they had delivered up as it were to the Parliament to be dispoil'd of his Royalty and pursu'd with a Holy War They now complain that the Sectarie's are not extirpated which is a most absurd thing to expect the Magistrates should be able to do who never yet were able do what they could to extirpate avarice and ambition those two most pernicious Heresies and more destructive to the Church than all the rest out of the very order and tribe of the Ministers them-themselves For the Sects which they inveigh against I confess there are such amongst us but they are obscure and make no noise in the world The Sects that they are of are publick and notorious and much more dangerous to the Church of God Simon Magus and Diotrephes were the Ring-leaders of ' em Yet are we so far from persecuting these men tho' they are pestilent enough that for all we know them to be ill affected to the Government and desirous of and endeavouring to work a change we allow them but too much Liberty You that are both a French-man and a Va gabond seem displeas'd that the English more fierce and cruel than their own Mastiffs as your barking Eloquence has it have no regard to the lawful Successor and Heir of the Crown Take no care of the King 's Youngest Son nor of the Queen of Bohemia I l'e make ye no answer you shall answer your self VVhen the frame of a Government is changed from a Monarchy to any other the new Modellers have no regard to succession the Application is easy it 's in your Book de primatu Papae The great change throughout Three Kingdoms you say was brought about by a small number of men in one of them If this were true that small number of men would have deserved to have Dominion over the rest Valiant men over faint-hearted Cowards These are they that presumptuously took upon them to change antiquum Regni Regimen in alium qui à pluribus Tyrannisteneatur 'T is well for them that you cannot find fault with them without committing a Barbarous Soloecism you shame 〈◊〉 Grammarians The English will never be able to wash out this stain Nay you though a blot and a stain to all Learned men were never yet able to stain the renown and everlasting Glory of the English Nation that with so great a Resolution as we hardly find the 〈◊〉 recorded in any History having strugled with 〈…〉 not only their Enemies in the Field but the supertitious Persuasions of the common People 〈…〉 to themselves in general amongst all 〈…〉 the name of Deliverers The Body of the people having undertook and performed an enterprise which in other Nations is thought to proceed only from a magnanimity that 's peculiar to Heroes What the protesstants and Primitive Christians have done or would do upon such an occasion â—le tell ye hereafter when we come to debate the merits of the Cause In discoursing it before I should be guilty of your fault who outdo the most impertinent Talkers in Nature You wonder how wee 'l be able to answer the 〈◊〉 Meddle with your own matters you Râ—…gate and be asham'd of your actions since the Church is asham'd of you who though but of late you set your self so fiercely and with so much Ostentation against the Pope's Supremacy and Episcopal Government are now become your self a very Creature of the Bishops You confess that some Protestants whom you do not name have asserted it lawful to depose a Tyrant But though you do not think fit to name them I will because you say they are far wâ—rse than the very Jesuits themselves they are no other than Luther and Zuinglius and Calvin and Buâ—er and Pareus and many others But then you say they refer it to the Judgment of Learned and Wise men who shall be accounted a Tyrant But what for men were these Were they wise men were they men of Learning VVere they anywise remarkable either for Vertue or Nobility You may well allow a People that has felt the heavy Yoke of Slavery to be Wise and Learned and Noble enough to know what is fit to be done to the Tyrant that has oppress'd them though they neither consult with Foreigners nor Grammarians But that this man was a Tyrant not only the Parliaments of England and Scotland have declared by their actions and express words but almost all the people of both Nations assented to it till such time as by the tricks and Artifices of the Bishops they were divided into two Factions and what if it has pleased God to chuse such men to execute his Vengeance upon the greatest Potentates on Earth as he chose to be made partakers of the benefit of the Gospel Not many Wise not many Learned not many Powerful not many Noble That by those that are not be might bring to nought those that are and that no flesh might glory in his sight And who are you that babble to the contrary Dare you affect the Reputation of a Learned man I confess you are pretty well vers'd in Phrase-Books and Lexicons and Glossaries Insomuch that you seem to have spent your time in nothing else But you do not make appear that you have read any good Authors with so much Judgment as to have benefited by them Other Copies and various Lections and words omitted and corruptions of Texts and the like these you are full of but no foot-step of any solid Learning appears in all you have writ Or do ye think your self a wise man that quarrel and contend about the meanest Trifles that may be That being altogether ignorant in Astronomy and Physick yet are always raâ—â—ing at the Professors of both whom all men credit in what things belong to their own Sciences that would be ready to curse them to the Pit of Hell that should offer to deprive you of the vain Glory of having corrected or supply'd the least word or letter in any Copy you 've