament The duty of those Representatives How to act as Trustees also An even Balance to be kept betwixt Prerogative and Priviledge The King compared to a Father and a Husband Two observations of Grotius De jure Belli Pacis cap. 3. p. 81. lb. p. 83. Applied to Mr. B's main principle How it came that Laws are not to be made without a Parliament When our Monarchy began to be Political Yet still a Monarchy A mistake in Polybius Grotius de jure Belli pacis lib. 1. cap. 3. Sect. 19. We are to judge of a Government not by the Managery but by the Soveraignty of it Ib. This Rule applied to the English Monarchy The happy condition of English Subjects An Account of a Sermon the Bishop preacht before the Long Parliament in commendation of the English constitution both in Church and State The reason why this Account given Church and State both subject to the Monarchy Popery and Presbytery both destructive to Monarchy Two Supremes in one Kingdom
all others besides themselves are to be excluded from Governing or chusing of Governours And amongst the ungodly that are to be thus excluded he reckons all those that will not hearken to their Pastours he means the Presbyterian Classis or that are despisers of the Lord's-Day that is all such as are not Sabbatarians or will not keep the Lord's day after the Jewish manner which they prescribe and which is condemned for Judaism by all even of the Presbyterian perswasion in the world but those of England and Scotland onely XV. If a People that by Oath and Duty are obliged to a Sovereign shall sinfully dispossess him and contrary to their Covenants chuse and Covenant with another they may be obliged by their latter Covenant notwithstanding their former and particular subjects that consented not in the breaking of their former Covenants may yet be obliged by occasion of their latter choice to the person whom they chuse Thes. 181. XVI If a Nation injuriously deprive themselves of a worthy Prince the hurt will be their own and they punish themselves but if it be necessarily to their welfare it is no injury to him But a King that by war will seek reparations from the body of the people doth put himself into an hostile State and tells them actually that he looks to his own good more than theirs and bids them take him for their Enemy and so defend themselves if they can Pag. 424. XVII Though a Nation wrong their King and so quoad Meritum causoe they are on the worser side yet may he not lawfully war against the publick good on that account nor any help him in such a war because propter fiuem he hath the worser cause Thes. 352. And yet as he tells us pag 476. we were to believe the Parliaments Declarations and professions which they made that the war which they raised was not against the King either in respect of his Authority or of his Person but onely against Delinquent Subjects and yet they actually fought against the King in person and we are to believe saith Mr. Baxter pag. 422. that men would kill them whom they fight against Mr. Baxter's Doctrine concerning the Government of England in particular HE denies the Government of England to be Monarchical in these words I. The real Sovereignty here amongst us was in King Lords and Commons Pag. 72. II. As to them that argue from the Oath of Supremacy and the title given the King I refer them saith Mr. Baxter to Mr. Lawson's answer to Hobbs's Politicks where he sheweth that the Title is often given to the single Person for the honour of the Commonwealth and his encouragement because he hath an eminent interest but will not prove the whole Sovereignty to be in him and the Oath excludeth all others from without not those whose interest is implied as conjunct with his The eminent dignity and interest of the King above others allowed the name of a Monarchy or Kingdom to the Commonwealth though indeed the Sovereignty was mixed in the hands of the Lords and Commons Pag. 88. III. He calls it a false supposition 1. That the Sovereign power was onely in the King and so that it was an absolute Monarchy 2 That the Parliament had but onely the proposing of Laws and that they were Enacted onely by the King's Authority upon their request 3. That the power of Arms and of War and Peace was in the King alone And therefore saith he those that argue from these false suppositions conclude that the Parliament being Subjects may not take up Arms without him and that it is Rebellion to resist him and most of this they gather from the Oath of Supremacy and from the Parliaments calling of themselves his Subjects but their grounds saith he are sandy and their superstructure false Pag. 459 460. And therefore Mr. Baxter tells us that though the Parliament are Subjects in one capacity yet have they their part in the Sovereignty also in their higher capacity Ibid. And upon this false and traitorous supposition he endeavours to justifie the late Rebellion and his own more than ordinary activeness in it For IV. Where the Sovereignty saith he is distributed into several hands as the King 's and Parliaments and the King invades the others part they may lawfully defend their own by war and the Subject lawfully assist them yea though the power of the Militia be expresly given to the King unless it be also exprest that it shall not be in the other Thes. 363. The conclusion saith he needs no proof because Sovereignty as such hath the power of Arms and of the Laws themselves The Law that saith the King shall have the Militia supposeth it to be against Enemies and not against the Commonwealth nor them that have part of the Sovereignty with him To resist him here is not to resist power but usurpation and private will in such a case the Parliament is no more to be resisted than he Ibid. V. If the King raise War against such a Parliament upon their Declaration of the dangers of the Common-wealth the people are to take it as raised against the Commonwealth Thes. 358. And in that case saith he the King may not onely be resisted but ceaseth to be a King and entreth into a state of War with the people Thes. 368. VI. Again if a Prince that hath not the whole Sovereignty be conquered by a Senate that hath the other part and that in a just defensive War that Senate cannot assume the whole Sovereignty but supposeth that government in specie to remain and therefore another King must be chosen if the former be incapable Thes. 374. as he tells us he is by ceasing to be King in the immediately precedent Thes. VII And yet in the Preface to this Book he tells us that the King withdrawing so he calls the murthering of one King and the casting off of another the Lords and Commons ruled alone was not this to change the species of the Government Which in the immediate words before he had affirmed to be in King Lords and Commons which constitution saith he we were sworn and sworn and sworn again to be faithfull to and to defend And yet speaking of that Parliament which contrary to their Oaths changed this Government by ruling alone and taking upon them the Supremacy he tells us that they were the best Governours in all the world and such as it is forbidden to Subjects to depose upon pain of damnation What then was he that deposed them one would think Mr. Baxter should have called him a Traitour but he calls him in the same Preface the Lord Protector adding That he did prudently piously faithfully and to his immortal honour exercise the Government which he left to his Son to whom as Mr. Baxter saith pag. 484. he is bound to submit as set over us by God and to obey for conscience sake and to behave himself as a Loyal Subject towards him
an intire Parliament I mean the Act of Vniformity wherein the Parliament doth not only declare its own sense and judgment concerning the Kings sole Supremacy but prescribes an Oath to be taken by all that are to be admitted to teach the People what they are to think of the King I mean all that are to be admitted into holy Orders whereby they are injoyned to testifie and declare in their Conscience that the King is the only Supreme Governour of this Realm and I hope Mr. Baxter hath more reverence for Parliaments than to say or think that the Parliament did injoyn men to swear that which they did not themselves believe to be true especially those of the House of Commons who I think do all of them take the Oath of Supremacy And yet this so clear so evident and so irrefragable a proof of the Parliaments acknowledgment of the Kings sole Supremacy Mr. Baxter is pleas'd to slight as if it signified nothing calling it a sandy foundation for though he be pinched to the quick with this Argument yet he makes as if he felt it not and perceiving there was no help for him in Logick or Metaphysicks he makes use of a figure in Rhetorick which is either not to take notice of what they cannot answer or if they cannot chuse but take notice of it to slight or scoff at it as if it were not worth the answering or taking notice of And yet that he may not seem absque omni ratione insanire to have no pretence or show of reason for his slighting or rejecting of it he tells us that this Oath was made in relation to Papists only and was injoyned to be taken for the discovery of those that were suspected to be so Surely if we look to the first enacting of that Oath and the primary or original cause of it it was not for the distinguishing of Papists from Protestants for they were Papists in Henry the VIII's time and as great Persecutors of the Protestants as any were in those times that compiled and consented to the enacting and enjoyning of that Oath but it was to distinguish Papists from Papists Papists that would from Papists that would not acknowledg the Kings Supremacy And for the same end and purpose the same Oath was renewed in Queen ELIZABETHS time in the beginning of her Reign for the distinguishing of loyal from disloyal Papists as appears by the reasons she gave why She did not impose that Oath upon any of the Barons or House of Lords though many of them were then Papists because she did not as she said make any doubt of their loyalty but she caused it to be administred to the Popish Prelates and other Ecclesiasticks who had almost all of them plerisque omnibus saith Cambden taken it in her Father's time but refusing it then were deprived of their spiritual promotions for so doing lest they might teach the People to do so also and perhaps do more than so that is from denying her Supremacy in Spirituals to proceed to the denying of it in Temporals also which we see they are now come to not by their Popish but Presbyterian Teachers For preventing whereof and for obviating the scandalous interpretations that were made of it as that thereby she the Queen arrogated a Power unto her self sacrâ in Ecclesiâ celebrandi of performing divine Offices in the Church Illa edito scripto saith Cambden she published a Declaration wherein she affirms se nihil aliud arrogare quà m quod ad coronam Angliae jam olim jure spectavit that she arrogated nothing to her self but what anciently belonged of right to the Crown of England Scilicet se sub Deo summam supremam gubernationem potestatem in omnes Regni Anglici Ordines sive illi sunt Ecclesiastici sive Laici habere quodque nulla extranea potestas ullam in eos jurisdictionem vel authoritatem habeat aut habere debeat Namely that she under God had the supreme Government and Power over all orders of men in England whether Ecclesiasticks or Laicks and withal that no foreign Power had or ought to have any Jurisdiction or Authority over any of them From which Declaration published by that pious and prudent Prince it is observable First That the aforesaid