too that before the Conquest and for some time after Parliaments were held three times in one year They had then their Easter Parliaments their Whitsunday Parliaments their Christmas Parliaments but they know then that they were but so many Conventions of that Nobility and Clergy their King should please to call And which they did Arbitrary at their Will more frequently or less as they thought convenient and the Books tell us they many times were held but twice a year now if these Gentlemen will tell us so much of old Statute Laws why should not Custom which is Resolved by the very Books to be the Common decide the case too for the King as well as the other which is their own must for the People and then we find Our Kings had the sole power of Convening Parliaments by a long prescription of whom where and as often as they pleased Are not all our Judicial Records Acts of Parliament Resolved to be but so many Declarations of the Common Law and that by all our Lawyers even concerning the Royal Government which they make the very Fundamental Law of the Land and tell us That by Common Law is understood such things as were Law before any Statute by general and particular Customs and Maxims of the Realm Now if Statute must be but Declaratory of these Customs of the Kingdom how can it be concluded but that such Acts as directly contradict any of them must be absolutely void for by the same Reason that they can with a Be it enacted void any part of it they may the whole With the same Reason that they can invade any part of the Prerogative of their Prince which the Book tells us is the principal part of the Common Law they may abolish the whole make Killing no Murder and except Persons from the Punishment of Treason Does not this Common Law it self void any Statutes that are made against the Prerogative of their King Was it not in this very Edward the 3ds time that it was so Resolved even to the nulling three several Acts that put Pardons out of the Princes power The boldest of these Anti-monarchical Zealots cannot deny but that by the Common Customs of the Realm it always was Our Kings undoubted Prerogative to call and dissolve their Parliament when they pleased Chronicle confirms it Law Resolves it may practice for ever maintain it Now I cannot see why these Statutes that contradict the Customs of the Realm in determining their King to call Parliaments which the Common Law hath left at his Liberty should not be as much void as others that upon the like Reasons have been Resolved so And if the Common Law can avoid any particular Act of Parliament against the Prerogative of the Prince as we see it did more than one If Stanfords Authoty be Law then the Conclusion is unavoidable That for the same Reason it can any or all And in my poor apprehension that Act it self of the late Kings which reasonably repeals that of his Martyred Fathers that Act with which these reproachful fellows upbraided in their prints their deceased King is so far from countenanceing their clamorous Cause that it corroborates and confirms our own Case for it tells us the very Reason of repealing those Statutes To prevent intermission of Parliaments And what is that but what we say the Common Law would of it self void an Act as they say in derogation of his Majestys just Rights and Prerogative inherent in the Imperial Crown of this Realm for the Calling and Assembling of Parliaments Nay they tell us besides of Mischiefs and Inconveniences the two main matters the Law labours to avoid might be the Result of such an Act and endanger the safety even of King and Subject And what pray now was this Statute of Charles the First but what some even of these Factious Fellows themselves confess only a Reinforcement of the two Edwards If it were no more by the same Reason they are gone too as being against the King's Prerogative and in Derogation of his Right But Factious Fools that baffle themselves before they can be confuted by others the Statute they repealed did reinforce indeed those of Edward but it was with a Witness even as they resolved it with an invading the Rights of the King and endangering the Ruin of the People but still 't is true in that latter clause of their repealing Act they prevail upon their King to grant them a Triennial one how far obliging I leave their Oracles of the Law to Judge For if our Kings have had it by their prerogative indefinitely to call Parliaments by Custom or Common Law 't is as much against both for him to be obliged to convene them in three year as two one or without Intermission And I cannot see how the last enacting Clause is consonant to the Repealing Preamble which is so mighty for the Preservation of the Prerogative and we well know under what Circumstances of State Affairs then stood the People could not have more than so good so gracious a King was even in Policy ready to grant it was within a year or two of his being placed upon the Throne of his Father And a Turbulent Faction as furious again to pull him out A Seditious Sect had but just then alarm'd him that were setting up their Christ's Kingdom before his own was hardly settled Sots that thought their Saviour the great pattern of a Passive Obedience could be pleased with the Sacrifice of Fools and Rebels and an active Resistance unto Blood that has commanded us even to suffer unto it and even in the same Season and Session as damnable a Conspiracy detected as this Hellish one so lately discovered Arms seiz'd the Tower to be taken and an Insurrection contrived the parting at such a juncture with his Prerogative might be the product of his desire to please the People 't is too much to take the forfeiture in his own wrong when in this very particular the same Law provides so much for the Prince's Right But they 'll tell us the King by his passing such a Bill has parted with his Power and Prerogative But then do not the Laws tell us it cannot be past away Was it not resolved by all the Judges but in his Grandfathers time That himself could not grant away the Power of Dispensing with the Forfeitures upon Penal Statutes and why because annext to his Royal Person and the Right of his Soveraignty And shall it not be so much our Soveraign's Right which common Custom the Fundamental Law of all the Land has invested him with the convening of Parliaments at his pleasure But for my part for my Life I cannot apprehend did there lie such a great Obligation upon his Majesty from this his own very voidable if not void Act how 't is possible to bring him at the same time within the Letter of the Laws of