criticiz'd upon And yet y' are mad to hear your self call'd a Grammarian In a certain triflig Discourse of yours you call Dr. Hammond Knave in plain terms who was one of this King's Chaplains and one that he valu'd above all the rest for no other reason but because he had call'd you a Grammarian And I don't question but you would have been as ready to have thrown the same reproach upon the King himself if you had heard that he had approv'd his Chaplains Judgment of ye Take notice now how much I who am but one of those many English that you have the impudence to call mad men and unlearned and ignoble and wicked slight and despise you for that the English Nation in general should take any notice in publick of such a worm as you are would be an infinite undervaluing of themselves who though one should turn you topsic-turvy and inside out are but a Grammarian Nay as if you had made a foolisher wish than Midas did what ever you
tents O Israel now look to thine own house David When the King sent Adoram to them they stoned him with Stones and perhaps they would not have stuck to have serv'd the King himself so but he made haste and got out of the way The next News is of a great Army rais'd by Rehoboam to reduce the Israelites to their Allegiance God forbids him to proceed Go not up says he to war against your brethren the children of Israel for this thing is of me Now consider heretofore the People had desired a King God was displeased with them for it but yet permitted them to make a King according to that Right that all Nations have to appoint their own Governors Now the People reject Rehoboam from ruling them and this God not only suffers them to do but forbids Rehoboam to make War against them for it and stops him in his undertaking and teaches him withal that those that had Revolted from him were not Rebels in so doing but that he ought to look upon them as Brethren Now recollect your self You say that all Kings are of God and that therefore the People ought not to resist them be they never such Tyrants I answer you The Convention of the People their Votes their Acts are likewise of God and that by the Testimony of God himself in this place and consequently according to your Argument by the Authority of God himself Princes ought not to resist the People For as certain as it is that Kings are of God and whatever Argument you may draw from thence to enforce a Subjection and Obedience to them So certain is it that free Assemblies of the Body of the People are of God and that naturally affords the same Argument for their Right of restraining Princes from going beyond their Bounds and rejecting them if there be occasion nor is their so doing a justifiable Cause of War any more than the People of Israel's rejecting Rehoboam was You ask why the People did not revolt from Solomon Who but you would ask such an impertinent Question You see they did revolt from a Tyrant and were neither punished nor blam'd for it It is true Solomon fell into some Vices but he was not therefore a Tyrant he made amends for his Vices by many excellent Virtues that he was famous for by many Benefits which accrued to the Nation of the Jews by his Government But admit that he had been a Tyrant Many times the Circumstances of a Nation are such that the People will not and many times such that they cannot depose a Tyrant You see they did it when it was in their Power But say you Jeroboam's Act was ever had in Detestation 't was looked upon as an unjust revolt from a lawful Prince he and his Succssors were accounted Rebels I confess we find his Revolt from the true Worship of God often found fault with but I no where find him blam'd for revolting from Rehoboam and his Successors are frequently spoken of as wicked Princes but not as Rebels Acting contrary to Law and Right say you cannot introduce or establish a Right I pray what becomes then of your Right of Kings Thus do you perpetually bastle your self You say Adulteries Murders Thefts are daily committed with impunity Are you not aware that here you give an Answer to your own Question how it comes to pass that Tyrants do so often escape unpunished You say Those Kings were Rebels and yet the Prophets do no where disswade the People from their Allegiance And why do you ye Rascally false Prophet endeavour to persuade the People of England not to yield Obedience to their present Magistrates tho in your Opinion they are Rebels This English Faction of Robbers say you alledge for themselves that by some immediate Voice from Heaven they were put upon their bloody Enterprize It is notoriously evident that you were distracted when you wrote these Lines for as you have put the words together they are neither Latin nor Sense And that the English pretend to any such warrant as a Justification of their Actions is one of those many Lies and Fictions that your Book is full of But I proceed to urge you with Examples Libna a great City revolted from Jorom because he had forsaken God 't was the King therefore that was guilty not the City nor is the City blam'd for it He that considers the reason that 's given why that City rejected his Government must conclude that the Holy Ghost rather approves of what they did then condemns them for it These kind of revolts are no presidents say you But why were you then so vain as to promise in the beginning of this Chapter that you would arguâ— from Examples whereas all the Examples that you alledg are mere Negatives which prove nothing and when we urge Examples that are solid and positive you say they are no Presidents Who would endure such a way of Arguing You challenged us at Presidents we