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A47635 The transproser rehears'd, or, The fifth act of Mr. Bayes's play being a postscript to the animadversions on the preface to Bishop Bramhall's vindication, &c. : shewing what grounds there are of fears and jealousies of popery. Leigh, Richard 1649 or 50-1728. 1673 (1673) Wing L1020; ESTC R20370 60,432 152

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Preach the Desolation and downfall of the Man of Sin Ah many a good Book of Mr. Bs. and I. O's have these Bawlers cry'd the Project will take wonderfully with your Street-Auditory the Rabble Then they may sing the Fall of Antichristian Magistrates and Laws you have plentifully provided them with Canting for that purpose for from Pag. 243. to Pag. 250. you have carried on the Cause I will point to some of it Pag. 249. Pag. 250. Princes consider that God has Instated them in the Government of Mankind with that incumbrance if it may so be call'd of Reason and that incumbrance upon Reason of Conscience That he might have given them as large an extent of ground and other kind of Cattle for their Subjects but it had been a melancholy Empire to have been only Supream Grasiers and Soveraign Shepheards And therefore though the laziness of that brutal magistracy might have been more secure yet the difficulty of this does make it more honourable That men therefore are to be dealt with reasonably and Conscientious men by Conscience That even Law is force and the execution of that Law a greater Violence and therefore with rational Creatures not to be us'd but upon the utmost extremity That the Body is in the power of the mind so that corporal Punishments do never reach the offender but the innocent suffers for the guilty That the Mind is in the hand of God and cannot correct those perswasions which upon the best of its natural capacity it has collected So that it too though erroneous is so far innocent That the Prince therefore by how much God hath indued him with a clearer reason by consequence with a more inlightned judgment ought the rather to take heed lest by punishing Conscience he violate not only his own but the Divine Majesty So that if any Prince will hold his Kingdom by Mr. Animadve●ters Tenure he is fully Instated in the Melancholy Empire of all his Parks and Chases and next and immediately under Conscience over all Persons their Bodies only reserv'd in the power of their minds and their minds in the hand of God and all other kind of his said Majesties Cattle within his rational or irrational Realms and Dominions Supreme Head and Governour This indeed is the most full and comprehensive Inventory of the Goods and Chattels of Monarchy if I may so speak that eve● was heard of Instating Princes not only in the Government of irrational Cattle a Right which all successively have claim'd from Adam Brutal Magi●tracy being a Flower of his Crown and a Prerogative of his Melancholy Empire transmitted from him to the Patriarchs and all the Supreme Grasiers and Soveraign Shepherds but assigning also other kind of Cattle for their Government as their rational Subjects Ay and such Cattle as Conscientious Men. Which Right as it was at first deriv'd as some fancy from the Original Consent of the People so is the Exercise of it confirm'd by a like Consent of their Heirs or rather of their Consciences Now these tamer Subjects the Brutes are to be govern'd by force that is in our Authors words by Law for Hunters though they have an absolute Power of Life and Death over those we call the Ferae Naturae yet give Law even unto them but the Conscientious Drove are not so easily yok'd as the horn'd Subjects of the Wood and therefore Law is not to be us'd with them but upon the utmost extremity For which reason our Autho●tels us that Brutal Magistracy is more secure and the latter more difficult which confirms an opinion of the Malmsbury Philosophers that Horses had they Laws amongst them would prove more generous Subjects them Men. 