People beyond Subjection which is their best condition The very end and design of the Government being to keep down the great Monster of it that threatens it so as on neither side it can be imaginable that Rebellion should ever be the People's best good remedy or necessity which is pretended for it when it is acted being so wicked and unlawfull in it self Therefore we see it is ever either of the People pampered with Peace and know not what belong to War or judge not of the good of Government though they have it but in some degree good or else are cheated into it by Treason in a party designing other ends And the Vulgar the Character of them is all folly and evil inclination as mis-judging and to be unsatisfied so as never any condition makes their good under Government but when it is utterly out of their own Power Now the evil and destructive mischief of Rebellion as all accidents of destroying and oppressing come into it must needs prove the unlawfulness for wherefore are things unlawful but as they in their Natures are wicked Rebellion being of all causes in nature the greatest cause of Wickedness must needs be the greatest unlawfulness We are a little further to consider of the difficulty of Government in its self how many things naturally oppose to the good of it though the common good of all the Members is placed in it yet the most in their particular good or profit would act against it or some prejudice to it as every unlawful acting is against it besides all the dangers that come into it and difficulty to the means of it And some King's Governments naturally as it were though from accident are obstructed with difficulties and dangers which they must still over-come or else they perish so that the best that ever I could discern in it is for a Parliament to help the King as much as they can possibly to the good of it And a King of England his necessity will ever bring him to meet the People in Parliament And still let it be noted that resistance out of a Parliament makes no difference at all for it is rebelling still against the governing Power and most destructive when it shall pretend a lawfulness in another power I shall come now to the King 's own acting Did he not deny his own Prerogative about Ship-money and all other extraordinaries Regulate the Privy-Council and take away the Star-Chamber High-Commission-Court dissolve the great body of the Bishops out of Parliament to please the House of Commons Establish a Triennial Parliament pass against his Judgment and Conscience the Act for condemning and executing the Earl of Strafford and after grant them perpetual sitting against his power of dissolving Did so much to his own preserving that he gave away the means of his preservation and wrought his own ruine by it The like he had done before in Scotland restrained his Royal power there rewarded the very Rebels and against nature justified their Acts of Emnity against himself and declared his own party guilty I have set forth this to shew the nature of Kings in this their condition and in relation to the People and wherein a King's Interest consists that is not to fight for his own which by peace he possesseth and likewise it disproves them about the War it self to prove the Injustice of it on their part mearly affected to destroy the Government and to decline the King To shew what compliers Kings are to peace we ever see all Kings style their People their good People most when they fear evil from them treat them by all possible means of satisfaction and lowly tearms send forth Proclamations to purge any evil apprehensions of the People awed even by the very thoughts of the People such is the nature of Government to implant fear in Kings which is their great Governour Henry VIII the veriest Tyrant in his nature of any man that ever was yet his Government as to the Commons was good he acted cruelties beyond any other King upon particular persons of the great Ones whom his Jealousy did reach to In his Government good in general and declined all things of breach with the People though he seemed absolutely to command them 'T is true There are no Princes so stout as those who are most just as Queen Elizabeth with her sure ground of goodness to defend her kept her Parliament and People at greatest distance from encroaching upon Royal Authority King James had innocency and worth enough in him to vindicate him still and the truth is if the People could but weigh and penetrate into the exigencies and urgencies of State Interests how hard a thing it is to do but indifferently well in the Work of Government as to the People's satisfaction they would not seek to take advantages of Kings and hold them to extreams and can never have any good in the nature of it for the misfortune of the King ever returns upon the People It was not possible for the People to know their own Happiness under the Government of former Princes and it is a Blessing man never is endowed withal to know the measure of his good whilst he enjoys it and this is the cause that they prize it not but throw it away and wilfully bring themselvs to misery King James in whose time the People had nothing to do but laugh and play and follow their own Interests no great Taxes not the half as