produced them and what do you do You hang back and get out of the way I proceed Jebu at the Command of a Prophet slew a King nay he ordered the Death of Ahaziah his own Liege Prince If God would not have Tyrants put to Death by their own Subjects if it were a wicked thing so to do a thing of a bad Example why did God himself command it If he commanded it it was a lawful commendable and a praise-worthy Action It was not therefore lawful to kill a Tyrant because God commanded it but God commanded it because antecedently to his Command it was a justifiable and a lawful Action Again Jehoiada the High Priest did not scruple to depose Athaliah and kill her tho she had been seven years in actual Possession of the Crown But say you she took upon her the Government when she had no Right to it And did not you say your self but a while ago That Tiberius assumed the Soveraignty when it belonged not at all to him And yet you then affirm'd that according to our Saviour's Doctrine we ought to yield Obedience to such Tyrants as he was 'twere a most ridiculous thing to imagine that a Prince who gets in by Usurpation may lawfully be deposed but one that Rules tyrannically may not But say you Athaliah could not possibly Reign according to the Law of the Jewish Kingdom Thou shalt set over thee a King says God Almighty he does not say Thou shalt set over thee a Queen If this Argument have any weight I may as well say The Command of God was that the People should set over themselves a King not a Tyrant So that I 'm even with you Amazias was a Slothful Idolatrous Prince and was put to Death not by a few Conspirators but rather it should seem by the the Nobility and by the Body of the People For he fled from Jerusalem had none to stand by him and they pursued him to Lachish They took Counsel against him says the History because he had
the Law of Nature to oppress their Subjects and go unpunished because as circumstances may fall out it may sometimes be a less mischief to bear with them than to remove them Remember what your self once wrote concerning Bishops against a Jesuit you were then of another opinion than you are now I have quoted your words formerly you there affirm that seditious Civil dissentions and discords of the Nobles and Common people against and amongst one another are much more tolerable and less mischievous than certain misery and destruction under the Government of a single person that plays the Tyrant And you said very true For you had not then run mad you had not then been bribed with Charles his Jacobusses You had not got the King's-Evil I should tell you perhaps if I did not know you that you might be ashamed thus to prevaricate But you can sooner burst than blush who have cast off all shame for a little profit Did you not remember that the Commonwealth of the people of Rome flourished and became glorious when they had banished their Kings Could you possibly forget that of the Low-Countries which after it had shook off the yoke of the King of Spain after long and tedious Wars but Crown'd with success obtained its Liberty and feeds such a pitiful Grammarian as your self with a Pension not that their youth might be so infatuated by your Sophistry as to chuse rather to return to their former Slavery than inherit the Glorious Liberty which their Ancestors purchased for them May those pernicious principles of yours be banished with your self into the most remote and barbarous corners of the World And last of all the Commonwealth of England might have afforded you an example in which Charles who had been their King after he had been taken captive in War and was found incurable was put to death But they have defaced and impoverished the Island with Civil broils and discords which under its Kings was happy and swam in Luxury Yea when it was almost buried in Luxury and Voluptuousness and the more inured thereto that it might be enthralled the more easily when its Laws were abolished and its Religion agreed to be sold they delivered it from Slavery You are like him that published Simplicius in the same Volume with Epictetus a very grave Stoick Who call an Island happy because it swims in Luxury I 'm sure no such Doctrine ever came out of Zeno's School But why should not you who would give Kings a power of doing what they list have liberty your self to broach what new Philosophy you please Now begin again to act your part There never was in any King's Reign so much blood spilt so many Families ruined All this is to be imputed to Charles not to us who first raised an Army of Irishmen against us who by his own Warrant Authorized the Irish Nation to conspire against the English who by their means slew Two hundred Thousand of his English Subjects in the Province of Uâ—… besides what Numbers were sâ—ain in other parts of that Kingdom who sollicited two Armies towards the destruction of the Parliament of England and the City of London and did many other actions of Hostility before the Parliament and people had Listed one Soldier for the preservation and defence of the Government What Principles what Law what Religion ever taught men rather to consult their ease to save their money their blood nay their lives themselves than to oppose an enemy with force for I make no difference betwixt a Foreign Enemy and another since both are equally dangerous and destructive to the good of the whole Nation The People of Israel saw very well that they could not possibly punish the Benjamites forSpanâ— Murthering the Levite's Wife without the loss of many Men's lives And did that induce them to sit still Was that accounted a sufficient Argument why they