'T is true the Animadverter says that God might have given Princes as large as extent of Ground and other kind of Cattle for their Subjects Subjects are one kind of Cattle it seems but it had been a melancholy Empire to have been only Supream Grasiers and Soveraign Shepherds And yet as Melancholy an Empire as that would have been he has instated them in one far more unpleasant and uncomfortable over Subjects from whom they must expect no greater security for Obedience then their own good Nature for punish them they must not if disloyal and unjust for fear of disobliging their Consciences for though he says that Laws should not be put in Execution but upon the utmost extremity 't is plain he intends they should not be Executed at all for in the very next words he affirms that the Body is in the power of the Mind so that Corporal Punishment do never reach the Offender but the Innocent suffers for the Guilty Admirable Stoick but say that the infamy of a Gibbet cannot shame the Generous Mind nor the Severities of the Rack and Wheel awe the most Servile say further that Corporal Punishments cannot reach the Principal Offender the Mind must therefore the Accessary and subordinate Instrument the Body scape unpunisht But the Mind it seems is not only out of the reach but Jurisdiction of the Civil Magistrate For it is in the hand of God and cannot correct those perswasions which upon the best of its natural capacity it has collec●ed So that if too though erroneous is so far innocent That the Prince therefore by how much God hath endued him with a c●earer reason and by consequence with a more enlightned iudgment ought the rather to take heed lest by punishing the Conscience he violate not only his own but the Divine Majesty So now let any of the most desperate Patrons of Fatal Necessity come out and speak any more Truly this is a pretty way not only of excusing but hallowing all the Villany in the World by dedicating it I dread to speak it to the Deity This is the Syntagm of Calvin's Divinity and System of our Authors Policy Bishop Bramhall as was before noted accus'd the Scotch Disciplinarians for making Kings but Kings of the Bodies and not of the Souls of their Subjects but this Gentleman is so courteous as to release them from the charge of both for the Bodies of their Subjects are exempt from their Jurisdiction as being in the Power of their Minds and their Minds are in the hand of God and so Monarchs had best take heed least by punishing the Consciences of their Subjects they violate with their own the Divine Majesty And now shut up the Church doors there is no use of Altars for the Guilty they need run no farther then to their own Consciences for Sanctuary and be safe Cut in pieces the Whipping Posts and Pillories make Bonfires of the Gallowses set open all the Prisons and let there be a general Goal-delivery for Corporal Punishments are all unjust and reach not the Guilty but the Innocent and what is more they are manifest infringments on our Libertys and the Magna Charia of Conscience Sheath the Sword of Justice mure up Westminster-Hall and set Bills on the Courts for Laws are force and the
Execution of them though in inflicting the smallest Penalties a greater Violence Away with these Oppressions of the Free-born All Causes are to be try'd in Foro Interno And every Man is his own Judge in that High Court of Judicature his Conscience from which in the Character of Soveraignty there is No Appeal Here Kings are depos'd for violating the Divine Majesty and their own in the Exercise of that large Power which God hath intrusted them as his Deputies with To this all must swear Allegiance and Supremacy and those that are Loyal to Conscience may lawfully be Traytors to their Soveraign The Supream Magistrate is accountable to the Inferior but the Conscientious Man in this preposterous way of climbing downwards is an Inferior Magistrate above even the Inferior as he is a Supream over the Supream Thus Conscience is at once like Mr. Calvin Pope and Emperor seated in St. Pet●rs Chair and the Imperial Throne invested with as great a Power in ordine ad Spiritualia as Gods Vice-roys justly challenge or Christs Vicar-general usurps So have we rejected one Pope and set up as many in his room as there are Subjects For had not Infallibility place in every private Judgment and Conscience is no more why should our Author imagine that Princes in punishing Conscience violate their own and the Divine Majestie For can they violate the Divine Majesty in punishing Error Sure I am if those Consciences do not erre that are tender of offending God in obeying Men and not tender of offending him in disobeying them we must alter the Scripture and say Disobey for Conscience sake but he adds the Conscience though erroneous is so far innocent as it is in the hand of God and cannot correct those perswasions which upon the best of its natural Capacity it has collected But if the Prince in punishing an●thers Conscience proceeds according to his own is not his so far innocent too And since you are so great an Advocate for absolute Necessity you should do well to remember that Zeno when his man pleaded a Necessity of Offending answer'd him with a Cudgel alleadging the like Necessity of Beating him Thus have you divested Princes of an Vnlimited and Vnco●●roulable Power and given it to