their Herculesses honest men and men of honour ready to die for their Countrey if need require judging such a death infinitely to be preferred before the lives of the chiefest of these should they obtaine what they seeke But let us end this patheticall flying out though it be hard for the inferiour faculties sometimes not to stirre when the understanding somewhat inlightened hath inflamed the will On the other side so divine a gift as this Parliament thankfully recognized and made use of duely and the just power and dignitie of the Parliament and therein all our happinesse wisely and manfully now once asserted moderation and mediocritie induced the Monarchy duely tempered may be in humaine probabilitie perpetuall and all the surfet become Physicke And this violent Feaver of the State having amazed and drawne to an head all the malignant humours before dispersed all over the body and lying dangerously hidden and set on fire consumed and expelled them like the filth of an house swept into an heape and burnt the whole body may be much clearer sounder and better disposed then had not such a distemper ever beene I hope it appeares already were there no more then these presented weake reasons to an ordinary rationall man if far better from others be too meane for his Majestie what way he is to take that all may be well and seeing but one side can be trusted with the power of the Kingdome which of them is most unlikely to tyrannize or reduce all to arbitrary government or which will most probably use it to the publique good onely or whether in such extraordinary times it doe not most safely repose where it is originally naturally inherent viz. in the peoples owne hands and so in the Parliaments Nay were the case hitherto dubious yet since libertie first made appointed limitted prerogative for they confine together as the people in whom is the radicall primary supreame power and who made Kings not Kings people thought best when it first made choice of or instituted this one forme of government among divers others which we call Monarchy and whereof there are sundry degrees in sundry States some more some lesse trusted or limited as the first founders pleased els why are they not all equall since free and voluntary agents worke or doe onely so much or so far as they please and the various subordinate degrees or kinds of the creatures prove the divine Majestie to be agens liberrimum els the creatures would be all equall an involuntary or naturall agent as Philosophy termes it ever working as much as it can or to the utmost extent or sphere of its power and activitie and so an equalitie in the effects since I say libertie or the people first created as I may say Prerogative and that so tempered modified or graduated as it thought most conducible to its owne happinesse for the supreame power ever worketh for it selfe rather then for the subordinate or inferiour as being the end the efficient and finall causes being here co-incidents it is just that this namely libertie judge and give law to that and that this if an unnaturall jarre fall out gaine and prosper rather then the other and since the people reserved ever in its owne hands and saved to it selfe upon the trust to the Monarchy what priviledges right of Parliament or liberties c. parcell 〈◊〉 the originall power naturally in the people and which may draw backe to the fountaine the derivative power as the bloud and spirits to the heart when there is cause it thought best surely it must doe this with purpose to see them conserved as safely as may be and upon occasion to make use of them and enjoy them which could not be surely done without a power reserved to judge of the state of them and when they were to be used and the like for if the Prince be trusted touching the keeping himselfe within his limits he may even as well be trusted absolutely without limits nor such power to judge of them is to any purpose as above-said without power to execute what is judged hereupon fit So the Parliament judgeth in this case as the first authour and superintendent of the intent and is not as a partie to be judged Further were the matter yet dubious yet seeing the Protestant Religion the power being in the Parliaments hand is far more out of the reach of danger then the other way even without calling his Majesties good meaning into question therein as I hope anon will appeare it ought to put it out of all question how wee are to range our selves in these times The Parliament having our case so standing such power as is deduced whatsoever would seeme to oppose that power and stand in their way as they defend and assert the publique good so invaded must be voidable and usuall ordinary known lawes or customes made or in use supposing or whilest the Prince kept duely within his bounds which the King speakes so much of saying that he will ever governe by them and hold all to them but ever intending the publique good are no way to bound or tye up the transcendent power of the Parliament when it shall encounter new and never before heard of exorbitances or invasions of the publique good which the times that made those knowne Lawes never heard of so never provided against But by proportion of reason this Parliament may and ought as well provide by new Ordinances or orders for such new evills as they encounter as the former did for what they then met with for they had their originall