ruin of that from which they can reap somewhat of Advantage by its Preservation why then should we fancy Human beings and the best of Mankind Monarchs themselves whom th' Almighty has made Gods too to be guilty of so much Madness and Inhumanity Where do we find the worst of Fools designedly to destroy their Patrimony though many times through Ignorance they may waste them and that tho there were no Laws to terrifie them from turning Bankrupts or punishing them for Beggers when they have embezell'd their Substance Away then Malicious Miscreants with such sordid Insinuation such silly Suggestions against your own Soveraigns which your selves no more believe them likely to be guilty of than that they would set Fire to all their Palaces and Sacrifice themselves and Successors in the Flames But to Return to our Argument they 'll tell us perhaps What signify the Sanctions of the Imperial Laws and the Constitutions of an Absolute Empire to a Common-wealth or a Council of three States that are Co-ordinate or at most but a Monarchy Limded and mixt and where whatever power the Supream Magistrate has must have been first Confer'd upon him by the People where the Parliaments have a great part of the Legislative and their Soveraign in some sense but a Precarious Prerogative what signifies the Authority of a Britton or a Bracton whose very works by this time are superannuated who wrote perhaps when we had no Parliaments at all at least none such as now Constituted I won't insist upon in answer to all this to show the Excellency of the Civil Institutions that obtain o're all Nations that are but Civiliz'd I wont prove to them because already done That we don't Consist of three States Co-ordinate in the Legislative or that our Monarchy is Absolute and not mixt as I shortly may But yet I 'll observe to them here That the Romans themselves tho by what they call'd their Royal Law they look't upon the power of the Prince to be conferr'd upon them by the people yet after it was once so transferr'd they apprehended all their right of Judging and Punishing was past too And for their vilifying these Antient Authors and Sages of Law who did they Favour these Demagoges would be with them of great Authority and as mightyly searcht into and sifted Should I grant them they were utterly obsolete and fit only for Hat-cases and Close-stools that they both writ before the Commons came in play for their further satisfaction I 'll cite the same from latter Laws not two hundred years old and that our selves will say was since their Burgesses began And therefore to please if possible these Implacable Republicans I 'll demonstrate what I 've undertaken to defend from the several Modern Declarations of our Law For in Edward the Third's it was resolv'd that the King could not be Judged And why because he has no Peer in his Land and 't is provided by the very first Sanctions of our Establisht Laws by the great Charter it self their Act of Liberty they so much Labour in that not the meanest Subject can be Try'd or Judg'd unless it be by his Peers Equals much less so mighty a 〈◊〉 that has none and a Fortiori then with lesser Reason by those that are his own Subjects so far from being his Peers or Equals that they are together his Inferiors which has made me think many times these preposterous Asserters of so much Nonsense these Seditious Defenders of those Liberties they never understood did apprehend by the word Pares in the Law not the common Acceptation of it in the Latin but only the abused Application of it of our own English only to our House of Lords And conclude the King might be Judg'd by those we commonly call PEERS because they sit in that Honorable House and at the same to be Judg'd according to Magna Charta that all Judgements be per pares But does not each Dunce and every Dolt understand that the very Letter of the Law looks after this only that every Person be tryed at the least by those that are of his own Condition and that in the Legal Acceptation of the Word every Commoner of the Lower House nay every one of their Electors is as much a Peer as the greatest Person of the House of Lords In short they must put some such silly Seditious Exposition upon the plainest Letter when they pretend to Judge their King or else from the very Law of their own Liberty they labor in allow that their King has no Judges In that Act against Appeals that was enacted in the time of Henry the 8th the very Parliament upon whom the People and even these Republicans so much depend tells us even in the very Letter of that Law That it is Manifest from Authentick History and Chronicle That the Realm of England is an Empire That its Crown is an Imperial one That therefore their King is furnish'd by the goodness of Almighty God with an intire Power and Prerogative to render and yield Justice to all manner of Folk in all Causes and Contentions This by solemn Act is declared of their King this Excludes the People from Judging of themselves much more their Soveraigns This the Resolution of a popular Parliament they would make even the Supream and this by them resolved even in Opposition to that Popery these Panick Fools so much and so vainly fear Do not the Books the best Declarations of the Law let us understand that which they against the Resolutions of all the Law it self would so foolishly maintain that it was resolved in Edward the 4th's time That the King cannot be said to do any wrong and then surely can't be Judg'd by his very People for doing it when impossible to be done and was not this the Sense of all the Judges and Serjeants of the time to whose Opinion it was submitted was it not upon the same Reason a Resolution of the Law in Edward the 4th's time that because the Soveraign could not be said to injure any Subject therefore the Law never looks upon him as a disseisor a disposesser of any Man 's Right and all the remedy it will allow you is only Plaint and Petition Does not my Lord Coke himself that in several places is none of the greatest Assertor of the Right of the Soveraign fairly tell us least it should be vainly fear'd they should reflect upon the King 's own Misgovernment all the fault should rest upon the Officers and Ministers of his Justice Does it not appear from the Statutes of Edward the third that notwithstanding the strict Provision of the Charter for the Tryal by Peers that the King was still look'd upon as a Judge with his Council and Officers to receive Plaints and decide Suggestions and tho that and the subsequent of the next year provide against false ones yet it confirms still the power of the King to hear and determine