Oath of Supremacy was intended by Her as well for the asserting of her own Supremacy over all Orders of men in her own Kingdom in all their capacities as it was for the disclaiming and renouncing any foreign Jurisdiction that was or could be pretended or claimed over all or any of her Subjects in any capacity whatsoever Secondly From this Declaration of Hers it is farther to be observed that she will have her own Sovereignty and Supremacy in omnes Ordines Regni over all Orders and Estates of men here at home to be asserted and sworn to before they shall swear to disclaim and renounce all foreign Authority and Jurisdiction And with very good reason because it would have done her and will do her Successors very little or rather no good at all for their Subjects to renounce all Sovereignty from abroad as long as they are taught or suffered to be taught that there are any other Sovereign or any other invested with any part of the Sovereignty here at home but their Kings only Lastly From the aforesaid Declaration we may observe also that the Queen by the Injunction of the Oath of Supremacy professeth to claim nothing to be acknowledged or sworn to but what de jure and jam olim what anciently and of right did belong to the Crown of England and consequently that the Supremacy or Sovereignty over all Estates or Orders of men in England was from all Antiquity that is as I conceive from the beginning of Monarchy or ever since there were Kings in England and that not ex dono Populi by gift of the People or compact with the People but jure by right and by what Right not jure Electionis but Hereditatis not by right of Election but of Succession and jure Coronae by right of the Crown as being inseparably annexed to the Crown or rather inherent in the Crown there being none as I have already proved that can properly be called a King or Crowned Head whether by Succession or Election but he must be the supreme and sole Sovereign over all in his own Kingdom Which as to our Kings here in England as it was acknowledged by those Parliaments that enacted the Oath of Supremacy before the War so is it by the Act of Vniformity since the War or since the Kings return and consequently since the Crowns restauration to those Prerogatives that are of right belonging to it of which the Supremacy or Sovereignty over all in the Kingdom inclusively as well as in relation to all without the Kingdom exclusively is the chiefest For if there be any either within or without the Kingdom either superior over
relation to the Church and such are his Anti-monarchical Aphorisms in relation to the State which will be Thorns in the sides of both Church and State to trouble and molest them if they be not Engines to undermine or overthrow them as long as there be Baxterians in the World as there will be no doubt long after Mr. Baxter is dead and though he himself before he dies do truly and heartily as I do truly and heartily wish he may if he have not done it yet repent of having been the Author of some and Abetter of all of them As for his Anti-episcopal Aphorisms and all other his Heterodoxies relating to the established Government Discipline of the Church they have been so thoroughly canvassed and so thoroughly confuted by so many much more learned Pens than mine that as I have said already in my Preface so I say again I mean not to meddle with any of them But as for his Anti-monarchical Aphorisms because he saith I am a defier of Deity and Humanity for taking exceptions against them and for my justifying the rights of Kings against the grounds he lays for justifying the resisting of Kings by their Subjects and particularly of the late horrid Rebellion of the worst of Subjects against the best of Kings the most groundless in its causes and the most unchristian and the most inhumane in its effects that ever was in this or perhaps in any other Kingdom I thought my self concerned to enlarge my self in saying of what I have said to justifie my exceptions against those Aphorisms some of which I have before printed and now reprinted and could have printed many more and some of them as bad as the worst of those and as destructive of the established Government in all Bodies Politick especially to that of this in our Kingdom which is and hath been always taken for a Kingdom properly so called that is for a Monarchy or for such a State or Body Politick wherein the Soveraignty or Supremacy of power is in One only Mr. Baxter in order to justifying of the late Rebellion tells us it is no Monarchy because the Soveraignty is not in one only namely not in the King alone but divided betwixt the King and the two Houses of Parliament which he endeavours to prove First by the Testimony of both Parties principally concerned in it namely the Parliaments affirming and the King 's owning and acknowledging of it And 2dly by Reason or by Arguments drawn from the Constitution and Practice of the Government it self As to the King 's own Acknowledgment that there is such a division of the Soveraignty betwixt Him and the Lords and Commons I shall speak of it hereafter And as to the Parliaments affirming of it which he only saith they do and have done without naming any time when or what Parliaments they were that did so I have answered at large already and that not only negatively by denying that any Parliament properly so called that is consisting of King Lords and Commons did ever affirm or can in reason be supposed ever to have affirmed any such thing but positively also that all Parliaments even those that are improperly so called I mean the Body without the Head or as the two Houses only are called the Parliament even in this notion I say the Parliament hath always in all Addresses that have been made to the King by either of the Houses severally or by both Houses joyntly acknowledged the King to be their Soveraign and themselves to be his humble and loyal Subjects and that when they Address themselves to Him not as so many several single Persons or every one in his Personal capacity but as in their representative or Parliamentary capacity as they were one or both of the two Houses and how they be Soveraigns and Subjects or partly Soveraigns and partly Subjects in one and the same notion or under one and the same capacity is too subtil and airy a speculation for me to comprehend But that which I did then and do now principally insist upon for proof of the Parliaments acknowledgments of the King's Soveraignty or that the Soveraignty here in this Kingdom is in the King alone and not in the King Lords and Commons joyntly as Mr. Baxter would have it is the Oath of Supremacy whereby in as positive and as plain words as can be devised several Parliaments properly so called have declared and caused it to be sworn that the King is the only Supreme Governor of this Realm and of all other his Highnesses Dominions and Countries as well in all Spiritual and Ecclesiastical things and causes as Temporal Which I repeat again because which I did not observe before the Parliament by enjoyning Men to swear that the King is the only Supreme Governour in Spirituals as well as Temporals seems to suppose or to take it for granted that there were none that pretended to be the Kings Subjects but would willingly and readily acknowledg the King to be the only Supreme Governour in Temporals and consequently that there is no division of the Soveraignty betwixt the King and the Parliament or betwixt the King Lords and Commons For it is the Soveraignty in Temporals only that Mr. Baxter would have to be so divided for as to the Soveraignty in Ecclesiastical things or causes I believe if Mr. Baxter would tell us what lies at the bottom of his heart we should find that he thinks neither King nor Parliament have any thing to do with it and consequently that there can be no division of that betwixt them But of this we shall have occasion to speak more hereafter Now therefore having postponed the consideration of what Mr. Baxter infers for proof of his pretended Division of the Soveraignty betwixt the King and Parliament from the Kings own concessions I proceed to the examination of the Reasons he gives to prove this Kingdom to be no Monarchy or that the Soveraignty thereof is not in one only Which reasons of his are all of them reducible to this one of the Legislative power or the power of making and repealing Laws for the whole Nation which as he saith is not only a part but a principal part of the Soveraignty and therefore if this be not in the King alone but divided between the King and Parliament as Mr. Baxter saith it is the Soveraignty cannot be in the King alone but must be divided betwixt the King and Parliament CHAP. II. What is meant by the word Parliament The two Houses being called together and dismissed at the Kings pleasure are not co-ordinate or sharers with him in the Soveraignty NOW this being the summ and substance of all Mr. Baxter hath said to prove the War made by the Parliament against the King was a just War and no Rebellion and whereon he so confidently relies that he is ready he saith to offer his Head to Justice if it can be solidly confuted either as to
If therefore the Law hath its obliging power which is its form or that which makes it to be Law from the King and the King only the King and the King only must needs be the efficient and sole efficient cause of Law and consequently the whole Legislative power must needs be in him only unless Mr. Baxter can prove that the two Houses of Parliament can of themselves and by their own Authority only make their Bills to be Laws or at least that they joyn with the King in making them to be so For if it be the Kings own arbitrary consent only which makes that to be a Law which was no Law before he consented to it then must it needs be confessed that the King is the sole efficient of all Law and consequently the only Law-giver in his own Kingdom according to the determination of the very learned judicious and truly pious and conscientious Casuist Doctor Sanderson Bishop of Lincoln who in his Lecture de Legum humanarum causâ efficiente speaking of our King hath these very weighty and remarkable words Cùm illa sola censenda sit cujusque rei causa efficiens principalis sufficiens quae per se immediatè producit in materiam praeparatam introducit eam formam quae illi rei dat nomen esse etsi ad productionem istius effectûs alia etiam concurrere oporteat vel antecedere potiùs ad praevias dispositiones quò materia ad recipiendam formam ab agente intentam aptior reddatur omninò constat quotcunque demùm ea sint quae ad legem recte constituendam antecedenter requiruntur voluntatem tamen principis ex cujus unius arbitratu jussione omnes Legum Rogationes aut ratae habentur aut irritae esse solam adaequatam publicarum Legum efficientem causam Seeing saith he that is to be held the principal efficient and sufficient cause of every thing which of it self and immediately produceth and introduceth into the matter prepared for it that form which giveth name and being to that thing though for the producing of that effect other things also must concur or rather precede as previous dispositions to make the matter fitter to receive the form intended by the Agent to be introduced into it it is certain for all that how many soever the things are that are antecedently requisite for the constituting of the Law the Will of the Prince on whose alone arbitrary consent or dissent the ratifying or rejecting of such Laws as are tendred unto him doth depend is the sole and adequate efficient cause of all publick Laws This I say was the judgment of that