of Queen Elizabeth as for the time no fear upon the Nobility no fear or danger from the Prince's humour Religion perfectly Protestant the King himself the great owner of Interests in the reason and science of them yet the People most ungrateful no more satisfied than if they had been under a bad Government tired out with their very peace It is his own words to them in the Parliament 18. of his Reign We indeed find by experience that a number of our Subjects are so pampered with peace as they are desirous of Change though they know not what This happiness continued in the substance though not in all circumstances till the people themselves destroyed it so as they acted their sin and their Plague in one We come in the next place to that wherein he betrayes himself to the utter overthrowing of his Cause which I foresaw he would do at last Object If the Souldiers must know beforehand that if they do purchase a Victory by their bloud when they have all done they must be Governed by him whom they have conquered and lye at his mercy they would hardly ever have an Army to defend them for who would do the uttermost that is possible to exasperate him that he knows must rule him when all is done Answ If this be reason with Mr. Baxter now why not at first What Faith could he have in his Covenant which he destroyes by a Principle in his understanding We at first looked upon their pretences as for
Now being himself a chief Professor and Actor in those-Interests if he finds Argument for it so far it is his Reason if his Reason why not his Opinion I know not the difference if his Opinion why not of the party Thus he winds and scrues himself into that Interest he would disclaim and says more for it than the Actors themselvs and he concludes with these words And they say so as he sayes it and yet makes it their saying Either Mr. Baxter holds it lawfully done or unlawfully if lawfully then he loses his cause which is a disclamer of it as unlawful if unlawfully then his Judgment is that Form of Law used to unlawful Actions makes them less evil In Answer to it This is an Opinion so strange that forms of Justice put to wickedness to act it by should be the good of it or make it a less evil that I never heard it reasoned but condemned in Nature very Nature it self hath an abhorrency to it when we see Laws and Justice and Tribunals and any thing that is good in its self to be made the means to wickedness Now I shall enquire into the causes First it is because the Law is the Rule and measure of all Justice and Righteousness and therefore the perverting of that begets a common Injustice and this far exceeds the Nature of any particular evil because it refers and relates to the common condition of men All murdering by Law is most wicked and noxious because the Law it self in its truth and righteousness is murdered in it and therefore great actions of publick Injustice the Laws drawn down to serve to them are looked upon as Prodigies and this Argument is such as needs no amplification or addition to it it contains all in it self Then the villany and apostacy of it when it is done purposely of design and by Hypocrisy this comprehends in it the complicate nature of Wickedness when Hypocrisy is added to it and when that he calls Legal Judicial is made instrumental of it the Law debauched and bawded to serve to the interest of a wicked action this is the very height of wickedness it cannot in nature go higher And hence it is Hypocrisy and false pretentions and disguising our corruptions with shews and false owning of good is so hatefull and abominable and detested an agravation of all evil and wickedness It was an instance given in Parliament by the Lord Digby upon the tryal of the Earl of Strafford to illustrate the nature of acting wickedness by Law which they were going upon that one having gotten with Child his Brothers Daughter to mend the matter and to his further end of enjoying her marryes her and this is condemned by the Casuists as adding to the simple sin of Incest by the Ordinance of Marriage abused to it This shews the nature of it but we shall find it higher presidented in that of Naboth The design being the having his Vineyard the means must be such as would serve to the end a less means then to take away his life would not do it private murther will not serve it must be such a way as he must be condemned and lose his Inheritance with his life The Elders of the City are plotted with in it the solemnity of a Fast used it must be done formally Judicially they gave Judgment as appears because they received testimony heard Witnesses then kill and possess Nor this neither though extreamly wicked rises up to the heigth of the Kings Case no paralel in the world for it If it be objected That they did not act deceitfully but believingly though wickedly this is manifest against it that they resolved the death of the King before they tryed him Mr. Baxter cannot be so blinded with partiality as to believe the King in any case should have come off or been acquitted but precondemned and thus to make him more the subject of their cruelties and scorn and by a kind of Judgment to be the fatal period of Kingship to the Nations so as it was nothing but a direful design dark as