his Forces invading this Nation do Enact c. That our Kings in the time of the Saxons Danes and some part of the Normans had more absolute Power over their Subjects than some of their Successors 〈◊〉 himself can't deny the Charter of Liberties being made but in the Reign of Henry the Third and when the People had less of Priviledges the Kings must be supposed to have had more of Praerogative therefore we shall examine only what and where the Supremacy is at present and where the Laws of the Land not the Will of the Prince do place it In the Parliament that was held at York in Edward the Seconds time The Rebellious Barons that had violently extorted what Concessions they pleas'd from the Crown in His like those in the three foregoing Reigns when they seal'd almost each Confirmation of their Charter in Blood were all censured and condemn'd and the encroaching Ordinances they made in those Times all repeal'd Because says the Statute The Kings Royal Power was restrain'd against the Greatness of his Seigniory Royal contrary to the State of the Crown and that by Subjects Provisions over the Power Royal of the Ancestors of our Lord the King Troubles and Wars came upon the Realm I look upon this as an absolute Acknowledgment of a Royal Power which is sure the same with his Soveraign sufficiently distinguisht here from the Parliaments or the Peoples co-ordinate Supremacy for those condemn'd Ordinances were lookt upon as Usurpations upon the Kings Supremacy which they call the Power Royal of his Ancestors and not as our Author would have too of the Sovereign power of Lords and Commons At the Convention of the three Estates first of Richard the Third where the Parliament call themselves so themselves expound also what is meant by it And say it is the Lords Spiritual Temporal and Commons of this Land assembled in present Parliament so that we have here the whole three States besides the King owning themselves such without assuming to themselves a Soveraign power recognizing the Right of Richard and acknowledging him the Sovereign And tho I shall for ever condemn as well as all Ages will their allowing his Usurpation a Right which was an absolute wrong yet this is an undeniable Argument that then they did not make their King Co-ordinate with themselves made themselves declared themselves three States without him and acknowledged their King the Sovereign and Supream That Act that punisht appeals to Rome with a premunire in Henry the Eighth's time gives this Reason why none should be made to the Pope nor out of the Kingdom because the King alone was only the supream head in it It tells us expressly That England is an Empire that the King the Supream Head has the Dignity and Royal Estate of the Emperial Crown unto whom a body Politick divided into Terms and Names of Spirituality and Temporality been bounden 〈◊〉 next to God humble Obedience c. Who has furnisht him with Plenary Entire Power 〈◊〉 Authority Prerogative and Jurisdiction Here his Body Politick is devided into Spiritual and Temporal here he is called the supreme Head and here I think is a full Recognition of his sole Sovereignty And 't is strange that what a Parliament did in Opposition to Popery should be so zealously contradicted by such Sycophants that pretend so much to oppose it In the next place he tells us of an error he lay under that he thought our Commonalty had not formally assembled in Parliament before Henry the Thirds time but of that now is fully convinc'd by the Labours of some learned Lawyers whom he names and lets them know too how much they are obliged to him for the Honor But I suppose he reads but one sort of Books and that such as suit with his Humor and Sedition and of that Nature he can meet with Variety for I dare avow that within the space of six years all that ever was or can be said against the best of Government our own all that was or ever will be rak't up for justifying a Rebellion and restoring a Republick from falsifyed Roll and Record from perverted History and Matter of Fact by Pens virulent and Factious with all the Art and Industry and whatever thought could invent for its Ruine and Destruction has been Printed and Publisht such an Universal Conspiration of Men of several Faculties each assisting with what was his Excellency his Talent in Treason which seemed to be the Task-Master of the Town and Monopolizer of Trades But our Politician might return to his old Opinion again did he but consult other Authors I believe as learned Antiquarians I am sure more Loyal Subjects who can shew him that the Saxons Councils call'd the Witena Gemotes had in them no Commons That the Conqueror call'd none of them to his great Councils none in those of his two Sons that succeeded nor none in any of the Parliaments down to Henry the Third my Lord Coke tells us of the Names this Parliament had before the Conquest as Sinoth Michel or Witena Gemote which he says implyed the Great Court or Meeting of the King and all his Wise Men And also sometimes of the King with his Council of his Bishops Nobles and the Wisest of the People and unless from the wisest of the People and all his Wise Men they can make up an House of Commons I am sure from this Authority they can have no proof and from Wise Men can be gathered nothing but such as were Noble or chief of the Realm for the meaner sort and that which we now call the Commonality were then far enough from having any great share of Learning or common Understanding and then besides these Wisest of the People were only such whom the King should think Wise and admit to his Council far from being sent by their Borroughs as elected Senators King Alfred had his Parliament and a great one was held by King Athelstan at Grately ' which only tells us there were Assembled some Bishops Noble-Men and the Wise-Men whom the King called which implies no more then those he had a mind should come But the Antiquity of a Parliament or that of an House of Commons is not so much the thing these Factious Roll and Record Mongers contend for 't is its Superiority Supremacy and there endeavours to make them antient is but in order to the making their Power Exorbitant and not to be controul'd by that of their King whom in the next place this Re-publican can scarce allow the power of calling them at his Pleasure and dissolving them when he pleases But so great is the Power of Truth and the Goodness of the Cause he Opposes that he is forc't to contradict himself to desend his Paradoxes For he tells us the King is obliged with an hear say Law which his learned in the Faculty and Faction can't find out yet to call Parliaments as often as need should be that is