very learned pious and very judicious Casuist Dr. Sanderson concerning the only proper adequate subject of the Legislative power here in England who was Professor of Casuistical Divinity in the University of Oxford as long as the Rebellious Parliament would suffer him to be so and who would in all probability if he might have been suffered to have continued some few years longer have left us a truer and more exact and compleat body of Casuistical Divinity than any the World hath been so happy as to see yet and in which the World hath more need to be truly and thoroughly instructed in order to peace here and happiness hereafter than in any other part either of Polemical or Dogmatical Divinity the Essentials of the Creed excepted only But that very reason it was for which the Vsurpers of the Regal power in those times would not suffer so vigorously an Opposer and so strongly and clearly a Convincer of that Trayterous and Tyrannical Vsurpation of theirs to be a publick Professor and Standard of that truth which they were concern'd the People should be kept ignorant of or made to believe the contrary as they were by such Preachers as they who could not endure sound Doctrine heaped up unto themselves after their own Lusts and by such Casuists and Writers of Political Aphorisms as Mr. Baxter was whose business it was to make the People believe the Vsurpation of an Arbitrary power and Tyranny to be an Holy Common-wealth for such was the Government here which Mr. Baxter in his Preface to that Book of his calls the best Government in all the World affirming those that were then the Governours namely the two Houses of Parliament without the King not only to have a part of the Supremacy or Soveraignty but to have all the Supremacy or whole Soveraignty and therefore such as whom to resist or depose is forbidden saith he to Subjects upon pain of damnation They are his own words in the before-cited place which one would think were hardly to be reconciled with what he affirms in the place we are now examining viz. That the Supremacy or Soveraignty is divided betwixt the King and them and consequently that they have not the Supremacy but a part of it only But for answer to this Objection perhaps he will say as indeed in effect he doth say that although before the War betwixt the King and them they had but a part of the Soveraignty only yet the King having by force endeavour'd to take their part from them and being overcome by them he had lost his own part which jure belli by right of War did accrue to them and so they became the Possessors of the whole Soveraignty though the King was then living But he had ceased to be King saith Mr. Baxter because he had entred into a state of War with his People and consequently by Mr. Baxter's Logick had lost his part of the Soveraignty But who was to have his part of the Soveraignty supposing him to be justly deprived of it Those that had the other part of it by whom he was conquered No saith Mr. Baxter for if saith he a Prince that hath not the whole Soveraignty be conquered by a Senate that hath the other part and that in a just defensive War that Senate cannot assume the whole Soveraignty but supposeth that Government in specie to remain and therefore another King must be chosen if the former be incapable CHAP. IV. Mr. B. 's high strain in commending those for the best Governors in all the World whom yet he owns to be Intruders and Vsurpers His compliance with Richard remarkt His high commendation tax'd and challenged The Recapitulation WHat he means by the last words of this Thesis viz. Another King must be chosen if the former be incapable I know not unless he means that the former King though he had lost his part in the Soveraignty and ceased to be King by being conquered by the Parliament in a just War yet he might be capable of being King again if the Parliament thought fit to choose him which having used him as they had done Mr. Baxter no doubt wished as heartily as he thought it likely they would do But whatsoever Mr. Baxter meant by these last words of this Thesis
Objection might be this That although the Parliament or the two Houses of Parliament cannot make any Laws without the Kings consent yet the King may make Laws without their consent in some cases namely when the publick safety is concerned that such a Law or such Laws should be made though one or both of the Houses will not consent to it In such a Case I say not according to mine own but Mr. Baxter's opinion such a Law or such Laws may be made by the King without nay against the consent of both Houses and à paritate rationis for the same cause and by the like reason Mony may be raised if without raising of Mony a Naval Force for example as may be sufficient for the preservation of the Kingdom from imminent dangers by a foreign Invasion cannot be had and then according to Mr. Baxter's Hypothesis what can be said against raising of Ship-money by the late King he being the Judge of the greatness and imminency of the danger and that it could not stay for a Parliamentary Supply there being no Parliament then sitting and the greatest Extraparliamentary Judicatory of the Nation having been advis'd with by the King and given him their opinions that he might legally do what he did certainly these things considered if Mr. Baxter's Aphorism be true the King 's raising or indeavouring to raise Ship-Mony without consent of Parliament was not so hainous a violation of the legal constitution which he was obliged or had obliged himself to govern by especially after it was by his consent condemned in Parliament as to be made as it is by Mr. Baxter one of the principal causes of his siding with the Parliament in Rebellion against the King For if the King were maximè dignus istâ contumeliâ indignus illequi faceret tamen if he did never so much deserve this affront yet it did not become Mr. Baxter to give it him not only because by the highest Judicature then in being it was declared to be legal but because according to Mr. Baxter's own judgment declared in this Aphorism the King might have done it supposing it necessary for the Preservation of the publick though it had not been legal But this shall not be my Answer to the aforesaid Objection I remember what I have said before upon another Occasion viz. that A mischief is better than an Inconvenience which I think is a maxime of our Law and the meaning of it is as I conceive that it is better to run the hazard of a very great Evil which possibly may but is very unlikely will befall us than for the avoiding or preventing of it to make use of such a Remedy as frequently may be and probably will be made use of when there is no such Occasion for it or need of it And so that which was used as a Remedy for the present may prove a Malady for the future in the Consequence of it And therefore for answer to the aforesaid objection I will not say that the King can make Laws to oblige the whole Nation without the consent of both Houses of Parliament though never so much for the publick good or never so necessary for the preservation of the whole Kingdom but this I will say that though such Laws cannot be made without their consent yet it is not they nor their consenting to them that makes them to be Laws For then either the Bills would be Laws assoon as they were passed by both Houses or the being passed by the two Houses must oblige the King to pass them also but neither of these is true according to the legal and fundamental constitution of our Government as appears not only by the constant Practice to the contrary but by the frequent and importunate Addresses made unto the late King by the two Houses of the rebellious Parliament to make their Ordinances to be Laws by his consent to them which certainly being so high as they were then they would never have done if they had thought that either their Ordinances were Laws or had the Obligatory power of Laws before the King gave it to them or that he might not if he would refuse to give it So that it being not only the Kings consent but his free arbitrary and voluntary consent that gives being to all Laws the Legislative Power properly so called must needs be in the King and in the King only The Legislative Power I say properly so called I mean the very making of that to be Law which is Law abstracting from whatsoever it is that goes before or that follows after it is made for certainly neither of them can be essential to the making of it and yet both of them may be very requisite for the making of the Laws to be such as may the more willingly be obeyed by the People Now by what goes before the making of Laws here with us I mean the considering debating and agreeing of both Houses what shall be proposed to the King by them to be by him made to be Laws and by what follows after the King by his Le Roy le veult hath made them Laws I mean the solemn Preface or Preamble to them whereby it is declared that there was a concurrence of the Lords and Commons to the making or enacting of them because the subject matter of them was prepared and agreed on by the Lords and Commons and then and not till then proposed to the King by them to be made Laws by him So that the subject matter of our Laws is and always must be from the two Houses or at least from their agreement and consenting to it And in this respect it is that they may be said to concur to the making of our Laws though they do not make them For it is as I said before not the Matter ex quâ res est out of which a thing is made which is prepared and proposed by the Houses but the Form per quam res est by which a thing is what it is which is wholly from the King that makes what the Houses propose to him to be made a Law to be a Law which although he may do or refuse to do as he pleaseth yet because he can make nothing to be Law but what by the Agreement of both Houses is propos'd to him to be made a Law by him and consequently though our Laws are not nor cannot be made by them yet they are not nor cannot be made without them neither therefore I say they do concur to the making of them though they do not make them They concur to the making of them because the Legislative matter or the matter whereof Laws are made and must be made is from them but they do not make them because the form whereby they are made to be what they are is not at all from them but solely and wholly from the King and consequently he is the sole efficient or