Hell a meer conspiracy And Pagentry in the acting of it and the Law abused to it false in every part of it to do it in the name of the People and Parliament so as in this Mr. Baxters reason utterly deserts him or else he contracts all the guilt and odium of it upon himself to extenuate the evil of the Act by that which was the exquisite wickedness of it the formality and owning Authority in doing it Then to descend from the evil in the nature of it to a politick consideration of it this goes to the Calling the other but to the Person this brings all Kings under their people The difference betwixt this and that of the Pope is Things may be as evil as is possible yet not so extensively evil this is as universal as man is for where men are must be Government This judicial way which he places as the good of it is such a Monster in the president and practice of it as all the World is concerned in it It strikes a greater blow then the killing of many Kings the Calling killed in it the priviledg and exemption of Supream Governours killed in it the very essence of Government killed in it the subordination to God and to be judged by none but God killed in it all is beaten down and trampled upon by this act the whole frame of nature over-turned No such thing as Government can be if the governed may judg and execute their Governour Then the manner of it by this formality makes it viler upon the precious person of a Soveraign King than assassination murdering or sudden dispatching The King to be subjected to so miserable a condition as to be made appear a criminal at the Tribunal of his Subjects And if he had answered out of any poor imbasing hope he had stained that sacred Prerogative of Kings Not to be judged And all the tedious and odious formalities that did attend this which horror makes me not express but take it inwardly as that we owe the victims of our sorrow to To conclude it I confess before this horrid production I thought nothing could be worse then that of the Pope but now is the world of wickedness enlarged and such a Monster as seems to add to Nature the odium of it taints the English Nation and will do as long as memory is of any thing for he cannot deny it English though so many out of it so few in it Now after all this I do admire how Mr. Baxter can dispence with the Scriptures against using force to Kings or destroying them His distinction of Parliamentary right will not serve since it is absolutely forbidden Thou shalt not revile the Gods nor Curse the Ruler of thy People Exod. 22. ver 28. That they may have to offer sweet Odours to the God of Heaven and pray for the Kings life and his Sons Ezr. 6.10 This
the nature of Jurors so that it is the King's Commission that authorizeth and distinguisheth them When a Writ of Error issueth out of the Chancery to the House of Peerâ— they derive their Authority meerly from that Writ For the three Reasons aforesaid the House of Peers is no Court of Judicature at all without the King 's special Authority granted to them either by his Writ or his Commission As for the House of Commons they never pretended to any Power of Judicature and have not so much Authority as to administer an Oath Thus far his But the Argument is not at all pertinent as to the House of Lords whom they have expelled and all Form of Parliament or Callings but in the People their ground is onely upon a House of Commons as the People's Representatives Nevertheless we take the whole and give truly the Nature of a Parliament for the perfectest way of rejecting Falshood is by delineating the true Form It is not imaginable for a King to govern without the assistance and assent of the Peers for Government cannot stand alone for as they are ever a party where any King is the Question is only of the Commons Prin's plea for Lords pag. 182. which is an Adjunct and therefore the Searchers into Antiquity take upon them to antedate them and derive them but as an Accident to the Government in England But to take it in the whole it being a truly poised Government and mixed Interest hath left so great a share in the People as servs to treat their King 's with and be at all times able to gain conditions And God forbid any Power should deny to the People's good it can be no end of Government and therefore he is not single or alone but hath common consent in the great Interests of the Nation changing or making Laws or making impositions He must have common consent to this and this draws all the rest to it since hardly any thing can move but by these two Interests and this is the ballance of the Government to make it hang equal betwixt Prince and People And the evils and mischief that sometimes redounds is from the abuse of it not from the Nature of it being the best composition of Government in the World and the People freer under it than in any Common-wealth Government which they call free Government the Reason is a Secret till looked into Physically that is this best of all to be seen in our late long odious Parliament there all the People's Liberties were swallowed up the People uncreatured as it were no defensive all in the Parliament when as in the King and Parliament the People have a direct party and a defensive as there shall be cause against