for it that it is so dangerous the only danger such Seditious Souls can see in it is That it would oblige them to be truly Loyal and dread Rebellion like the Sin of Witchcraft And is it dangerous now to be kept from being damn'd or running to the Devil Where is this mighty Mischief that will ensue upon this Opinion But a Veneration for our Governors next to God by whom they Rule will not his having his Right from above the sooner preserve him from sustaining any wrong below are things the sooner to be violated only because they are the more sacred and will the Light of this illuminated Lawyer resolve us Sacrilege to be a lesser Sin than single Felony Had those Sects of Seditious Rebels that ruined the best of Kings and that only by debasing this his Right and setting up their own for Divine Had they or could they have been so sacrilegiously wicked under a Presumption That his Person was sacred or even a belief of their Bibles that their Lord 's Anointed was not to be Touch'd yes they could and if we believe this Impudent Imposture it was that only which made them so And if such Opinions had never been broacht the War had never ensued Mighty Madman whom discontent distracts I can Fathom his Foolish Innuendo's to be as false Divines did and as I think was then their Duty preach up this Doctrine but did not the two Houses threaten Destruction long before a Manwaring or a Sibthorp was so much as censured Had not Leighton Libell'd both King and Bishops long before And did the telling the People they were Jure Divino exasperate them the more against the Prelates and the pious Prince that governed whom these Devils must needs deal withal the worse only from their being told their Governors were sent them from their God Mr. Hunt certainly himself can't imagine it he has too great a Veneration for the Religious Dust the pious Memory of those Rebels and Regicid's to think they were arrived to that Acme of Transcendent Atheism to spit in the very Face of the Almighty's Image only because it represented a thing so Sacred No it was of that they could never be satisfied they were Religiously taught the Jus Divinum of the People that is to Rebel most Religiously Tell me Mighty Murmerer why must this Bugbear of Arbitrary this Monster of Absoluteness and Bloody War be the Consequences of this Doctrine of Peace Is your King bound to turn Cruel only because he Rules by a Right from the very God of Mercy and a King too de facto not long since almost merciful to a Crime If you talk only in Theory of what another may be then perhaps your Fears are as Panick as the Objection is nothing to the purpose For Usurpers commonly of the People's Choice as appears even in our own History have always been the greatest Tyrants too who were so far from having the Jus Divinum that they had no Right at all And tho Sidney suggests this Doctrine would attribute to any sort of Usurper the same Right I shall consider him in his proper place and this may suffice for Mr. Hunt whose larger Comment upon this Text I shall enlarge upon too when I come to that Gentleman's Papers with whom they so much agree and 't is pity but his Fate should do so too It may suffice I have here attempted his Bulwark and upon which they would build their Babel tho in the Burlesque of the best of Books as if neither the Bible had its Jus Divinum and will close with him since he is so pleased with St. Peter with a Neighbouring Text not so much turned and misapplyed Mr. Hunt has done his worst and I hope we with well doing may put to silence the Ignorance of such Foolish Men. The third Doctrinal Case of this Divine Lawyer or what is drawn from the other two is the Parliament's Power upon the Succession and that he has proved he presumes beyond Answer and Reply when the two Preliminary points The Parliaments Legislative and The Peoples Divinity by his mighty Performances are made unquestionable But when he has begged the other two he may expect to have this third for asking and the first Presumption that must so proposterously warrant even that most Vnwarrantable Proceeding is the Gorgon of the Party that for this forty year has frightned the Nation The fear of Popery And like that Monstrous Head of Medusa been represented gastly full of Venom and Viper only not to charm us into Stones and Stupidity but the setting all in Combustion and a Flame Therefore he tells us if this can be but kept out which the Lord knows has been I don't know how long coming in We ought to admit of any Law for the purpose And have we not Laws sufficient in force and that for the keeping out allthe powers of the Pope tho His Pilgrims landed here with a Legion Have we not Oaths Tests two several Acts of Parliaments against Priest proselytes and Recusants Have we not the best Bulwark the Bishops and the greatest assurance the word of a King But in short the danger was then a Successor and nothing could serve less than a new Law And what was that why for Excluding an Heir to a Crown for Fifteen Hundred years Hereditary That Parliaments have presumed to alter the discent of the Crown is as true as that the same Convention of States have Rebel'd against the Crown it self And scarce one Instant of the Presidents he has giv'n us but serve to prove my purpose as well as his own that they either actually Rebel'd when they medled with the Succession or else that it was for settling it on the Right Heirs after such a Rebellion It was Richard the Second's that was a Parliament indeed that did more than meddle with the Succession when they actually deposed their Sovereign That of Henry the Fourth so far from a Parliament that they had no King And that was told them to their faces by the Loyal Prelate of Carlisle Henry the Sixth the Successor of one that had no Right and to whose Heir then they could never do any wrong Edward the Fourth was for securing the Descent in the Right Line and declaring all that of the Lancasters Rebels and that in spight of all those Entails this Lawyer lies his mighty stress upon and which even in his Fathers claim tho he never lived to enjoy the benefit of his Right The Parliament of the Usurper himself did with blushes and shame acknowledge That his Title could not be defeated that those Entails were only made for want of a better Title and very fairly made their Vsurper a enant for Life and that to an Excluded Duke of York and further did they force their Loyalty when his Son their Lawful Soveraign came to the Crown they tell him in the first of his Reign as appears