to justifie himself and those of his Nonconforming Brethren for preaching as they do though the Law have forbidden them to do so but the Popish Priests may pretend to also for their justification in the Execution of their Priestly Office in Conventicles of their own persuasion or for the gaining of Proselytes to their own Religion I. As first for example may not a Romish Priest say and say it truly as Mr. Baxter doth That he holds the sacred Office of the Ministry or Priesthood consisteth in an obligation to doe the work and an Authority to warrant him therein and that both these are essential to the Office as likewise That Kings and other Magistrates are not by Ordination to give this Office nor by Degradation to take it away But what then May not the King forbid a Popish Priest to exercise his Priestly Function here in England and punish him if he do though he cannot degrade him or make him to be no Priest And if this may be done to a Popish Priest without degrading him why may it not be done by the same Authority to a dissenting or Nonconforming Minister without degrading him also Yea and without taking away any thing that is essential to his Office For it is not the obligation to doe but to be qualified and willing to doe the work of a Minister that is essential to his Office neither doth his Ordination give him Authority to doe the work of a Minister any otherwise or any longer than he doeth it as it ought to be done So that this Argument drawn from the Obligation of a Minister to doe the work of a Minister after he is ordained if it prove any thing it proves either more or less than Mr. Baxter would have it namely that either Popish Priests may and ought to exercise their Priestly Office here in England though by Law they are forbidden or else that the Nonconforming Ministers may not nor ought not to exercise their Ministerial Office being forbidden to doe so by the same Authority and especially for the same Reasons also namely for being Disturbers of the publick Peace and holding such Principles as are destructive to Monarchy the one teaching the Division of the Sovereignty betwixt the King and another Foreign Prince that is betwixt the King and the Pope and the other teaching the Division of the Sovereignty betwixt the King and the Parliament that is betwixt the King and his Subjects II. Neither is Mr. Baxter's second Argument for the Nonconforming Ministers being obliged to exercise their Ministry though they are by Law forbidden to doe it so peculiar to them but that if it had any force in it any man that hath been ordained and thereby been consecrated and devoted to the Ministerial Function may lay claim to it and make use of it though he have done or may doe never so much hurt by the exercise of it because he will be guilty of Sacrilege saith Mr. Baxter if he do not and of the highest degree of Sacrilege that can be it being much more sacrilegious saith he to alienate consecrated Persons than consecrated Things from the Service of God And for proof thereof he tells us That our Canons enquire after all such as alienate themselves from the Ministry to which they were ordained and turn to other Callings adding We dislike not that Canon but we wish our observance of it might be thought but a pardonable fault As if this Canon which forbids men to quit their Ministerial Calling and to betake themselves to any other Lay Profession did oblige all those that are Ministers or have been ordained to be Ministers to continue in the exercise of their Ministerial Function though by lawfull Authority and for never so just cause they are forbidden to doe so because forsooth he will be guilty of Sacrilege if he do not so that he that is once ordained and thereby consecrated to serve God in the Ministry though he be never so heretical or schismatical or fanatical in point of Opinion or never so factious or seditious or rebellious or lewd or debauched in point of Practice he must not be forbidden to doe the work he was ordained to doe or if he be forbidden he must not forbear to doe it notwithstanding because it will be the highest degree of Sacrilege except Apostasie it self if he do So that this Argument proves nothing neither or as much for the worst as it doth for the best that ever were ordained III. The like may be said of Mr. Baxter's third Argument also which is a deduction from several Texts of Scripture obliging those that have taken upon them the Ministry of the Gospel to be diligent and faithfull and constant in the preaching of it All which places must be understood with this exception unless they be lawfully and by their lawfull Superiours forbidden to doe it Otherwise there will a Floodgate be opened for the bringing in all manner of Heresies and Schisms into the Church and of Faction and Sedition and Rebellion into the State as we have found by our own experience it hath done lately into our own Church and State and will doe so again if such Arguments as these can prevail with us to repeal our Laws and to grant a Licence or rather a licentiousness of Preaching to Men so principled and so affected as Mr. Baxter himself and those he pleads for have shewed themselves to be and will not yet give us any security that they will not preach and doe hereafter as they have done formerly IV. But his fourth main Reason as he calls it why those he pleads for must preach though they be forbidden is a main one indeed if it were a true one namely That they should sin against the Law of Nature it self nay even the great radical Law of Nature so far as to be guilty of the murthering of mens Souls if they did not preach though they be forbidden by what Authority or for what cause soever for so he must mean or else he saith nothing to the purpose and if he means so he condemns the King and Parliament for forbidding so many hundreds or thousands as Mr. Baxter saith are silenced because they will not conform and consequently for doing what they can to make so many hundreds and thousands to sin against the radical Law of Nature and to be guilty of murthering God knows how many Mens Souls But Kings and Parliaments Mr. Baxter may say are but Men and Men that may err in commanding what God hath forbidden and in forbidding what God hath commanded as they do saith he in this particular and are not therefore to be obeyed as the Apostles did not and professed they would not obey the High Priest and the Sanhedrim when they did forbid them to preach any more in the name of Christ the like saith he the Primitive and Orthodox Christians did though the Pagan and Arian Emperours forbad them to doe so
to be judge in Church cases and of whom he is to tolerate and countenance and whom he is not to tolerate but to punish it is he I say who by and with the advice and consent of his great Council of Lords and Commons hath judged all such aforesaid Assemblies to be seditious Conventicles and consequently all the Preachers in them to be seditious Preachers and I hope Mr. B. will not deny because he hath granted it already that all seditious Preachers are to be restrained and if they are to be restrained and restrained by those that are the proper Judges whether they ought to be restrained or no certainly there can be no reason to excuse and much less to justify the preaching of those that are so restrained after they are restrained and during such their restraint and therefore all those reasons alledged by Mr. Baxter in the aforesaid Book of his called An Apology for the Nonconformist Ministers are to no purpose as to the proving of that which they are alledged to prove namely the obligation of those silenced Ministers to preach in Conventicles whom he pleads for though they be silenced and silenced by those whom he confesseth to have authority to silence them and whom he confesseth likewise to be the proper judges whether they are to be silenced or no and though that for which they are forbidden to preach in Conventicles is because such meetings and such preachings are seditious and dangerous as to the safety of the King's Person as well as of his Government which Mr. Baxter confesseth in a place before quoted to be one cause why men may be justly restrained from preaching and how they that are justly restrained from preaching can be obliged to preach Mr. Baxter is to prove when and how he can In the mean time all that I can imagine Master Baxter hath to say is that though they preach in Conventicles yet they do not preach Sedition or any thing that may disaffect their Hearers either to the King or to the Government But what if they that sit at the helm and whose office and duty it is to take care nè quid detrimenti Respublica capiat That the Commonwealth get no harm or come to no damage do believe and have reason to believe that you do and will preach that in private now which they know you have preached openly and often heretofore and have no reason to think but that you are the same men still that you have been always even since the very beginning of the Reformation that is such as have been always and ever will be undermining the established Government of the Church and State may they not I say that sit at the Helm in order to the securing of the publick peace of the Kingdom and safety of the King may they not in point of justice nay ought they not in point of prudence and conscience too upon the aforesaid consideration to forbid such meetings And if they may and ought to forbid them the very Meetings themselves after they are forbidden are seditious whatsoever they say or doe when they are met because by the Eye of the Law they are looked upon as meeting to doe that for the doing whereof the Law forbids them to meet And whereas one of Mr. Baxter's chief reasons why they were obliged in conscience to preach though they are forbidden it because they shall be guilty of the murthering of Souls if they do not the murthering of such Souls he means as might have been saved by their preaching and do perish for want of it one of the main reasons why the King by advice of his great Council hath forbidden them to preach is to prevent the murthering of Souls and Bodies too by their preaching I mean the Souls and Bodies of such as are by them and their preaching disaffected to the Government both in Church or State and made ready and resolute to undermine and overturn both whensoever there shall be an opportunity of so doing which they would never have thought of if it had not been for such Preachers and such preaching Mr. Baxter confesseth he incouraged many thousands to ingage in the late War which if it were a Rebellion as no doubt it was though perhaps he did not think it to be so was to engage them Bodies and Souls whether they kill'd or were kill'd in a damnable action And who can tell whether he and those that are principled as he is may not even now be encouraging many thousands more to doe as they did then when the like opportunity shall invite them to it the rather because Master Baxter himself hath told us that as yet be cannot see that he was mistaken in the main cause nor dared to repent of it nor forbear to doe the same if it were to doe again in the same state of things that is if there were or if there should be such a War betwixt the King and the two Houses of Parliament as there was then he would encourage as many thousands as he did then to engage against the King And hath not the King having such fair warning given him good reason to prevent the making of Parties by men that are thus minded and that not for his own sake onely nor onely for their sakes that may be endangered in their bodies and their goods for adhering to him but even for their sakes also who may by such Preachers and preaching be persuaded and encouraged to rebell against him and consequently not onely to a hazard of the loss of their lives but to a certainty of the loss of their Souls without repentance which is hardly to be hoped for those that dye in an Act of sin especially so great as that of Rebellion And therefore for this reason onely if there were no other those that are silenced ought not to preach for fear of murthering of Souls by their preaching which is all I have to say to this particular and which if it be not enough I hope one or other of those my reverend Brethren the Bishops to whom Mr. Baxter addresseth his Plea for the liberty of the Nonconformists to preach notwithstanding their being silenced by Act of Parliament will more fully and more at large examine and confute that Treatise of his for this reason at least if there were no other nè si nullus ex ipsorum numero contradicat omnes cum illo consentire videantur Lest if none of their number should gainsay him they may all be thought to comply and agree with him and so he and those he pleads for will perhaps boast they do if none of them say any thing to the contrary CHAP. XI Mr. B 's Reflexion upon the Bishop concerning Master Jone 's his being put out of the Duke's service taken to task and sent to Elymas the Sorcerer One thing true in it that the Protestant Religion may be preserved better without the Nonconformists than with them