any deprivation of their Rights There are some Signals of Kingly absolute Right which need but naming as the King 's Adviseray to Bills which he will not pass which was ever effectual as to a total condemnation So as here was no Power out of the King all reduced to him in his last Power of denying and likewise of pardoning And this needs not plead any right for it but right of Nature in reason of Government else without such a Power the King might be reduced to nothing And a King never falls or loseth his Power but he is lost in himself too He does not retain Kingly Government but on condition to perish with it And therefore all Laws are styled of Grace and petitioned for because the People till they are passed the Royal assent have but a Right in Reason to them not in Law only from the Supream Law of Salus Populi which is the comprehensive of all Laws The common mistake is because the King cannot do such and such things without the Parliament Ergo The Parliament governs the King Now as to this Many may be said to govern me so as to restrain me that I cannot go beyond my own Power and yet this no active governing Power over another this is the easiest thing to conception that can come into imagination Is there not where any Right is which we call property a power of denying And this is all the absolute Parliamentary power considered dividedly from the King and this vast inconsequence containing all the means almost to be King unless the King would break throw it which is the hardest task any King can go about yet nothing of the Nature of governing power no agency or efficiency in it by it self but only a meer Negative Because I am engaged in this consideration I will resort back to the state of the Question of a Parliament to be the highest Judge of the safety or danger of the Republick The Answer is direct that the King is the sole Judge of the safety or danger of the Re-publick as King he is only trusted and there cannot be two such judging powers for then there can be no determination when they stand in competition Therefore all the Powers in the Kingdom act subordinately to the King and not against or athwart the King's Power for that were for a Being to destroy it self The distinction lies in this that they have nothing to do with the King's Power but the People's Rights which they dispose of by the King's consent and not absolutely at all out of themselvs In this they may oppose the King's desire that is they have a Negative Power not to be compelled or the People to be put out of possession without them But where the disagreement is they are to acquiesce and so nothing comes of it and the King fails of his end this is the height of their power Their Bills which they are free to make contain in them Grievances to be reformed which implies complaint and consent whatsoever the King cannot do by his quality singly as King he doth by consent of the People and that is the Character of a Parliament the People for it directly represents the Universality the People and hath directly and truly no power but what is nationally and naturally the People's so as look upon that you find this and no difference at all in it hence consenting and denying giving aiding being natural properties of Rights are left to them as the People in them And this though great as to all the means of governing it doth not come near it so vast a difference is betwixt being free in mine own and having Power over anothers as no reason needs to be given of it Nevertheless the King as the common Interest is not to be supposed deficient of the Publick means that were unnatural therefore as to Government it self all means are lawful nor any thing so concerning to the People as to keep the temperament for when they destroy that they lose the means to their own good I might leave it here in its causes but I shall say something by way of President Queen Elizabeth the greatest Courter of her People and yet the best Governour would lose nothing of her
AN ANSVVER TO A PASSAGE IN Mr. Baxters Book INTITULED A Key for Catholicks Beginning pag. 321. concerning the KING'S being put to Death By John Nanfan Esq LONDON Printed for John Jones Book-Seller in Worcester To the Reader I Know not why I should endeavour to please or satisfy concerning this that I throw it abroad which was solitary and private to me in the worst of times or any such Apologies or endeavours or essayes to take off censure It were too much submitting and subjecting to others let the matter and subject it self speak for it and let others condescend their Judgments to it and that is all that is desired It has no end out of it self Particular Reasons I have as that there is as good warrant in me to take off Mr. Baxter's presumptive violent injurious Arguments against Kings and Governments as he to assert them the cause is his he the assailant I am but the Defendant The sally out into the World and into so great an Interest as Kings Governments and terms of submission to them and when in some cases the people to kill and slay and destroy all these great exorbitant monstrous considerations come from Mr. Baxter he hath stated cases fixed them to Posterity that they may be fruitfull to generate in the World mine but an Arrest