should abstain from War from a very Bloody Civil War Did they therefore suffer the Death of one poor Woman to be unrevenged Certainly if Nature teacheth us rather to endure the Government of a King though he be never so bad than to endanger the lives of a great many Men in the recovery of our Liberty it must teach us likewise not only to endure a Kingly Government which is the only one that you argue ought to be submitted to but an Aristocracy and a Democracy Nay and sometimes it will persuade us to submit to a Multitude of Highway-men and to Slaves that Mutiny Fulvius and Rupilius if your Principles had been received in their days must not have engaged in the Servile War as their Writers call it after the Praetorian Armies were Slain Crassus must not have Marched against Spartacus after the Rebels had destroyed one Roman Army and spoil'd their Tents Nor must â—â—mpâ—y have undertaken the Piratick War But the State of Rome must have pursued the dictates of Nature and must have submitted to their own Slaves or to the Pyrates rather than run the hazard of losing some Mens lives You do not prove at all that Nature has imprinted any such notion as this of yours on the minds of Men And yet you cannot forbear boding us ill luck and denouncing the Wrath of God against us which may Heaven divert and inflict it upon your self and all such Prognosticators as you who have punished as he deserved one that had the name of our King but was in Fact our implacable Enemy and we have made Atonement for the Death of so many of our Countreymen as our Civil Wars have occasion'd by shedding his Blood that was the Author and Cause of them Then you tell us that a Kingly Government appears to be more according to the Laws of Nature because more Nations both in our days and of old have submitted to that Form of Government than ever did to any other I answer If that be so it was neither the effect of any Dictate of the Law of Nature nor was it in Obedience to any Command from God God would not suffer his own People to be under a King he consented at last but unwillingly what Nature and right Reason dictates we are not to gather from the practice of most Nations but of the wisest and most prudent The Grecians the Romans the Italians and Carthagenians with many other have of their own accord out of choice preferr'd a Commonwealth to a Kingly Government and these Nations that I have named are better instances than all the rest Hence Sulpitius Severus says That the very Name of a King was always very odious among freeborn People But these things concern not our present purpose nor many other Impertinences that follow over and over again I 'll make haste to prove that by Examples which I have proved already by Reason viz. That it is very agreeable to the Law of Nature that Tyrants should be punished and that all Nations by the instinct of Nature have punished them which will expose your Impudence and
at all Now you say That you will discourse by and by of the difference betwixt some Kings and others in point of Powâ—r some having had more some less You say You will prove that Kings cannot be judged nor câ—ndemn'd by their own Subjects by a most solid Argument but you do it by a very silly one and 't is this You say There was no other difference than that betwixt the Judges and the Kings of the Jews and yet the reason why the Jews required to have Kings over them was because they were weary of their Judges and hated their Government Do you think that because they might Judge and Condemn their Judges if they misbehaved themselves in the Government they therefore hated and were weary of them and would be under Kings whom they should have no Power to restrain and keep within Bounds tho they should break through all Laws Who but you ever argued so childishly So that they desired a King for some other reason than that they might have a Master over them whose Power should be superior to that of the Law which reason what it was it is not to our present purpose to make a Conjecture Whatever it was both God and his Prophets tells us it was no piece of prudence in the People to desire a King And now you fall foul upon your Rabbins and are very angry with them for saying That a King might be judged and condemned to undergo Stripes out of whose Writings you said before you had proved that the Kings of the Jews could not be judged Wherein you confess that you told a lye when you said you had proved any such thing out of their Writings Nay you come at last to forget the Subject you were upon of writing in the King's Defence and raise little impertinent Controversies about Solomon's Stales and how may Stalls he had for his Horses Then of a Jocky you become a Ballad-singer again or rather as I said before a raving distracted Cuckoo You complain That in these latter Ages Discipline has been more remiss and the Rule less observed and kept up to to wit because one Tyrant is not permitted without a â—heck from the Law to let loose the Roms of all Discipline and corrupt all Mens manners This Doctrine you say the Brownists introduced amongst those of the â—eform'd Religion so that Luther Calvin Zumâ—lius Bucer and all the most Celebrated Orthodox Divines are Brownists in your Opinion The English have the less reason to take your Reproaches ill because they hear you belching out the same Slanders against the most eminent Doctors of the Church and in effect against the whole Reformed Church it self CHAP. VI. AFter having discours'd upon the Law of God and of Nature and handled both so untowardly that you have got nothing by the bargain but a deserved reproach of Ignorance and