as possible any Man could be guilty off and so all the Judges even of a power absolutely Usurp'd and wherein they profest so much the Peoples Privilege over-rul'd the Prisoner in his popular Plea 'T is true Littleton as Lilburn observ'd to them in one of his Sections says That an inquest as they may give their Verdict at large and special so if they 'll take upon them the knowledge of the Law they may also give it general But the Comment of Coke their own Oracle upon the place confirms the Suggestion I have made of Resolving it into the King's Judges For he says 't is dangerous to pretend to it because if they mistake it they run in danger of this Attaint and tho the fam'd Attorney General of those times with his little Law was so senseless as to allow it to Lilburn in the beginning of his Tryal tho at another at Reading in that time of Rebellion they made the Jury to be covered in the Court upon that account yet you see those even then the Justices of the Land tho but mere Ministers of a most unjust Usurpation would not let it pass for Law And the Refutation of this false Position is so far pertinent to our present purpose as it relates to prove the Peoples being so far from being qualified to be their Kings Judges that they can not absolutely Judge of the mere Right of a meum and tuum among themselves Several other Instances both the Books Rolls abound with that Evidence our Kings the only Judges of the Law in all Causes and over all Persons for in the 13th year of the same Richard the Second the Commons Petition'd again the King that his Council might not make any Ordinance against the Common Law and the King Graciously granted them but with a salvo to the Regalities of the Crown and the right of his Ancestors The Court of Star Chamber which the worst of times Abolish'd and my Lord Coke makes almost the best of Courts had heretofore Cognizance of property and determin'd a Controversie touching Lands contain'd in the Covenants of a Joynture as appears in the Case of the Audleys Rot. Claus. 41. Edward the 3d. There the King heard too a Cause against one Sir Hugh Hastings for with-holding part of the Living of the poor of St. Leonard in York as is Evident from the Roll. 8. Edward 4. p. 3. And tho the Proceedings of this Court were so much decryed by those that clamor'd so long for its Suppression till they left no Court of Justice in the Land unless it were that of Blood and Rebellion their High one tho the King in his giving year was so gracious that he made the very Standard and rule of his Concessions to be the very request of his People and gratified them in an Abolition of this Court establish'd by the Common-law and confirm'd afterward per Act of Parliament yet Cambden our Historian as well as our Coke our Lawyer could commend it for the most Honorable as well as the most Ancient of all our Judicatories and if they 'll have the Reason Why it treated of Matters so high as the Resolution even of Common-Law and the Statute it may be told them in the weighty Words of their own Oracle Because the King in Judgement of Law as in the rest also was always in that Court and that therefore it did not meddle with Matters of ordinary Moment least the dignity of it should be debased and made contemptible and tho by the gracious consent or rather an extorted Act of Grace the late King was forc'd to forego it yet the Proceedings of some Cases there may serve to show what a power our Kings had and ought to have in all manner of distributive Justice Several other Citations I could here set down to prove the Subjection of the very Common-Law to the Soveraign Power as Henry the Sixth superseding a Criminal Process and staying an Arraignment for Felony Henry the Seventh's that debar'd the Beckets by decree from pursuing their suit for Lands because the merits of the Cause had been heard by the King his Predecessor and also by himself before but these will abundantly suffice to satisfy any sober Person that does not set himself against all assertors of his Soveraigns Supremacy And then if Custom and Common Usage which Plowden in his Commentaries is pleased to call the Common-Law lies in many Cases Subject to the Resolution of the Supream Soveraign no doubt but the Statute the result of his own Sanction must of necessity submit and acknowledge a subjection to the same Power and that I think we have sufficiently prov'd already upon several occasions both from the Letter of the Laws themselves and our little light of Reason both from Arguments and Laws that have evidenc'd their own Resolutions to be reserv'd to the King and that we had Kings long before fore the Commons Commenc'd Conven'd ' or Concur'd in their assent to such Laws 'T is prodigiously strange to me that these mighty Maintainers of the Peoples Legislative and their Judicial Power eeven over their own Soveraigns cannot be guided by those very Laws they would have to govern their Kings thus you shall see a Needham a Nevil or a Sidney amongst our selves in all their Laborious Libels that the drudges of Sedition who seem to verify the Sacred Text in drawing Sin it self with a Cart-Rope in all that they tugg toil and labour in you 〈◊〉 see that they cite you so much as a single Statute on their side or if they do only such an one as is either Impertinently apply'd or as Industriously perverted And in the same sort does the Seditious Scot Buchanan and the rest of the Books of their discontented Demagogues that Northern Mischief that threaten'd us always with a Proverbial Omen till averted of late by the Loyalty of their latter Parliaments that have aton'd even for the last age and the persidiousness and Faction of the former those all in their Libels hardly Name you so much as one single Law of their Nation to countenance the Popular Paradox the pleasing Principle of the Peoples Supremacy which the poor Souls when prescrib'd by those Mountebanks of the State must take too like a Common Pill only because 't is gilded with the pleasant Insinuations of Natural Freedom Free-State Subjection of the Soveraign Power of the People and all the dangerous Delusions that lead them directly to the designs of these devilish Republicans i.e. a damnable Rebelion whereas would they but submit their Senses to the Sanctions of the Laws of their several Lands their Libels they would find to be best baffl'd by the Statute Books as well as their Authors to be punisht by them for their Publication 'T is strange that should not obtain in this Controversy which prevails in all polemical disputes that is some certain Maxims and Aphorisms Postulates and