upon him both to redeem truth and likewise to let the World know that great Writers may contain much iniquity in them and how the World is to beware of them But why do I entertain the Reader at the Porch or without the Door and seem to intreat him to like the structure within which he is to behold Therefore I give it off only this that it speaks that time that disconsolate condition then it was made to and making it now another thing is not my end but to shew and represent the same for every thing has its rectitude in respect of the point it tends to And this good in it that though the subject sad yet it raises more considerations out of it and from it for we have our enjoyment from good times but our information more from bad And besides these considerations are general so as no time oâ—â—â— them truths that are not particular in their nature have an eternity in them And for ought we know there is as great a Wisdome required to retain our Government as to attain to it that lay but in one design and easily done because not discerned in the doing this is of a perpetual providence and perpetual danger and enmity against it and we are to betake our selves to all considerations wherein our good and evill is contained and publick good is the great end the wheel and sway and compass to all motions all particulars but considered in it AN ANSVVER TO A PASSAGE IN Mr. BAXTERS Book INTITULED A Key for Catholicks Beginning pag. 321. concerning the Kings being put to Death HE begins thus Concerning the Death of the King I shall not meddle at this time with the cause nor meddle with the Reasons brought for it or against it Answ It will appear by so much as concerns me to answer to whether Mr. Baxter meddle with the Cause or not This pretended abstemiousness is but to make it pierce the deeper and to â—ake his strength more considerable He is as great an Assertor of it as possibly he can find matter to make it speculatively true though in fact he keeps out of it Whilst he vies Interests with the Papists he takes upon him to hold the Ballance this of murdering the King in manner and form of it in one end of the Scale and that of the Popes cursing Kings and consequently murdering of them in the other and he finds his leighter by much which is the triumph of his cause and to this he does abet all his strength to make it good which is by making the evil of it less so as this is the very state of his Cause and you shall see him appearing in it by degrees like a winding stairs till he comes up to the top I shall take all his by way of Objections and answer to it Object The Providence of God hath so contrived it that nothing but ignorance or blind malice can lay it upon the Protestants Episcopal or Presbyterian that strove so much against it and suffered so much for it as they have done Answ In this he doth confound Interests to joyn the Episcopal with the Presbyterian I am very confident the Episcopal would not mix with any other Interest in such a defence and to peece them to the Presbyterian is an abuse It is a kind of Policy to defend a corrupt cause by taking into it that which cannot be denyed to be just and clear in it self and under colour of that to cry up the whole Not that I mean to condemn the Presbyterians directly for the Kings Death I leave that to particular Arguments as they fall out and to be understood in a just medium in it relating to Presbyterians and Protestants both that acted But his further Object When many on the other side charged the Scots and the Imprisoned Ministers of London with those that were put to death for going too far on the other side in manifesting their distasts of which I take not on me to be Judg but mention it onely as Evidence that clears them from the Deed. Answ How cautious Mr. Baxter is that he will not take upon him to be Judg who were in the right of those two parties one the Presbyterians that disliked the putting the King to Death and the other that acted it and were angry with them for disliking and expressing their dislikes He is very wary in this here with his reserves and savings that he does declare it only as matter of fact so tender is he not to engage too far to judg or conclude any thing in it This makes me doubt that in some passages hereafter where he calls it odious and detestable that he has a latitude in those expressions for an Act may have those epithiteâ— and yet possibly be lawful Now whether there may not be some thing of this in it though he declares against the fact I may doubt because of his denying here to condemn it Certainly he that in his Soul has not a full abhorrency to it is of the infection of it and no other construction can be made He goes on Object To vindicate the Protestants openly before all the World and to all posterity from that fact it is most publickly known that both Houses of Parliament in their protestations engaged themselves and the Nation to be true to the King Answ This was but in order to the War which they were forming against the King It was made the very means of raising the People by whom the War must be acted Upon a plain down-right way of fighting against the King could have had no colour with the People who are always in such popular confusions to be