Knavery I cannot apprehend what you can have farther to alledg in defence of your Royal Cause but meer trifles I for my part hope I have given satisfaction already to all good and learned men and shall have done this Noble cause Right should I break off here yet lest I should seem to any to decline your variety of arguing and ingenuity rather than your immoderate impertinence and tittle-tattle I 'le follow you where ever you have a mind to go but with such brevity as shall make it appear that after having perform'd whatever the necessary defence of the Cause required if not what the dignity of it merited I now do but comply with some mens expectation if not their curiosity Now say you I shall alledg other and greater arguments What greater arguments than what the Law of God and Nature afforded Help Lucina The mountain Salmasius is in labour It is not for nothing that he has got a she-husband Mortals expect some extraordinary birth If he that is and is called a King might be accused before any other power that power must of necessity be greater than that of the King and if so then must that power be indeed the Kingly power and ought to have the name of it For a Kingly power is thus defined to wit the Supreme power in the State residing in a single person and which has no superior O ridiculous birth a Mouse crept out of the Mountain Help Grammarians one of your number is in danger of perishing The Law of God and of Nature are safe but Salmasius his Dictionary is undone What if I should answer you thus That words ought to give place to things that we having taken away Kingly Government it self do not think our selves concerned about its name and definition let others look to that who are in love with Kings We are contented with the enjoyment of our Liberty such an answer would be good enough for you But to let you see that I deal fairly with you throughout I will answer you not only from my own but from the opinion of very wise and good men who have thought that the name and power of a King are very consistent with a power in the people and the Law superior to that of the King himself In the first place Lycurgus a man very eminent for his wisdom designing as Plato says to secure a Kingly Government as well as it was possible could find no better expedient to preserve it than by making the power of the Senate and of the Ephori that is the power of the people superior to it Theseus in Euripedes King of Athens was of the same opinion for he to his great honour restored the people to their liberty and advanced the power of the people above that of the King and yet left the Regal Power in that City to his Posterity Whence Euripedes in his Play called the Suppliants introduceh him speaking on this manner I have advanced the people themselves into the Throne having freed the City from Slavery and admitted the people to a share in the Government by giving them an equal right of Suffrage And in another place to the Herald of Thebes In the first place says he you begin your Speech Friend with a thing that is not true in stiling me a Monarch for this City is not governed by a single person but is a free State the people reigns here These were his words when at the same time he was both called and really was King there The Divine Plato likewise in his Eight Epistle Lycurgus says he introduced the power of the Senate and of the Ephori a thing very preservative of Kingly Government which by this means hath honourably flourished for so many ages because the Law in effect was made King Now the Law cannot be King unless there be some who if there should be occasion may put the Law in execution against the King A Kingly Government so bounded and limited he himself commends to the Sicilians Let the people enjoy their Liberty under a Kingly Government let the King himself be accountable let the Law take place
wherever the Laws are set at naught the same dictate of nature must necessarily prompt us to betake our selves to Force again To be of this opinion says Cicero pro Sestio is a sign of Wisdom to put it in practice argues Courage and Resolution to do both is the effect of Vertue in its perfection Let this stand then as a setled Maxim of the Law of Nature never to be shaken by any Artifices of Flatterers That the Senate or the people are superior to Kings be they good or bad Which is but what you your self do in effect confess when you tell us That the Authority of Kings was derived from the people For that power which they transferred to Princes doth yet naturally or as I may say virtually reside in themselves notwithstanding for so natural causes that produce any effect by a certain eminency of operation do always retain more of their own vertue and energy than they impart nor do they by communicating to others exhaust themselves You see the closer we keep to Nature the more evidently does the peoples power appear to be above that of the Prince And this is likewise certain That the people do not freely and of choice settle the Government in their King absolutely so as to give him a Propriety in it nor by Nature can do so but only for the Publick Safety and Liberty which when the King ceaseth to take care of then the people in effect have given him nothing at all For Nature says the people gave it him to a particular end and purpose which end if neither Nature nor the People can attain the peoples Gift becomes no more valid than any other void Covenant or Agreement These Reasons prove very fully That the People are Superior to the King and so your greatest and most 〈◊〉 Argument That a King cannot be judged by his 〈◊〉 because he has no Peer in