Mr. Baxter by his denial of the aforesaid Proposition is obliged to prove to be unlawfull and therefore the more of such Instances as these he doth or may alledge the more he seems to prevaricate in his own cause and to argue against himself just as I have heard a Pleader at the Barr did in Westminster Hall when the Judge interrupting him said to him You such a one if you love your Client or his cause speak no more for you are all this while speaking against him though you think you speak for him The like may I say of Mr. Baxter and of his Instances because they do not onely not disprove but prove and confirm the truth of my Charge against him For if it be the Commander's foreseeing and being obliged to prevent such an evil or mischief as his Command will be though but per Accidens the occasion of that makes his command to be unlawfull then if the Commander do not foresee it or be not obliged to prevent it the Command is not unlawfull as Mr. Baxter by his denying of the aforesaid Proposition must needs conclude it was so that all his aforesaid Instances are as I said before frivolous and impertinent as to the disproving of my Charge against him or to the proving of it to be a gross mistaking Charge as he saith it is CHAP. X. His other Instance of Kneeling at the Sacrament as imposed by an unjust Penalty were it true reacheth not his Case ANd so is the other Instance of his likewise which makes the two reasons which in his aforesaid Answer he did severally insist upon to be but one namely Supposing saith he to kneel at the Sacrament to be never so lawfull in it self if it be imposed by a penalty incomparably beyond the proportion of the offence that Penalty is an accident of the Command and maketh it by Accident sinfull in the Commander This instance I say of his though he speaks of it as very pertinent and argumentative yet is it as frivolous and impertinent as any of the former I mean as to the discharging him from the Charge I charge him with and which his denying of the aforesaid Proposition proves him to be guilty of For supposing all that he supposeth in this Instance to be never so true namely that the penalty for not receiving the Sacrament is an accident to the command of Kneeling and supposing too that penalty to be incomparably beyond the proportion of the offence and consequently must needs make the command it self to be Sinfull in the Commander of it under such a penalty supposing all this I say to be true what then Doth this prove the Command of a thing lawfull in it self and commanded under no unjust penalty to be sinfull in the Commander of it For this it must prove or it proves nothing at all as to the discharging Mr. Baxter from what his denial of the aforesaid proposition proves against him For doth not that proposition say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or in express words that The command which it affirms to be a lawfull command must first command an act in it self lawfull and secondly no other Act whereby an unjust penalty is injoyned nor thirdly any circumstance whence directly or per Accidens any Sin is consequent which the Commander ought to provide against And yet such a Command so qualified did Mr. Baxter then deny to be lawfull as appears by the aforesaid subscribed Attestation And now what he then denied to be lawfull though it were not commanded under an unjust penalty he would by this instance prove to be unlawfull because it is commanded or rather because he supposeth it to be commanded under an unjust penalty Quo te constringam Protea nodo What tye can hold one who so Proteus like shifts his shape For whether it be or be not commanded under an unjust penalty the command it seems must be alike unlawfull if Mr. Baxter and his Disciples list not to obey it that is if they themselves are not the Commanders of it Again supposing but not granting Mr. Baxter's supposed unjust penalty for not kneeling at the receiving of the Sacrament to be an Accident to the command of kneeling I ask him whether it be such an accident as the Commander ought to provide against or no If not how can it be sinfull in the Commander to command it or how can it make his commanding of it to be unlawfull But if it be such an Accident as the Commander ought to provide against as indeed every unjust penalty is then this instance of his is altogether as frivolous and impertinent as any of his former For that command which we affirmed and he denied to be lawfull and consequently asserted to be unlawfull was to be such a Command as commanded an Act lawfull in it self and no other Act whence directly or per Accidens any Sin is consequent which the Commander ought to provide against But this instance of his is of such a Command as is per accidens at least the cause or occasion of some such evil or sin as the Commander ought or is obliged to provide against Whereas if he had meant to speak pertinently in order to the discharging himself from my charge against him he should have given us an Instance of the unlawfulness of a lawfull command by lawfull Authority where no evil which the Commander ought to provide against was any way consequent either directly or by Accident onely But this he hath not done yet nor I dare say ever will doe or can doe though the Metaphysical Limbeck of his brain sweat never so much for it CHAP. XI Those Instances of his as they are Impertinent so they are Fraudulently design'd ANd thus having as I suppose made it appear that all Mr. Baxter's Instances are frivolous and impertinent as to the proving what I charge him with to be a gross mistake or indeed any mistake at all I am now to make it appear also that those before specified Instances of his are not onely frivolous and impertinent but fraudulent scandalous and injurious and I am afraid malicious also as to the intention and design of them And first they are fraudulent and fraudulently alledged by Mr. Baxter because by all and every of those Instances he would make his Readers to believe that all that he had asserted at the Conference in the Savoy was onely the unlawfulness of such commands as the Commander of them foresaw would by accident at least be the cause or occasion of some such evil or mischief as the Commander ought or was obliged to hinder or provide against or of such Commands as were commanded under an unjust penalty For as to make his Readers believe the former he produceth the instances of commanding a Navy to Sea by him that foresees it would fall into the enemies hands and the selling of Poyson by him that foresees it will be used to kill the buyer
or some body else with it and of setting Fire on Straw foreknowing that by another's negligence or wilfulness it is likely to set fire on the City or the Parliament-House as by these and the like instances I say he would make his Parishioners at Kidderminster and others of his Readers believe the former namely that when he asserted that the command of a thing lawfull in it self was unlawfull if it might by accident be the cause or occasion of sin he meant it onely of such commands where the evil or sin which by accident they would or probably might be the cause of was foreseen or ought to have been hindred by the Commander So by the last of his instances namely supposing to kneel at the receiving of the Communion to be lawfull yet the enjoining of it under an unjust penalty makes the Command it self to be unlawfull he would make it to be believed that he did not deny the command of a lawfull thing by lawfull authority to be lawfull unless it were injoined or commanded under an unjust penalty such as he supposeth the penalty for not receiving the Sacrament kneeling to be So that adding this last instance to the former and considering them one with another or all of them together his design in alledging of them must needs be this to make it to be believed that whereas Bishop Morley chargeth him with having affirmed the Command of a lawfull Act by lawfull Authority to be unlawfull if by accident it might be the cause of sin all that he said or at least all that he meant was this that such a Command was unlawfull if the evil it might by accident be the cause of was foreseen and ought to have been prevented by him that commanded it or if it were commanded under an unjust penalty and consequently that Bishop Morley's charge of him was a gross mistake Whereunto Bishop Morley replies by referring himself to Mr. Baxter's aforesaid answers to our Disputants aforesaid Propositions especially to the third or last of them which affirming such a command of a thing lawfull in it self under no unjust penalty and neither directly nor by accident the cause of any such evil or mischief as the Commander of it did foresee and ought to prevent was a lawfull command Mr. Baxter by denying this proposition to be true and consequently such a command to be lawfull because it might be evil by accident cannot be imagined to mean such an accident as the Commander did foresee and ought to prevent nor the enjoining what he commanded under an unjust penalty both which kinds of accidents the proposition he denyed had in terminis excluded and therefore he must needs mean such an accident as the Commander did not foresee or was not obliged to prevent and such a Command as had no unjust penalty annexed to it and consequently some such accident as either the peevishness or perverseness or some fault or other in those to whom such a command is given and who ought and will not submit to it is the cause of That therefore which I did then and do still charge Master Baxter withall is that he did then at the aforesaid Conference assert the Command of a thing lawfull in it self to be unlawfull if by accident it might be the occasion of Sin now that by accident he did not nor could not mean either the injoyning of it under an unjust penalty or any other accidental evil which the Commander was obliged to prevent or provide against is evident from his denying the Proposition to be true which affirmed such and no other but such a command of a thing lawfull in it self to be lawfull as was neither commanded under an unjust penalty nor could by accident be the occasion of any either evil or mischief which the Commander was answerable for or ought to prevent From Mr. Baxter's denying of this Proposition I say and from his giving no other reason for his denying of it but that such a command as the Proposition affirmed to be lawfull might by accident be unlawfull it is undenyably evident he must needs mean such an accident or accidental evil as the Commandee not the Commander may be guilty of and if no Command be lawfull that may be the occasion of such an evil then as Mr. Baxter truly tells his Kidderminster Friends Bishop Morley did infer that no Command either of God or man could be lawfull or as he is pleased to word it That neither God nor man can enjoyn any thing without Sin if the sinfulness it may by accident be the occasion of in those to whom the Command is given be to be imputed either to the Command or to the Commander which I think is little less than blasphemy to affirm and therefore Mr. Baxter had reason to disguise the Assertion I charge him with by giving such instances of it as are nothing a kin to it for all his aforesaid instances are instances of the unlawfulness