Optimacy is made up of so many more And where then into what form to whom shall we run for the best maintaining of this popular Darling this dangerous Violation that has been clamoured for rebelled and fought for the Peoples RIGHT but to that Soveraignty which our very Laws say can do no wrong to a Monarchy where Mechanicks can never meddle with Affairs of State to make them truckle to their own or the Nobility so powerful as to be all Soveraigns and under what Prince can we better acquiesce for this enjoyment than the present that has so often declared for its Protection And shall the Speech of some Noble Peer be better assurance promise more than the word of a King All Subjects under him have either Riches or Honor for their private Aim to make them act more partially for the publick and which the Laws presume therefore they may injure and have therefore made the greatest punishable But him exempted from all Statutes that are Penal And these sort of Arguments I can assure them their King himself has used to prove the publick Interest his own and that he alone of all the Kingdom can be presumed most impartially concerned for the good of the publick A Reason worthy of so good a King and which the worst the most Seditious Subjects cannot Answer Did not the Parliament in Richard the Third's Time give even that Vsurper an Arbitrary Power greater than any they can dread now from their most Lawful Soveraign Did not they declare him their Lawful King by Inheritance tho they knew they made him Inherit against all Law Did not they declare it to be grounded upon the Laws of God and Nature and the Customs of the Realm whereas we now can oppose this Divine Right from the panick fear of making our true Legal King too powerful and the Succession of a Right Heir must be questioned by our Parliaments now when their Predecessors declared it unalterable even in a wrong Did they not to him but an Usurper a Tyrant own themselves Three Estates without including himself and say that by them is meant the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons and shall the Press be pestered under our undoubted Soveraign and the mildest Prince to make him Co-ordinate with the People Did they not make particular Provision in Parliament for the preservation of His Person that was the very Merderer and Destroyer of His Subjects And shall our 〈◊〉 ones Associate for the Destruction of the mildest Monarch whose greatest Care is their Protection Was this Monster ever questioned or censured for the Murder of several of His Subjects as well as the more Barbarous Butchery the spilling almost of his own Blood in his Nephews and must our most gracious one stand the mark of Malice and Reproach and that only for desending that of his Brothers who Reigned more Arbitrary and managed all Affairs more Monstrously than this very Monster of Mankind And must a Parliament be now the Manager of the mildest Monarch and think him dangerous if not governed by themselves The two Succeeding Henries had their Power as much confirmed Henry the 7th had his Negative Voice the thing those Seditious discontented Grumblers so much repine at maintained asserted for his undoubted Prerogative It is at present by the Law of his Time no 〈◊〉 if the King assent not A Prince beloved and favoured only because he was their King who tho he had as many subsidies granted more than any before him His Subjects you see never thought it a Grievance then to contribute to their 〈◊〉 being Great but acknowledged his Supremacy even under their greatest pressure His 〈◊〉 upon penal Statutes Historians call and the Law the most 〈◊〉 way for raising of Money that was ever used yet still had he the Hearts of his People as well as their Purses They thought Rebellion then could not be justifyed with clamor of Oppression as since by Ship-money and Lone tho levyed by a King whom themselves had Opprest The simplicity of those times made them suffer like good Subjects and better Christians when the refined Politicks of such Authors and a 〈◊〉 age can tell them now to be Wise is to Rebel I need not tell him who managed Affairs in Henry the Eighth's Time when Parliaments seemed to be frightned into Compliance with a Prown and Bills preferr'd more for the pleasure of the Prince than the profit of the People Their Memberships then so far from medling with the measures of the State that they seemed to take them for their sole Measures so far was then an Order of the House from controuling that of the Board And I can't see that the Peoples Petition of Right has since 〈◊〉 away too the King's Prerogative yet it was affirmed for Law in this King's Time that he had full power in all Causes to do Justice to all Men. If the Parliament or their Council shall manage Affairs let them tell me what will become of this Power and Law His Son Edward succeeded him and tho a Minor a Prince whose Youth might have given the People an opportunity for an Encroachment upon his Power and the Subject commonly will take advantage of the Supremacy and that sometimes too much when the Soveraign knows but little what it is to be a King I am sure they were so Seditiously Wise in that Infancy of Henry the Third and yet he had Protectors too as well as this But notwithstanding such an Opportunity for the robbing the Rights of the Crown you shall see then they took the first occasion for the asserting them In the very First year of his Reign it was resolved that all Authoritie and Jurisdiction Spiritual and Temporal is derived from the King but this Republican has found out another Resolution of resolving it into the power of the Parliament And in this very Reign too it was provided as the common Policy and Duty of all Loving Subjects to restrain the Publishing all manner of Shameful Slanders against their King c. upon whom dependeth the whole Unity and Universal weal of the Realm what Sentence then would the Parliaments of those times have past upon Appeals to the City vox patriae's and a Plato Redivivus upon a Libel that would prove the Kings Executive power of War forfeitable and that the Prerogative which is in the Crown hinders the Execution of the Laws tho I am sure those very Laws are the best Asserters of the Prerogative there next resolve would have been to have ordered such an Author to the 〈◊〉 by the Hands of the Hangman instead of that Honorable Vote the thanks of the House In Queen Mary's Time too the Law left all to her Majesty tells her all Jurisdiction does and of Right ought to belong to her In Queen Elizabeth's Time what was Law before they were obliged even to Swear to be so Every Member of the House before qualified