his Kingdom nor any Superior falls to the ground For you take that for granted which we by no means allow In a popular State say you the Magistrates being appointed by the people may likewise be punished for their Crimes by the people In an Aâ—…cracy the Senators may be punished by their Collegues But 't is a 〈◊〉 thing to proceed criminally against a King in his own Kingdom and make him plead for his life What can you conclude from hence but that they who set up Kings over them are the most miserable and most silly people in the world But I paay what 's the reason why the people may not punish a King that becomes a Malefactor as well as they may popular Magistrates and Senators in an Aristocracy Do you think that all they that live under a Kingly Government were so strangely in love with Slavery as when they might be free to chuse Vassalage and to put themselves all and entirely under the dominion of one man who often happens to be an ill man and often a fool so as whatever cause might be to leave themselves no 〈◊〉 in no relief from the Laws nor the dictates of Nature against the Tyranny of a most outragious Master when such a one happens Why do they then tender conditions to their Kings when they first enter upon their Government and prescribe Laws for them to govern by Do they do this to be trampled upon the more and be the more laughed to scorn Can it â—e imagined that a whole people would ever so 〈◊〉 themselves depart from their own interest to that degree be so wanting to themselves as to place all their hopes in one man and he very often the most vain person of them all To what end do they require an Oath of their Kings Not to act any 〈◊〉 contrary to Law We must suppose them to do this that poor creatures they may learn to their â—…rrow That Kings only may commit Perjury with impunity This is what your own wicked Conclusions hold forth If a King that is elected promise any thing to his people upon Oath which if he would not have swâ—rn to perhaps they would not have chose him yet if he refuse to perform that promise he falls not under the peoples censure Nay tho he swear to his Subjects at his Election That he will administer Justice to them according to the Laws of the Kingdom and that if he do not they shall be discharged of their Allegiance and himself ipso facto cease to be their King yet if he break this oath 't is God and not man that must require it of him I have transcribed these lines not for their Elegance for they are barbarously expressed nor because I think there needs any answer to them for they answer themselves they explode and damn themselves by their notorious falshood and loathsomness but I did it to recommend you to Kings for your great Merits that among so many places as there are at Court they may put you into some Preferment or Office that may be fit for you some are Princes Secretaries some their Cup-bearers some Masters of the Revels I think you had best be Master of the Perjuries to some of them You sha'nt be Master of the Ceremonies you are too much a Clown for that but their Treachery and Perfidiousness shall be under your care But that men may see that you are both a Fool and a Knave to the highest degree let us consider these last assertions of yours a little more narrowly A King say you tho he swear to his Subjects at his Election that he will govern according to Law and that if he do not they shall be discharged of their Allegiance and he himself ipso facto cease to be their King yet can he not be deposed or punished by them Why not a King I pray as well as popular Magistrates Because in a popular State the People do not transfer all their Power to the Magistrates And do they in the Case that you have put vest it all in the King when they place him in the Government upon those terms expresly to hold it no longer than he useth it well So that it is evident that a King sworn to observe the Laws if he transgress them may be punished and deposed as well as popular Magistrates So that you can make no more use of that invincible Argument of the Peoples tranferring all their Right and Power into the Prince you your self have battered it down with your own Engines Hear now another most powerful and invincible Argument of his why Subjects cannot judge their Kings because he is bound by no Law being himself the sole Lawgiver Which having been proved already to be most false this great reason comes to nothing as well as the former But the reason why Princes have but seldom been proceeded against for personal and private Crimes as Whoredom and Adultery and the like is not because they could not justly be punished even for such but lest the People should receive more prejudice through disturbances that
the Land And I cannot upon this occasion but congratulate my self with the Honour of having had such Ancestors who founded this Government with no less prudence and in as much Liberty as the most worthy of the Ancient Romans or Grecians ever sounded any of theirs and they must needs if they have any knowledg of our Affairs rejoyce over their Posterity who when they were almost reduced to Slavery yet with so much Wisdom and Courage 〈◊〉 and asserted the State which they so wisely sounded upon so much Liberty from the unruly Government of a King CHAP. IX I Think by this time 't is sufficiently evident that Kings of England may be judged even by the Laws of England and that they have their proper Judges which was the thing to be proved What do you do farther for whereas you repeat many things that you have said before I do not intend to repeat the answers that I have given them 'T is an easie thing to