to God's Glory and the worst of Man's Actions though all alike under the common Providence of God But a little further I desire his Patience to go along with me A King killed to day and the Regicide by his party becomes King in Fact and in Power to morrow then to morrow he obeys him with all Attributes of God's greatness Will Power Goodness and if him another on the next day then him too and so on still It is known that after it began in Nero how many Emperors came upon the stage of the World in a short space killing and dispatching the present gave being to the latter Now where will he define or place his Providence or bound Man's acting Certainly if at all in the first place for many reasons as the first loose or progression to Wickedness is the true cause of all the following and because there is a natural stay in the first which loosed the like is not found in the following The truth is it is a foolish thing to ty up Man's reason more in one thing than in another for if he argues things greater or higher to him he argues still but to his reason In the next he goes higher and like a Stone falling the nearer the Center the greater its force so he as he proceeds farther grows fiercer about the King 's being judged to death by his People and he extenuates the Fact by the formality of it I should wrong him not to give it him in his own words Object I must needs add that every wise man sees that the case it self much differs from the Papists If the Body of a Common-wealth or those that have part in the Legislative Power and so in the Supremacy should unwillingly be engaged in a War with the Prince and after many years blood and desolations judicially take away his life as guilty of all this Blood and not to be trusted any more with Government And all this do not as private men but as the remaining Soveraign Power and say they do it according to Laws undoubtedly this case doth very much differ from the Powder-Plot or Papists murdering of Kings and teaching that it is lawfull for a private hand to do it if he be but an Heretick or but deposed yea or excommunicated by the Pope Answ Mine thorow-out will give a larger consideration upon the whole But to his particulars as they pass from him First he saith have part in the Legislative Power and so in the Supremacy wherein he confounds them both together and makes it but one and the same To have part in the Legislative Power as to the altering of Laws or any other thing wherein it is exercised implies a right in the People as to those things and in the Nature of it a Negative Right That is that it could not be done without their consents and this Negative Right gives them not a farther Right Object His next is and judicially take away his life Answ The King 's own words at that hard time with him when they sate over him as his Judges are most worthy as from himself to be remembred He told them how far his case was their King from being judged by them when as all judicature was derived from him to them And certainly this alone of the King 's carryes Argument enough in it against all judging or condemning of King's or Supreams for no Power can create a Power against it self and nothing in nature can go higher than its first Cause A Power derived out of the King cannot be understood to be against the King He goes on to criminate the King whether his sense or supposition I know not Object As guilty of all that Blood Answ The King's unhappiness was to be made guilty because he was not able to defend himself And so shall every Prince be that is overcome by his Subjects they must be guilty to be destroyed Tyrants Wickedness do but prepare a guilt for the cruelties they mean to act It was the Kings own saying That he had not one foot of Land in his own Kingdom but what his Army stood upon It was not possible to be a more necessitated War than the King 's for all the World knows it was destiny upon him never persons so obdurate as to take no conditions never could find any Medium betwixt destroying their Soveraign and their own desperateness And the King's Interest wholly defensive not only for himself but for his Kingdoms and that made him say upon his death which seals all truths that he dyed his Kingdom 's and his People's Martyr It were easy to go upon demonstrative proofs in this but it would involve the whole Cause which we are to take in its parts Object And not any more to be trusted with Government Answ This is the reason in the Eye of the Law which sees to the end in the first act that all attempts to bring a King under any Power of his People are the same as to destroy him And this was resolved in the Case of the Earl of Essex he would seize upon the Court Camden's Annals p. 547 548. take the Queen into his Power not otherwise harm her remove from her evil Counsellors but honour her Person Now this was all adjudged high Treason in every circumstance of it because all depriving of a Soveraign Prince of his Power is the same as to destroy him Essex himself said before his death that the Queen and he both could not live and others the most eminent of his party acknowledged that though it were not their design to destroy the Queen yet it would have been the necessity of their proceeding if they had prevailed