possibility of being Supream The Supposition sounds somewhat like the Song of the Children When all the Land is Paper c. Tho it spoils another good Proverb That no Man dyes without an Heir but the silly Souls do not consider that by the same Solecism and Supposititious Reason not a Subject has a Right to a Foot of His Land For the Law says All that is in England belongs to the King as Lord which if the owners dye without Heirs must escheat to the Crown and sure 't is as possible for any Subject to dye without Heirs as his Soveraign when the Law has taken special Care for them and then 't is but turning their possibility of a Right into an actual one and they will be the most obliging Subjects to the Crown that bring such Arguments against it Another of Pryn's pretty Paradoxes is the very same with Hunt's impudent Assertion I may with Modesty call it so since himself says he dares to be so bold to assert it It is that our Kings anciently always consented to Bills offered for the publick good and the Postscript that never any Bill was lost or wanted the Royal Assent promoted by the GENERAL DESIRES of the People That Bills have been rejected they 'll find upon Record and in the Journals of almost every Session and whatever is presented in Parliament must be supposed the Desires of the People who Sit themselves there in Representative but the mistaken Gentleman meant it of the Bill of Exclusion to be the Peoples General Desire but that at last he finds a Lye too and that the Generality have for the most part protested against it in Addresses declaring more the Sense of a People than a prevailing Party in an House of Commons when the best part of the Nation too the Lords did not concur But did not in Queen Elizabeth's Time and that even so lately the Parliament and even every Individual in the Nation desire her to declare her Successor I am sure with greater Sollicitation and a more general Unanimity than they could be said to desire that Exclusion of the present King's did not the two Houses offer her four subsidy Bills upon that very Consideration and she as resolutely reject both And could the refusing to shew even a Kindness to her next Successor upon the importunity of all her People with Money in their Hands be less resented And shall the King for declaring only against a Bill that was never tendered him for declining to concur in this deepest Injury to his own BROTHER and Heir and to pleasure those only that denyed to part with a Penny be reproached and condemned so much more Did not the Parliament tender to King James three several subsidies to break of the Match with Spain and the Treaty of the Palatinate and he refuse tho tempted with what is seldom the Subjects Bait Money How many Bills of Rebellion did the Mutinous Members and that in the Name of all the People prefer in their Propositions to our Martyred Soveraign to which the poor Prince prefer'd the most Ignominious Death rather than condescend with his Veult or Avisera Base Caitiff forgive but your own Billings-Gate should these neither have wanted the Royal Assent because offered in the name of all the People of England and as the general Desire of the Subject if that Suggestion must have extorted his Assent then mighty Miscreant he must have past an Act for his own Tryal Sign'd a Warrant for his Murder for in that name he was Arraign'd in that name he was Sentenced and in that he dyed Poor prejudic'd Soul whose discontent and Transport makes his own Maxims undermine the very Cause he would defend Is then this general desire of the People such an absolute infallible Determination of Matters of Religion and Descent of the Crown the very only points he labors for that if their Desires be but promoted put up in a Parliamentary way by Bill or Petition it must presently oblige the Royal Assent Be it so base Creatures your own Arguments as basely betray your own Religion your own Arguments will help truly to subvert that which you seek to Establish with such a furious but false Zeal for ought I know the Protestant Religion had been so setled in its Infancy in its first Reformation in the Reign of him that was the first Defender of our Faith that it could never have been so soon interrupted with a succeeding Persecution had but Henry the Eighth refused the Bill of the Six Articles prest upon him by both Houses this was Judged a just and necessary Bill from Hunt's General desire of the People but had it not been better had it not saved the Blood perhaps of all the mighty Book of Martyrs had the sturdy Prince rejected this as he did many other general Desires It was this Royal Assent alone which would to God it had been wanting And this Sycophant would have wish'd so too did he really love the Religion he so salsely labors for It was the Le Roy vult the Result of the Peoples importunity that then establish'd Popery by a Law which had it been but then neglected that new moulded Mass of Idolatry standing upon its last Legs had quite languish'd dropt into the Grave and been buryed in the Ruins and Rubbish of its own Idol Houses they demolish'd For in the latter end of his Reign so enraged did he seem against some Persons of that Perswasion that he acted as if he would have executed their very Religion hanging up some iCarthusians even in their Habits and mmured nine Monks in their own Monastery where they dyed This was it that so settled what they call Superstitious Worship that it survived the short liv'd Reign of the pious Edward and in Spight of all his providential care for it's exterpation run only like the Guaronne that Miracle of a River in one of their Climates of Popery if their Histories of their Country be not Legends too only through a little Province in silent darkness underground but rose again and that with greater rage in the next Region This good Kings Laws about Religion would never have been so soon repealed the Commons House never have been so forward as the Divine Doctor whom themselves have thankt for it does make them for the sending up a Bill for the punishing all such as would not return to the Sacraments after the old Service Had the Six Articles been but past by in stead of being past into an Act they would have had no such Service to return to they would have been Strangers to Rome and it's Religion and tho they were repealed in Edward the Sixth's time his Fathers ratifying them made them take such root that his short Reign could never Eradicate that left so many Catholicks in the Kingdom that Commendone the Popes Legate might well come over to reconcile her Highness's Crown to his Holyness's See And here