also ex malis moribus bonae leges and had those times had such causes offered as these have they would have provided remedies of a nature like those this Parliament hath done the power and generall intentions of all times or the universall ground being still the same that is to defend and vindicate or procure the publique good and to tye them to the knowne or old Lawes in this case where the letter might kill were irrationall for so the first breaker of the Lawes might take the priviledge of the Lawes and advantage of his owne wrong and under the colours of the Lawes fight against and overthrow them or the rule reason or intention that caused them at first If it be said nothing was done by the King of publique consequence but by advice of the Judges it may be answered that the Parliament is the onely competent Counsell Judge in cases neerely concerning the publique and people in generall which the King is entrusted upon such occasions to call that the whole people may not but upon extraordinary causes be troubled to elect for Parliaments and attend that service But in such a case as ours by virtue of the legislative power residing in the Parliament it may make new Ordinances at least for the time as it sees occasion and judges to be in order to that supreame and immutable Law or Law of Lawes and end of them
TRVTH and PEACE HONESTLY PLEADED AND RIGHTLY SOUGHT FOR OR A Loyall Subjects Advice VSEFVLLTo CONFIRM HONEST CONVINCE IGNORANT CALME PASSIONATE Condemne Malicious Men. BY A True Lover OF GOD And King CHARLES Printed 1642. A PLEA FOR TRVTH AND MOTIVES FOR QVIET To the Reader MIght these Motives though undrest unset of as running out in haste like those Sabine Women too like in weaknesse in Romes infancy with disshevelled haire throwing themselves as interposers between their Parents and husbands now on point of a bloudy Incounter concerning them contribute a little to turne some of those Armes upon passion and mistakes now ready extended for blowes into embraces and those embraces againe into blowes from both reunited on the heads of the infernall Authors of these disunions and the moneys and munition sent to embroile us in civill warres not without good interest or gratefull acknowledgment of our owne on the senders heads and so might England and his Excellency grow both young againe in a second journey for the Palatinate these our stirres proving but as traynings for such a service But to draw nearer to breviate the case well by reducing it all if possible to one point issuable had been the next way to judge well of it whereas much dilating whilest it would explaine confounds weak judgements and such are most as too many quaint divisions questions and affectation of Method intended to cleare darken But since this Pamphet coming out in hast as its imperfection shews wants this advantage as others The judicious Reader if any such will reade it may in the perusing cast the chiefe points which are not many into a narrower posture fitter to judge upon whether the inferences held or rather since it may deserve no such paines he or any may abstract or take notice if any particular point chance to present it selfe that may any way serve the truth or them that love it THe principall point in which the others seeme to be conteined as the effect in the cause the future oake in the acome may be this If a King having his Prerogative bounded by Lawes Liberties Priviledges c. misled and seduced by those about him striving to make him absolute whom they hope absolutely to make use of or rather to speak in a more reverent phrase if such men as the principall agents perverting his good intentions and abusing the royall name and authoritie as their instrument or possibly the Prince himselfe misled by his own passions or mistakes or assuming arbitrary government endeavour and act and by a continued tenor or drift of his Counsels designes actions notwithstanding fitting Remonstrances made to the contrary persist in the pursuite of things dangerous and pernicious to the peoples religion libertie propertie priviledges lawes or suffer others to doe such things contrary to the originall intent end and trust of the first institutors of such a Monarchy not according to the contracts and conditions at his Coronation being for the good and happines of the people and consequently for the preservation of the said particulars and if the King afterwards desert oppose frustrate the publique Counsell of the Kingdome the Parliament going about after it hath in vaine sought remedie at his hands to suppresse the further growth of and to remedy such publique mischiefs and dangers growne through long want of due calling that good great Counsell and moreover if the Prince after all may and doth convert the power of the people it selfe to back still and carry on these designes and compasse these ends and the people be remediles then besides the unreasonablenes of the premisses inconsistent in themselves and other grosse absurdities that thereon follow the condition of a free Nation is worse then that of a most miserable slave For first being before in a free and happy estate every way it must bring it selfe into servitude and each man make one another mutually and those he holds dearest and his Countrey it selfe slaves and must expose his owne life that he may take the lives of whosoever refuseth slavery if much rather all be not already