a more Imperious and Arbitrary Tyrant Conscience And because your Adversary had told you that Princes have power to bind their Subjects to that Religion that they apprehend most advantagious to Publick Peace to avoid this Rock you split upon a worse concurring rather with your Dear Friend Mr. Milton who says that the only true Religion if commanded by the Civil Magistrate becomes Unchristian Inhumain and Barbarous In cashiering the Magistrates Authority in things Indifferent you rob him of all his Power for those things that are absolutely lawful and necessary in themselves were commanded by God before And besides that that Opinion that things Indifferent in themselves become unlawful when impos'd is irrational and absurd as if says one that were unlawful to be done when commanded which was lawful to be done even without a Command The Consequence is yet wilder For if things indifferently lawful become sinful when impos'd then by the same reason they must needs become necessary when they are forbidden And so consequently whatsoever of this nature the Magistrate shall forbid men must look upon themselves as bonnd in conscience to practice and thus you give him that power over your Consciences by his Prohibitions which you deny to his Commands No less ridiculous is this That Law is force and the execution of that Law a greater Violence and therefore not to be us'd with rational creatures but upon the utmost extremity But if the People be forc'd to obey those Laws to the making of which they consented in their Representatives certainly they are not forc'd without their own Consent Besides what have Rules of force in them and Laws in their primary intention were no more The Penalty was only annex'd in case of non-performance And here the Casuists those Reverend Serieants at the Gospel will tell you that it is not lawful without great reason to prefer Passive Obedience before Active because the Law aims not so much at Punishment as Conformity Neither is the execution of the Law so great a Violence as is imagined For some are Condemned to suffer for a Terrour to others To condemn them because they have offended is a folly says Plato for what is once done can never be undone But they are condemn'd because they should not offend again or that others may avoid the Example of their Offence And one man is hang'd to prevent the hanging of many more Upon considering all I see not but your State of Conscience leads to a wilder Anarchy then the Hobbian State of Nature and how much better might you have assign'd Princes the Government of an innocent Flock according to the Rules of Arcabian Policy then that of such ungovernable Cattle as Conscientious Savages The Command of Fields and Pastures is more honourable on these terms then that of populous Towns and Cities which our Poet and your Bishop D' Avenant calls the Wall'd Parks of Herded men What Monarch rather then he would be clogg'd with such conditions would not exchange his Royal Purple for a Forresters Green and the formality of that Dress you know no man would scruple in order to the Sylvan Empire So far however it is agreed by all in favour of your Supreme Grasiers and Soveraign Shepherds that their Melancholy Empire and Brutal Magis●racy shall for ever shut out of doors Roman Empire and Ecclesiastical Policy As to those Misfortunes which you observe Page 244 245. befell some bold Princes that were too saucy with their Subjects I shall only match them with some Historical Remarks in an ingenious Writer against Mr. Milton concerning the Rise and Fall of Republicks He tells us That it was not the Tyranny of Spain nor the cruelty of Duke D'Alva nor the blood of their Nobility nor Religion nor Liberty that made the Dutch cast off their obedience to their Prince but one penny excise laid upon a pound of Butter that made them implacably declare for a Common-wealth That the Venetians were banisht into a Free State by Attila and their glorious Liberty was at first no other then he may be said to have that is turn'd out of his House That the Romans were Cuckolded into their Freedom and the Pisans Trepan'd into their's by Charles the Eighth That as Common-wealths sprung from base Originals so they have ruin'd upon as slight occasions The same Pisans after they had spent all they had upon a Freak of Liberty were sold like Cattle by Lewis the 12th The Venetians Hector'd and almost ruin'd by Maximilian the First a poor Prince for refusing to lend him money as they were not long before by Francesco Sforza about a Bastard And the Florentines were utterly enslav'd for spoyling of an Embassadors speech and disparaging Petro de Medicis fine Liveryes To this