demonstrate even from the nature of the things for which Parliaments are summon'd that the King is above the Parliament The Parliament you say is wont to be assembled upon weighty affairs such as wherein the safety of the Kingdom and of the people is concerned If therefore the King call Parliaments together not for his own concerns but those of the Nation nor to settle those neither but by their own consent at their own discretion what is he more than a Minister and as it were an agent for the people since without their Suffrages that are chosen by the people he cannot Eâ—… the least thing whatsoever either with relation to himself or any body else Which proves likewise that 't is the King's duty to call Parliaments whenever the people desire it since the peoples and not the King 's concerns are to be treated of that Assembly and to be ordered as they see cause For although the King's assent be required for fashion sake which in lesser matters that concerned the welfare of private persons only he might refuse and use that form the King will advise yet in those greater affairs that concern'd the publick safety and liberty of the people in general he had no Negative voice for it would have been against his Coronation Oath to deny his assent in such cases which was as binding to him as any Law could be and against the chief article of Magna Charta Cap. 29. We will not deny to any man nor will we delay to render to every man Right and Justice Shall it not be in the King's power to deny Justice and shall it be in his power to deny the Enacting of Just Laws Could he not deny Justice to any particular person and could he to all his people Could he not do it in inferior Courts and could he in the Supreme Court of all Or can any King be so arrogant as to pretend to know what 's just and profitable better than the whole body of the people Especially since he is created and chosen for this very end and purpose to do Justice to all as Braction says Lib. 3. Cap. 9. that is to do Justice according to such Laws as the people agree upon Hence is what we find in our Records 7 H 4. Rott Parl. num 59. The King has no Prerogative that derogates from Justice and Equity And formerly when Kings have refused to confirm Acts of Parliament to wit Magna Charta and some others our Ancestors have brought them to it by force of Arms. And yet our Lawyers never were of opinion that those Laws were less valid or less binding since the King was forced to assent to no more than what he ought in Justice to have assented to voluntarily and without constraint Whilest you go about to prove that Kings of other Nations have been as much under the power of their Senates or Counsels as our Kings were you do not argue us into Slavery but them into Liberty In which you do but that over again that you have from the very beginning of your Discourse and which some silly Leguleians now and then do to argue unawares against their own Clients But you say VVe confess that the King where-ever he be yet is supposed still to be present in his Parliament by vertue of his power insomuch that whatever is transacted there is supposed to be done by the King himself and then as if you had got some petty bribe or small morsel and tickled with the remembrance of your Purse of Gold We take say you what they give us and take a Halter then for I 'm sure you deserve it But we do not give it for granted which is the thing you thought would follow from thence That therefore that Court acts only by vertue of a Delegated Power from the King For when we say that the Regal Power be it what it will cannot be absent from the Parliament do we thereby acknowledg that Power to be Supreme does not the King's Authority seem rather to be transferred to the Parliament and as being the lesser of the two to be comprised in the greater Certainly if the Parliament may resâ—ind the King's Acts whether he will or no and revoke Priviledges granted by him to whomsoever they be granted If they may set bounds to his Prerogative as they see cause if they may regulate his yearly Revenue and the Expences of his Court his Retinue and generally all the concerns of his Houshold If they may remove his most intimate Friends and Counsellors and as it were pluck them out of his bosom and bring them to condign punishment Finally if any Subject may by Law appeal from the King to the Parliament all which things that they may lawfully be done and have been frequently practised both our Histories and Records and the most eminent of our Lawyers assure us I suppose no man in his right wits will deny the Authority of the Parliament to be superiour to that of the King For even in an Interregnum the Authority of the Parliament is in being and than which nothing is more common in our Histories they have often made a free Choice of a Successor without any regard to an Hereditary descent In short the Parliament is the Supreme Councel of the Nation constituted and appointed by a most free people and armed with ample power and authority for this end and purpose viz. to consult together upon the most weighty affairs of the Kingdom the King was created to put their Laws in execution Which thing after the Parliament themselves had declared in a publick Edict for such is the Justice of their Proceedings that of their own accord they have been willing to give an account of their actions to other Nations is it not prodigious that such a pitiful fellow as you are a man of no authority of no credit of no estate in the world a meer Burgundian 〈◊〉 should have the imprudence to accuse the Parliament of England asserting by a publick Instrument their