or before slaves if bound to doe and suffer such things at the pleasure or discretion of the Prince or rather of those about him Secondly besides thus each man being one anothers mutually and all their Countreys executioners each must be bound to expose all he hath and his life as much as in him lyeth to procure or advance the meanes of damnation of those he holds dearest nay of innumerable others and of himselfe Religion being part of the case Thus whereas it seemes sufficient to the constitution of a slave not to have power to dispose of himselfe or of what he hath in a passive way onely In this case men must be positively active against themselves Thirdly and lastly a whole Nation cannot fly or run away from a condition so miserable and by any other meanes unavoidable as a particular slave may More might be said in this point but what needed thus much were not their Judgements with whom we deale as turbulent as the waters they have troubled which sort a possibilitie of delusion that yet may partly hoodwinke them must distinguish from the other part among them whom malice hath made utterly reason and religion proofe and therefore their senses whose soules seeme nothing els are to be dealt with in another method But to the point the premises and consequence being utterly absurd inconsistent contradictory against reason and nature Princes being instituted for the peoples happines and so rather publici servi as regnum splendida servitus and since there is provision against the danger of the minoritie of a Prince who can be onely positively ill it being à fortiori reasonable that it should not be wanting against the perill from such a Prince as we propound who by meanes of a greater maturitie and authoritie may concurre more actively and consequently more perniciously to the greatest evill the people in our case if or when the King makes such attempts in reason cannot be without meanes of remedy It were perhaps so were a King instituted in an immediate miraculous extraordinary manner by God himselfe then a lower power could not disanull the act of the higher or perhaps there were colour if the people it selfe had absolutely given or entrusted it selfe to the power or Provision of the Prince at the first institution or framing of the Monarchy But with us the lawes customes priviledges power and use of Parliaments c. argue or rather are limitations restrictions conditions or reservations made upon the originall trust commission or delegation from the people or after upon occasion which it keeps in its owne power or reserves to it selfe as the supreame resort for extraordinary emergents Not let any thinke that the King having taken his oath for the keeping himselfe within his bounds or for the observing the lawes liberties priviledges or the like that he is hereupon onely left to God and his
the world and so complaint be made to the Parliament thereof if it were to any end to complaine there of that which hath already passed without punishment But seeing the Parliament hath power the case standing as before hath been shewed to doe in all things as they see cause by good consequence their speeches necessarily preparing discussing agitating concluding what is so to be done cannot be subject to any limitting questioning or accompt abroad nor in reason therefore are to be divulged in that sence this being incompatible with such power But then these haters of our Law-makers and Lawes say Many of both Houses are away and so the acts lesse valid but be the number remaining little yet the acts of the Major part of that number are still good For neither the King that calied them away or countenanceth them that desert their stations may alledge this nor the Members that voluntarily not upon trust in those that remaine or leave obtained abandon their places there and duties are to take the benefit either of their owne wrong whether negligence in such Members or worse perhaps nor of their owne unworthinesse as Cowardise to oppose what they liked not which feare admitting such could be argues still that they that feared were the lesser number though what needed they feare to speake freely a dissenting lesser number being ordinary and sometimes a very few perhaps scarce enough to make a number dissenting openly from the rest of the whole House without any inconvenience It being allowed for any to speake their minds whilst a matter is in agitation before it be settled If they say they goe away that they may not seeme to allow what would passe though they were present then the Major part concurres to what is done by their owne confession els why stay they not to oppose it If they say so many are gone without leave of the Houses as put together would make the Major part supposing this were true either such a Major part went away at once in a body and then it was their fault not to stay for then they being the Major part had prevailed or they went by little and little and then still it was a Major part of the remainder that concurred to what was done els it had not passed and so the acts still good If they fly to say that they who thus deserted the House out of feare did it not as fearing the Parliament but the people granting these men this which is not their due that such had cause to feare the people and that such base feare when as they pretend they were to stand for the King Countrey Lawes Liberties Religion and