of such Commands as are or may be the cause or occasion of some such evil or mischief as the Commander foresees and is obliged to prevent or of such as are commanded under an unjust penalty Whereas if he would have dealt ingenuously and pertinently he should have given us one instance at least if not more of the unlawfulness of such a Command as he asserted at the Conference to be unlawfull namely of the unlawfulness of such a Command as was neither commanded under an unjust penalty nor was the occasion or cause of any such evil mischief or sin as the Commander did not foresee or was not bound to prevent For how does the unlawfulness of selling of Poyson by an Apothecary to one whom he knows or suspects will poyson himself or some body else with it prove the unlawfulness of selling of poyson by him that doth not know or suspect any such use will be made of it because it may fall out that some body or other may be poysoned with it Or how doth the unlawfulness of commanding a Navy to Sea when the Commander foresees it will fall into the Enemies hands prove the unlawfulness of such a Command because by such a chance as the Commander did not nor could not foresee it did fall into the Enemies hands or lastly how doth the unlawfulness of commanding to kneel at the receiving of the Sacrament if it were commanded under an unjust penalty as he supposeth but did not nor cannot prove it is prove the unlawfulness of the same command if it be not commanded under an unjust penalty as We and all other Protestant Churches in the World as well as ours say it is not for proof whereof I refer the Reader to what I have said long ago in my printed Letter CHAP. XII Further those Instances are scandalously Injurious His disingenuous humour of Calumny taken notice of AND now having shewed what in truth it was that I charged Mr. Baxter withall and that I charged him
Where is the security thereby provided for the Lives Liberties and Properties of Free-born English-men when an arbitrary Vote of the House of Commons if it be believed as Mr. Baxter saith it must be by the People and be put in execution as Mr. Baxter cannot deny but it may be because it hath been may take away any mans life how innocent soever without any farther process or a legal proof of any crime against him For who is there that can secure himself from such a Vote or that can be secured after he is devoted by such a Vote from being killed by the next man that meets him in the Streets for there be more Feltons saith Mr. Baxter than one neither will the hanging of one discourage all the rest from hazarding their lives upon the same account as long as they are possessed and actuated with the same principle viz. that it is not only lawful but a glorious and meritorious deed to kill any man that is an Enemy to the Publick and withal that he is obliged to believe that any or as many as the House of Commons shall declare to be so are so It was high time therefore for the King to give a stop to such proceedings by dissolving the late Parliament to prevent the proscribing of all that were about him and employed by him and perhaps the remonstrating against himself also as their Predecessors had done against his Father which Remonstrance made by the then House of Commons as it was intended and made use of at first by the Presbyterians to begin and carry on their Rebellion against the King and his Party so was it made use of at last also by the Independents for the destruction of the Kings Person the pretended male-administration of the Government which was the matter of the Remonstrance being that for which he was indicted and condemned and put to death by the Independents And yet that very Remonstrance it was that Mr. Baxter in the place before quoted saith the People were obliged to believe and consequently to act thereupon as afterwards they did and yet good man he was in the mean time far from being guilty of any hurt to the Kings Person or destruction of his Power But why was he or the rest of the People obliged to believe either that Remonstrance or his Declaration of the House of Commons were they infallible that they could not be deceived themselves or were they impeccable that they could not deceive others neither the one nor the other For Mr. Baxter himself tells us it is well known that Parliaments quà tales as such are not divine religious Protestant or just That sometimes the major part in either or both Houses may be the worst And therefore I should think not always to be believed in what they declare nor always to be complied with by the People whose Trustees they are in whatsoever they command or undertake For if They be such as Mr. Baxter saith They may be may They not betray their trust and act contrary to the Interest of those that trust them Yes saith Mr. Baxter they may and consequently may saith he forfeit their power as well as Kings nay in some cases saith Mr. Baxter We are all that is the whole Nation to take part with the King against the Parliament as First If they would depose the King unjustly or change the Government or Secondly If they notoriously betray their trust in fundamentals or in points that the Common good depends on as if ever any Parliament did That we are now speaking of did and did it most notoriously there saith he the Peoples duty is to forsake them and to cleave to the King against them But who shall be Judg whether they do so or no or if there be a division betwixt those between whom the Sovereignty is divided as Mr. Baxter supposeth it is betwixt King and Parliament here in England and the one usurps or is pretended to usurp upon the other What then why then saith Mr. Baxter it belongs to the People to judg whose cause is best and to resist the usurping party But the People as he tells us in another place cannot themselves judg for themselves and therefore saith he the Constitution of the Government having made the Parliament the Trustees of our Liberties hath made them our Eyes by which We must discern our dangers And therefore as he saith a little before in the same page We are obliged to believe them as the most competent Witnesses and Judges and the chosen Trustees of our Liberties So that if there be a difference betwixt the King and the House of Commons and the House of Commons would depose the King never so unjustly or change the Government never so notoriously or betray their trust never so perfidiously yet if the House of Commons themselves will not say they do so but declare the contrary the People are to believe them and to side with them against the King yea and against the House of Lords too if they joyn with the King which how it can consist with the Doctrine of Co-ordination or with his own aforesaid Assertion that in some cases the People are to cleave to the King against the Parliament he were best to consider In the mean time thanks be to God We have a better and a more certain Rule of right and wrong and to be guided in what We are to believe and do than an arbitrary Vote of the major part of the House of Commons and that is the known Law of the Land For verissimum illud saith Grotius ubi semel à jure recessum est incerta esse omnia when we are once out of the road and rule of the Law we know not whither We are a going nor what we are a doing If therefore the question be Whether the late War was made against the King or no it is not a Declaration of the House of Commons or of both Houses either pro or con that will decide the question but Ad legem ad legem it is the Law that must do it and the Law hath done it For when the Earl of Essex in Queen Elizabeths time at his Arraignment for Treason and Rebellion against the Queen because he took up Arms without her Commission pleaded that he did it for the Queen and not against her because his meaning was only to remove Cecill and Cobham and Raleigh and other evil Councellors that were about her and were hers and the States Enemies as well as his protesting then as Mr. Baxter does now that he meant not any the least hurt to the Queens Person or diminution of her Power upon which often reiterated protestation of the Earls especially that of his meaning no hurt to the Queens Person the Sages of the Law that were Assessors to the Lords that were his Judges being askt by the Lords what was the Judgment of the Law in that Case
out of them that seem to be possessed with him which is above all things to be wished and prayed for or those that are so possest be kept from infecting others by teaching and printing with that intolerable licence as they do and have done for so many years together we are not to expect to be long without another Civil War and whether the effects of that will not be as bad or worse than the former no man can tell I am sure we are not always to expect miracles I mean such a miraculous deliverance as we have once had from so many several sorts of arbitrary and Tyrannical Governments as that War brought us to or rather as we our selves brought our selves to by that Rebellion and as such a rebellion as that was may and nothing but such a rebellion as that was can probably and humanely speaking bring us to again CHAP. IV. An Expedient proposed to secure the Government both in Church and State viz. some such Law as the Scotch Test. The Heir of the Crown 's being a Papist or a Presbyterian c. comes much to the same pass FOR the preventing whereof why should not we follow the example of the Scots in that which is good as well as we did follow their example in that which was evil We took such a Covenant as they did in order to the making and helping us to make such a War against our King and theirs as they did and for the alteration of the Government and Religion established by Law in both Kingdoms And why should not we make such a Law as they have now made for the preservation of their Government and Religion as it is now by Law established amongst them why should not we I say make such a Law for the maintenance and preservation of the Government and Religion established by Law amongst Vs also I mean such a Law whereby all Men are disabled and made uncapable of any Office or Place of Power and Trust either Military or Civil or Ecclesiastical as likewise of being chosen themselves or of choosing others to be Members of Parliament as will not take such a Test and Oath as they have taken in Scotland that is never to give their consent to the Alteration either of the Religion or of the Government either in Church or State as it is there by Law established Such a Law as this and no worldly means but such a Law as this will secure us and our Posterity from all that we fear or pretend to be afraid of especially from Arbitrary Government and Popery and from Presbytery too For the Heir of the Crown may be a Presbyterian or an Independent or an Antinomian or an Anabaptist or a Socinian and may be every whit as great a Zealot and as much a Bigot in any of those perswasions as any Papist can be in his and consequently be as zealous and industrious to promote bring in and set up his Religion for the Only or at least for the Predominant Religion of the State as any Papist can be to bring in Popery and consequently to suppress all of any other perswasion but his own and that perhaps with as bloody a persecution as ever any Papist did when he hath as much power to do it Of this One of the Sects hath given us proof more than enough already I mean the Presbyterians who for the setting up of their Dagon instead of the Ark of God and for the abolishing of Monarchy in the State as well as Episcopacy in the Church entred into that Antichristian League and