blood before the jurisdiction of the Court was Resolved and to him in a Moral sense 't was as much Guilt as if that Authority had been Absolutely Legal and tho he tells us he does not descend to salse Arrests yet I thank him for his Condescension 't is to such a matter as is no way distinguishable from it for an Arrest without Authority is equivalent to a false and is as much Tortius and Force as what is done upon a Forged Warrant The Cases reported by those two Lawyers he cites one of them but a Protonothary that other our great Oracle in my Conscience were never designed for proofs against Passive Obedience By their Resistance here of the Law was never understood that which was forbidden in the Gospel besides it was but the Resolution of the Judges against the Power of that Court which to be sure they did not care to favour and those two Authorities he has cited none of the best in Matters of Allegiance and Loyalty that part of Coke is looked upon not very favourable to the Government and Brownlow first Printed when there was none But his Triumphant Distinction between his Religion Established by Law and that which has no Law for it's Establishment is not only far from creating a Difference here as I have shown before because the precepts of the Gospel which must be more immutable sure than a Persian decree are still the same and are now the Question but the Offering here of such a distinction is in Truth as impertinently applyed as it is really none at all for whenever he can imagin here which God will avert any Sufferance for the sake of his Religion it must be according to the Law of the Land or else he 'll never be brought to suffer I 'll secure his Carkass for a Farthing and be bound to supply it with my own for the stake if ever his be tyed to it without reviving of the 〈◊〉 de Comburendo All the Martyrdoms in Queen Mary's Reign were but so many Executions of the Law and that Writ de 〈◊〉 he 'll find in Fitz Herbert as well as a Common Capias so that himself must first without Charity which won't sure then begin at home Give his Body to be burnt with his Imply'd suffrage in an House of Commons 〈◊〉 I believe He is not likely to be a Bishop before fire and faggot can come upon him to singe his Hair or touch his Garment for the sake of his Religion and how likely we are ever to meet with such a Parliament to Sacrifice themselves again to the Flames himself best knows who I believe does not fear it so that here his Foundation of Law Establishment has nothing to support it and then all his Privileges of Saint Paul his own Magna Charta his Case of Commissions all fall to the Ground and his very supposition of his Religion being Establisht by Law and at the same time against all Law to suffer for it is more contradictory than his Horns or Addresses for it can't be supposed but that the Power that punishes him for an Heretick will have Repealed all those old Laws that would have protected him for being such and enacted new ones to make him suffer for his Perseverance and 't is always remarkable and a great Truth that the laying down one single false Position can never be defended but with as many Lyes And this forces him to maintain the Christians suffer'd contrary to Law in the time of Julian Certainly he knows but little of Justinian and the Codes however his Hunt help't him to so much of our Cases out of Cook The Constitutions of the Jmperial Law were but the Decrees of their Emperors as well as the Corpus the Collection of one of them all the civil Law that governed then is called Caesaria Imperatoria because their Caesars their Emperors where the Authors of it and how can he plead for them their Charters that had nothing else to trust to but the Will and Edict of their Prince The Testamentary Donation of Edward the Sixth he brings for an Argument for Excluding the Right Heir which makes but very little for his own and as much for the cause he contends against not so Insignificant neither as he suggests only because they could not well avoid an Act of Succession in Harry the Eight's time for whether that Act had been made or not Queen Mary must have Succeeded by Proximity of Blood as next Heir after her Brother And 't was that inherent and unalterable Right that made the Nation the more Zealous in her Cause tho there were enough too as Warm for her Religion he very well knows how that Will was extorted from a weak and dying Prince by the Powerful Importunities of Northumberland for the sake of Jane the Eldest of the House of Suffolk whom one of his younger Sons had Marry'd he knows nothing but self Interest and Ambition promoted it he may Read that both the Learned in the Law and as emiment of the Divines were against it Bishop Goodwin tells us of Cranmer himself present that he opposed it and that for the same Reasons all good Subjects do now because he thought no pretence of Religion could warrant an excluding the Right Heir This was the Sense of a Protestant so Zealous that he afterward suffer'd for it but the power of the great Northumberland prevailed with him at last for his Consent of which himself afterwards heartily repented to the Queen tells her he never liked it that nothing griev'd him more and that he wish't he could have hinder'd it And the ill success that Attempt had is alone sufficient one would think to discourage such another 'T is strange that the very thing that has once brought a Calamitous War upon the Kingdom that in this very Instance terminated in the Confusion of all the Attempters brought Northumberland to be Executed and to Penitence too for having offended and poor Lady Jane as her self said to suffer justly only for accepting of a Crown so unjustly offer'd 'T is Prodigious that such contradictory Mediums should be urged for countenanceing a thing to which they are so much repugnant Did not a Parliament here of Protestants declare for a Popish Successor and as Bishop Goodwin says the Suffolk men set her up tho they knew her a Papist Did not a Popish Parliament after her death declare for Queen Elizabeth tho they knew her a Protestant and were not in all these sudden Revolutions the Right Heirsstill preferr'd notwithstanding their Religion was not the same that was profess'd how then can men that offer at such a piece of Injustice touch upon those times for the Justifying so much wrong where they see that under the same Circumstances they still asserted their Princes Right The next pretty Notion of this Ecclesiastical novice in the Law that we shall now pass our Notes upon is a quaint conceit relating to our Oath