did not render them utterly unworthy their places it may be answered briefly they that remained and carried matters might feare the King as much or more but their cause was noble and good but these or the like Cavils will no more hoodwinke the people their onely course were to produce some publique act of Parliament that might certifie the world that the King and both houses have long since unanimously concurred to dissolve this Parliament else Sophistry will not carry it against the manifest truth By the premisses or rather by diverse excellent Tractates published by others to the same or the like effect I hope it is even as cleare that the Parliament is and ought to be the supreame Judge in publique matters now in question in England as what it is it hath judged and ordered touching these things by so many publique orders declarations and the like and consequently that reason wills that they be sacred in our esteeme and punctually obeyed and executed and so no need of warre and whosoever goeth against reason and truth goeth against God himselfe who is Prima summa pura ratie and it will concerne him nearely to looke to it whether he be stronger then God goeth against himselfe if he be a man and shall first finde a civill warre in himselfe before he can cause it in his Countrey upon such grounds and for his Majestie he cannot as he is a King but judge that that man thinks dishonourably of him who goeth about to perswade him that that can be for his good that is not for the good of his Kingdome and so sever what is so excellently joyned or that the great Counsell of the Kingdome is not the onely at least the very best and the onely sure and securing way without all doubt for that Prince to follow that intends the publique good and which will ever assuredly concurre with him to that end nor in opposing an arbitrary power which ill men about him for their owne private and wicked ends would induce Doth the Parliament any thing but disenable a Prince or rather those about him from doing ill or more properly from usurping such power which to what end is it in a good Prince which he will or can never reduce to act or use but the false or pretended Mother of the childe who would have it divided whom the wisdome of the King may discerne will whisper there is no thankes or glory to doe good unlesse he might have done evill and so did good freely since free will onely merits I beleeve they hold merits it seemes these malignants setched not this Doctrine from heaven for there we may finde that confirmation in grace in the Angels and blessed spirits of just men whereby compleat free will or the remaines of it which free will argues but imperfection and mutabilitie power to sinne being but impotency and the King of Kings God himselfe who is perfection it selfe being above and without all power or possibilitie of doing any evill yet rather therefore I should say omnipotent in or for good that confirmation in grace I say by which free will is transfigured and sublimed into a state divine and Posse non peccare into non posse peccare is a transcendent blessing if not the very essence of celestiall beatitude where these suggest such a condition is to be declined though with ruine of all But howsoever the Divines of our times may not allow the explication or application of this point we may hope his Majestie out of his Princely care of the good of his people though both himselfe and it may beleeve well of his good intents to that purpose will be far from judging such a puntiglio of arbitrary power for however it may fill and tickle the phantasie yet deeply and duely penetrated into by judgement it appeares to resolve even into no more if a puntiglio be any thing or least it might possibly be thought he would or might have done evill had he not been restreined from it when he cannot violate such just restrictions without first doing the greatest evill of all to the publique from judging I say such a puntiglio a just and sufficient cause to destroy the people by a civill warre when were this power indeed justly belonging to him yet true love to his people might judge
all Salus populi suprema lex and that power even of making new Lawes is ever upon the matter in both Houses of Parliament and that even when the King keepes himselfe within his due bounds and is assistant in Parliament how much more then as before is shewed if he shall by exorbitating dangerously bring himselfe within the compasse of our case and that the Kings consent to what the Parliament propounds to him to be enacted for Law ought not to be denyed may appeare by comparing this following part of the Oath which the Kings of England at their Coronation take or ought to take cited in the Remonstrance of the 26th of May in haec verba Concedis justas leges confuetudines esse tenendas permittis per te eas esse protegendas ad honorem Dei corroborandas quas vulgus elegerit secundum vires tuas Respondebit Rex Permitto concedo Comparing this part of the Oath with the clause of the preamble of a Statute there also cited intimating that the King is bound by his oath to remedy by Law such inconveniences as the Kingdome may suffer in the future as well as to keepe and protect Lawes already in being for then either those Latine words here cited or some part of them and that the latter namely Quas vulgus elegerit are to be understood of Lawes futurely to be made or else it