Covenant with the Scots whereby both Nations were ingaged in a bloody War with and against one another of which the execrable effects as no Act of Oblivion can ever make to be forgotten so can they never be remembred without horror nor indeed should be remembred without detestation of the procatarctical or promoting causes of it of which the most principal and most energetical was that Presbyterian Solemn League and Covenant for the setting up that Idol of theirs the Presbyterian Government for which they were so peremptorily and pertinaciously zealous and ambitious that in all their Treaties with the late King one of the conditions of Peace always was the abolishing of Episcopacy and setting up Presbytery instead of it without consenting whereunto and without taking of the Covenant as the Scotch Presbyterians did refuse the late King so the English Presbyterians would if they might have had their will have refused the present King to reign over them as might be made appear by the Consultation had amongst the Grandees of that Party to that purpose till they found it would be in vain to stand upon such terms the Noble and never to be forgotten General the late Duke of Albemarle being resolved to bring in the King as a King without condition and therefore as well for that as for his whole most prudent as well as loyal and couragious Conduct in that great affair I think that which was said of Fabius Maximus may be as properly and truly verified of him Vnus homo nobis cunct ando restituit rem That is One Man by his wary conduct hath restored our State and welfare And I wish it were engraven in Golden Letters upon his Tomb ad sempiternam rei memoriam for an everlasting Memorial But to return unto what I was speaking of what I have said already is enough to prove that a Presbyterian Heir of the Crown would do what he could to bring in and set up the Presbyterian Government which can no more consist with Monarchy in the State than it can with Episcopacy in the Church and make us all Presbyterians as well as a Poâ—ish Heir would to bring in Popery and to make us all Papists And that they would not suffer any that would not conform to them and comply with them is evident not only by what they did against us that were as they call'd us Cavaliers and Malignants but against their own Brethren in Iniquity the Independents and all the rest of the Sectaries their Fellow-Rebels against the King and Companions in Arms against Us all of whom they would have suppressed as well as they did Us if it had been in their power to do so as appears by their Books Sermons and Addresses to that which they call'd a Parliament against them And what the Presbyterians did against us and would have done against the Independents by the Parliament the Independents did against them by the Army And so no doubt would any other of the Schismatical Parties have done against all the rest that were not of their perswasion if they had got the power into their hands But none of them may some of their Friends say would have been so cruel as the Papists who hold it not only lawful but meritorious to put Hereticks that is all that are not Papists to death Did not the Presbyterians and Independents and the
and revenge what they had done unto his Father And though they have found the contrary to the praise of his incomparable Clemency be it spoken yet such is their Ingratitude they seem to be as weary of being under the Son as they and their Predecessours were of being under the Father as appears by their taking the same ways and using the same Arts to dissaffect and stir up the People against the one as their Predecessours had done formerly against the other But I hope though the People now rage so furiously and some of the Rulers take Counsel together against the Lord and against his Anointed yet that which they imagine namely to break the bands of their Allegiance asunder and to cast away the cords thereof from them will prove but a vain thing for he that sitteth in Heaven shall laugh them to scorn the Lord shall have them in derision and will keep up him whom he hath set up over us and them too and will bring down those how many and how mighty soever they may seem to be that shall dare to rise up against him But perhaps Mr. Baxter will say that he and his Party for whom he doth apologize are so far from being concerned in what I have said for the bringing them under the King that they were the Men that brought in the King to reign over them and us too and that if it had not been for them he had never been brought home as he was The former clause of which saying of theirs I utterly deny for they kept him out as long as they could and would have done so for ever if they could have established any other Government but that if it had not been for them he had not come home as he did is true in one sense that is he had not come home from having been banished and forced to live abroad so many Years together which they were indeed the cause of but in another sense namely that he came home as he did without any capitulations or conditions of restraint put upon him They I mean the Nonconformists were so far from being the cause of that they did what they could to hinder it and I could name the place where a Consultation was held by the Grandees of the Faction to oblige him before he came home to consent to those very Propositions which were made by the Parliament Commissioners to his Father at the Isle of Wight which would have lest him but the Name of a King onely but the curst Cow had short horns the Army was in better hands than it had been and he that was Commander in chief of it having purged out all that would not comply with his loyal Intention to bring in the King as a King he frustrated the designs of those that would have brought him in manacled or not have brought him in at all which were all the Nonconformists and especially those of the Presbyterian Party who though they did not because they could not hinder the King's Restauration in that manner he was restored nor consequently their being brought under him so far as to own and acknowledge him to be their King by taking a pardon from him for what they had done against his Father and himself yet they do not nor will not own him as all Subjects ought and as all good Subjects do own their Kings by obeying their Laws And perhaps that which Mr. Baxter means by the Bishop of Ely's and my helping to bring him and his Party under is the bringing of them under the obedience of the King's Laws by silencing such as will not obey them What the Bishop of Ely hath done in that kind I know not but this I am sure that neither he nor I could have obeyed the Laws our selves if we had not silenced those Preachers that would not conform to what they were enjoyned by Law and which if they refused We that were Bishops were enjoyned by Law to silence them as we did how few or how many soever they were of them though I verily believe they were not half the number Mr. Baxter speaks of In the Diocese of Worcester whilst I was Bishop there Mr. Baxter himself was the onely man whom I silenced and since I was Bp. of Winchester which is now above 20 Years I do not think the Nonconforming Ministers I have silenced have been half so many I mean half so many men silenced as there have been years since which I do not say to ingratiate my self with the Nonconforming Party as if I would not have silenced more if there had been more to silence that is if there had been more in possession of any Benefice or Cure of Souls in that Diocese who refused to conform to all that by the Act of Vniformity they were enjoyned to conform unto but I say it to shew the impossibility of the silencing 2000 in all when there were so few silenced in that Diocese of Winchester which is none of the least though there be some greater Besides I presume Mr. Baxter means by his 2000 not onely such as were put out of their Livings or Cures for refusing to conform or for their Inconformity onely but such as likewise were put out because they were Intruders into other mens Livings as Mr. Baxter himself was and consequently were by Law compellable to yield possession to the right owners that were then living who perhaps were some Hundreds of those Thousands I am sure all We of the Clergy that were abroad with the King and all those that were at home and had been put out because they would not take the Covenant and lived till after the King 's and the Church's Restitution by being restored to what was our own before must needs dispossess many of those whom Mr. Baxter would have thought to have been put out for Inconformity onely But supposing all that were put out or silenced had been put out and silenced for Nonconformity onely and supposing too that there were 2000 of them yet how the Bishop of Ely and I did more to the bringing so many of them under that penalty than other Bishops did or than all Bishops were bound to do I do not understand unless he means that We did it more effectually than any other of the Bishops did which is to cast an imputation of Connivence at the breach of the Law in favour of the Nonconformists upon all the rest of our Order which I think none of them will own as a favour from him For my own part as I did willingly consent to the making of that Law I mean the Act of Vniformity so I did as willingly put it in execution where I was obliged to do so as believing it not onely to be just and equitable but in an high degree expedient if not absolutely necessary also CHAP. VI. The Justice and Equity as also the Prudence and Necessity of silencing the Nonconformists The King's Promise at Breda being onely conditional
own being an Intruder into the Headship of a College I remember too when the Churches in divers great Towns which had a great number of Souls and but little maintenance belonging to them were wholly neglected and the neighbouring little Villages where the Cures were small but the Tithes were great were seized on by the Grandees of the Faction which was an evident proof that they valued the Fleece more than the Flock and that they would not then as Mr. Baxter saith they will now serve God for nought But would not the Papists doe so also Yes perhaps they would will Mr. Baxter say but it would be in order to the destroying and not the edifying of the Church and have we not reason to fear that their offering to preach gratis is with such a meaning and Intention also We are sure they have done so and we are not nor cannot be sure they will not doe so again as long as they continue at that distance as they do from us In the mean time the Popish Priests being so persuaded as they are namely that all Protestants are in a State of damnation have a more rational pretence for the necessity of their preaching to us than our silenced Ministers have or can have even upon this account that unless they doe what they can to make us Roman Catholicks they are guilty of our perishing everlastingly But I hope our silenced Ministers do not think us in such a state of Damnation as we cannot be delivered out of but by their preaching as the Popish Priests may and do think us to be But whatsoever either of them may think of the need we have of their preaching and consequently of their own obligation to preach though they be forbidden we that do believe they would doe more hurt than good by their preaching do believe likewise that we are obliged in Conscience to restrain them from preaching though there were a greater want of Preachers and preaching than there is among us For sure there was never more need of preaching and scarcity of