cannot be shewed by what part of the Oath as the said preamble affirmes the King is bound by Law to remedy the mischiefs that happen from time to time to his Realme Nor will the Lawes of Grammer or use of speech or custome of phrase tolerate that Elegerit without the conjunction Si or the like preceding or regulating it though we passe not by unconsidered the rude speaking of those times can ever be taken for Elegit the preter-perfect tense but as it stands in the fore-cited place must of necessitie participate a future nature and signifie precisely shall have chosen that is that the King assumeth to confirme such Lawes as the people shall have chosen it being to be conceived that the people or Parliament first amongst themselves must have debated of chosen and agreed upon them before they present them to the King to be confirmed Besides if those cited words Et permittis per te esse protegendas ad honorem Dei corroborandas quas populus elegerit should not referre to future elections but to past onely they were superfluous and vaine the words precedent Concedis justas leges consuâ—tudines esse tenendas which presuppose necessarily and cannot be understood without a precedent election and consent of the people to them expressing sufficiently Lawes and customes elected already confirmed and in use And the Kings answer to these cited words being bimembris or two-fold Concedo permitto all the other answers of the King to the other Questions in the Oath cited in the said Remonstrance because the questions are meerely simple and single conteined in one word only as to one question onely Servabo to another onely faciam being also single and in one word argues the question to be double as is said And that the King is not bound onely in generall thus to remedy the particular wayes or meanes left to his choice see the said Remonstrance folio 8. which ought to have it selfe sufficed without such poore gleanings as these or the like If then by these and other better reasons which others have presented the Parliament hath such a legislative power even where the King dischargeth his office as upon the matter to make such Lawes as it judgeth best for the publique good where through the prevalence of ill men about him it is not done but the contrary and so the danger is from him shall not power be in them to make new Ordinances or provisionall Lawes for the timely remedying such publique mischiefs at least for the time and to suspend some of those in being if they judge fit How much more then to judge of declare or interpret those that seeme dubious ranging and making all to be subservient to the supreame Law Salus populi the rule and reason of all Lawes as was ever intended at the making of all particular Lawes Hath not even the Lord Chancellour a little touch of such a power upon the Common Law What then may we thinke a Parliament hath and that when the very publique is in danger And if the whole people unanimously consenting upon a Princes not performing what he is bound unto may possibly change the very forme of that limitted government which it first instituted how much more may it conserve or defend that temper or kinde of government which it hath erected by regulating the enormities of the Prince by maintaining and holding what they have reserved out of that which was all theirs at the first or their owne rights How many degrees then are they off from being bound to become themselves the instruments to overthrow them how strongly are they bound to the contrary And indeed were not the Parliament the supreame Judge in all the said questions or of like nature if we may call it a Parliament at all not having this power it could not possibly save the people when ill men prevailing upon the King would oppresse it for while they carry on by degrees and mature by little and little such their mysticall and pernicious designes which must be met with betimes in such tender and jealous matters before they advance and grow strong when caution comes too late and opposition out of season doth but exasperate and increase the evill they will cause the King by fit instruments for the purpose to pronounce judge or interpret each such degree or gaining a new and further point still lawfull and not subject to question however dangerous to the people in it self and of worse consequence till the mysterie at last unmask and all be desperate It may be superadded that should the Parliament be more jealous of the Prince then there were reason which yet as I hope hath appeared is not to be imagined of the wisdom and Justice of the Parliament yet it were the farre lesse evill that the Prince being but for the people should somewhat suffer by such the Parliaments jealousie which were but peccare in meliorem securiorem partem then that by the Parliaments too much security and beleeving in the Prince the people or whole kingdome should be endangered or oppressed for whose good they both are ordeined as means for the end Besides that the authority and politique infallibilitie of the Parliament must be by all that love their Countrey not blemished but held sacred and inviolate as supreame The King indeed saith he will defend and maintain the Laws Liberties properties of Subjects just priviledges of Parliament but even in saying this he seems to violate them if he thereby assume the supreame Judgement of them to himself which as already partly