Preachers than when the Gospel began first to be planted when the Harvest was so great and the Labourers so few that Christ bad them pray the Lord of the Harvest to send more labourers into his Harvest and yet even then Christ would not have all to be hearkned unto that took upon them to preach but bad his Disciples beware of them and of their Doctrine though they came in Sheep's cloathing that is though they made a shew of nothing but harmlesness and meekness and simplicity because they might be ravening Wolves for all that And not long after that when there was still need of a great many more labourers than there were to carry on the great work of the conversion of the Gentiles yet even then St. Paul commands Titus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to silence some of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of those that were Preachers and why because they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unruly such as would not be governed or be brought under any rule or order but did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 subvert whole houses And if such Preachers as did but subvert whole houses were to be silenced or not suffered to preach then when there was so much more need of Preachers and of preaching than there is now how much more reasonable and necessary is it for us to silence those whose Principles tend to the subverting of whole Kingdoms especially when we have more Preachers of our own than we can tell how to provide for Again as in the first plantation of the Church when there was incomparably most need of Preachers the Apostles would not suffer such as were ungovernable or unruly themselves especially if they taught others to be so also so in the beginning of the Reformation of our Church from Popish Idolatry Superstition and Corruption both in Doctrine and Practice though there was a very great want of able and orthodox Preachers not onely in Edward the sixth's time but in Queen Elizabeth's time also for divers years together yet none of the Popish Priests were suffered to continue in their stations but very many Cures were supplied with men of very mean abilities till they could be better provided for rather than hazard a relapse into Popery by employing any that were Popishly affected in the work of the Ministry And Mr. Baxter may remember when we of the Church of England as it was established by Law were deprived and silenced for no other reason but because we could not in Conscience conform to the illegal Government that was by an usurped power set up in the Church and State I know there were other pretences against some as disability immorality and scandal but the main reason why we were generally turn'd out of our Free-holds and forbidden to exercise our Ministerial function was our Non-conformity to the then present Government in the State and to the then present way of serving God in the Church though both of them were illegal and though there was then as much or more need of their being assisted by us than there is now of our being assisted by them CHAP. X. According to Mr. Baxter 's own opinion the Ministers he pleads for ought to be silenced The Act against Conventicles why made and what is meant by Seditious Conventicles and Preachers Mr. Baxter by his own confession an incourager of the late Rebellion BUt supposing the want of Preachers and of Preaching to be much greater than it is may there not be a just cause to keep some from preaching and that without Sacrilege or robbing of God though they have been consecrated to God by Ordination if afterwards they prove such as are much more likely to doe harm than good by their preaching And such are not onely those that are utterly unable to teach or are notoriously scandalous in their lives and conversations but such as are heretical or schismatical in their opinions such as are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unruly and ungovernable and apt to stir up strife and Sedition either in Church or State Certainly such men as these ought to be silenced and punished too if they will not forbear preaching what need soever they may pretend there is for it otherwise St. Paul would not have given so strict a charge for the silencing of such as he did to Titus And truly that there are some such as ought to be silenced notwithstanding their consecration to God Mr. Baxter himself cannot deny For whom else doth he mean by those he calls intolerabiles that is such as are not to be tolerated or suffered to Preach Doth he mean none but those who were never ordained or none but those that are heretical in their opinions or debaucht in their manners or insufficient for the discharge of their duties No he confesseth that in the general all or any whose preaching is likely to doe more hurt than good
and particularly such as are against Princes safety and honour or whose Principles tend to overthrow the honour and safety of Governours and to kindle the fire of contention and enmity or such as draw their hearers Souls into any damnable errour or sin or that perswade men against any precept of the Decalogue and consequently against any of the precepts of the second Table as well as of the first all such as these saith Mr. Baxter are to be restrained from preaching For far be it saith Mr. Baxter from any sober man to think that the Magistrate must let all men doe the evil that they will but pretend to God and Conscience for Which one saying of his makes all that he said before to justifie the preaching of his Nonconformists to signifie nothing if they be silenced or forbidden to preach for any of the aforesaid causes by him specified and acknowledged to be such as Preachers ought to be silenced for notwithstanding any pretence of conscience to the contrary So this being agreed on betwixt us the next thing in question betwixt us is whether those that are silenced are such as Mr. Baxter confesseth ought to be silenced or no for if they be he confesseth likewise that no pretence of conscience can warrant their preaching and much less oblige them to preach For the deciding of this question therefore whether those that are silenced are justly silenced or no there remains one and but one question more and that is who shall judge and finally determine whether they that are silenced be or be not such as ought to be silenced or restrained from preaching Surely they themselves must not be their own judges but who must then why who but the Magistrate saith Mr. Baxter who in Church cases and religion hath the onely publick judgment whom he shall countenance maintain or tolerate or whom he shall punish or not tolerate nor maintain but with this caution so he be not the executioner of the Clergy's sentence without or against his own conscience and judgment Where by the Magistrate I hope he means the supreme Magistrate and by his judgment he means his judgment according to Law For the Law and nothing but the Law is the declaration of the supreme Magistrate's publick judgment in giving whereof he neither is nor can be the executioner of any other man's sentence but all subordinate Magistrates whether Civil or Ecclesiastical are the executioners of the supreme Magistrate's judgment or sentence and are no farther binding or to be obeyed than they are so Now that the supreme Magistrate with the advice and consent of his great Council hath given his judgment not onely who are and who are not to be tolerated to preach in publick or in Churches appears by the Act of Vniformity as likewise that he hath given his judgment also that those who are not to be tolerated to preach in publick or in Churches are not to be tolerated to preach in private nor in Conventicles neither appears by those other Acts of Parliament whereby such preaching is forbidden and such penalties as are therein specified are to be inflicted upon the transgressours of them Lastly as those Acts of Parliament are undeniable evidences who are and who are not to be tolerated to preach either publickly or privately according to the publick judgment of the State so the reasons why such preaching and such Preachers are prohibited are declared in the Titles and Prefaces of the aforesaid Acts for example the Title to one of those Acts namely that of decimo tertio of our present King is this An Act for the safety and preservation of his Majesty's person and Government against treasonable and seditious practices and attempts and in the Preface to the said Act it is said that the Lords and Commons assembled in that Parliament deeply weighing and considering the miseries and calamities of well nigh 20 years before his Majesty's happy return and withall reflecting upon the causes and occasions of so great and deplorable confusions the growth and increase of which they say did in a very great measure proceed from a multitude of seditious Sermons Pamphlets and Speeches published with a transcendent boldness from which kind of distemper say they as the present age is not wholly free so posterity may be apt to relapse into them if a timely remedy be not provided Therefore say they We the Lords and Commons having duly considered the Premisses do most humbly beseech your Majesty that it may be enacted c. By which Title and preface it plainly appears that the Lords and Commons did believe that neither the safety of the King's person nor of the Government could be secured if such kind of Preaching and Preachers as had in the late times been the stirrers up of the People to rebellion were not restrained from preaching for the future unless they would give some such security as the Parliament should think fit to require which was their renouncing the Covenant and their subscription to the Act of Vniformity which was enacted by the King by the advice and with the consent of the Lords and Commons the year following And it was for their not conforming to this Act of Vniformity that is for their not giving that security which the Law required that they would not preach schismatically and factiously and seditiously as they had done formerly for which they were some of them deprived and all of them disabled to preach publickly in Churches and consecrated places But this Act not proving effectual enough to prevent the danger for preventing whereof it was enacted because those that were forbid to preach publickly and in Churches did preach the same doctrines in Conventicles and in corners confirming their old and making more and more new Proselytes and being more and more followed because they were forbidden to preach in publick Therefore two years after this there was another Act made by the same Authority the Title whereof is An Act to prevent and suppress seditious Conventicles and the Preface or Preamble thereof is That for the providing of farther and more speedy remedies against the growing and dangerous practices of seditious Sectaries and other disloyal Persons who under pretence of tender Consciences do at their meetings contrive Insurrections as late experience hath shewed Be it enacted c. And then tells us first what shall be taken for a seditious Conventicle namely any meeting or Assembly in any place under colour or pretence of any exercise of Religion in other manner than is allowed by the Liturgy or practice of the Church of England where there shall be five Persons or more over and above those of the same house Secondly What are to be the Penalties for the first second and third Offence and lastly who are to be the Executioners and Inflicters of these Penalties Where you see that it is the Highest secular Magistrate whom Mr. Baxter will have