so as the effects of Rebellion Mr. Baxteâ— makes his Arguments Before I put an end to these Papers I shall resume again his words No more to be trusted with Government to make inquiry into the Rights of Kings and their Original to find their first Cause and to judge of their extent and terminations But at present to his next Object And all this they do that is take away the King's life not as private men but the remaining Soveraign Power and say they do it according to Laws Answ Mr. Baxter's Objective words without any proving brings every thing to a question as this hath two very great falshoods and high presumptions in it The one a Soveraignty in the Parliament the other a lawfulness of killing the King For the first which is made the conveyance to the latter to erect so high a wickedness upon a Parliamentary Supremacy to make them an expedient to kill their King is no more true than that there were two Kings in England two Suns in the Firmament of Government two Centers in a Circle two Infinites or any Impossibility that can be imagined But I shall have occasion to treat the Argument of the King 's sole Soveraignty in divers passages onely at present to it the Parliament is but a borrowed light all derived out
of the King the Fountain in opposition to the King it is but an opacous Body the light withdrawn from it Grotius states the case Grotius de jure Villi 54. inventi sunt nostro seculo whether Subordinates may act against the Supream Power that is whether any sort of Magistracy under a King have any quality or consideration in them as dividing from the King and he resolves it in the Negative He reasons it thus that these publick Persons are but private in respect of the chief and all the faculty of governing in them is so subjected to the chief Power as whatsoever they act against the Will of that is defective of the faculty and is but of the Nature of a private Act. I shall give it off here because hereafter I shall demonstrate the impossibility of two Soveraignties or Supremacies in one Government and reduce Parliamentary Rights to their due Qualification Now then take away this the other falls this the Theatre Mr. Baxter erects for judging the King and Scaffold for beheading him The truth is the Laws are all silent about this Question Whether a Parliament may commit Tteason so as if we shall not take them in their general understanding we have no law in this Case It is a thing not to be doubted that the Law never had it in imagination that there was any exception to the committing of Treason so as no such thing mentioned in Laws nor ever entred into the mind of any Commentator who write at large and many times their own conceipts yet it never came into the conceipt of any Person to except a Parliament for committing Treason It is many times in Nature the strongest Law that which is not mentioned because the case never imagined to be and therefore not provided for So as if Mr. Baxter will not take all the Laws that are generall without exception to include all Persons then is the King without Law as against a Parliament All the sense of the Laws respect the King without any consideration of Persons no sense or intendment of that but only the end to which it is directed and therefore it is called Crimen laesae Majestatis which shews where the end is in the King's Preservation but the means never differenced in respect of any It were in vain to enumerate the Laws and to aggravate them all dread and all saving being to the life of the Government the King This differencing is out of all Laws never thought of it had its Law and Execution at once as Treasons are never owned till they are acted But let the Reader consider upon the Statute 25 Edw. 3. which is the Declarative of Treasons whether there is discernable any differencing in it or exceptions of Persons or Callings or of qualities or any imagination of this Proposition till now that wickedness strives to defend it self I shall take occasion here to speak to former actings of Parliaments upon Kings deposing them and consequently killing them because the Nature of man is to think any thing that hath bin done may be done and so never finds end of wickedness but to make it infinite Any extraordinary or transcendent acting upon Government though never so unlawful and violent yet if it become powerful it commonly creates something to others to derive from it as those Persons whom Mr. Baxter would vindicate long before they divided declared That in case they should act to the highest Presidents they should not fail in duty or trust having their eye and aim upon the deposing of Kings Ed. 2. Rich. 2. And the last Actors that compleated the Tragedy conclude power of Parliaments from former destroying Kings and setting up others I shall produce it only into some considerations by Epitome only leaving the large Subject of it to the Histories how those Princes came to be declined and lose their Power The first Edw. 2. his condition was to be Prisoner to his own Queen and his Son a Prince of fourteen years of Age and the implacable hatred of the Queen and her party was such as the King must be destroyed no competition being to them both The whole Power was with them they call a Parliament which acted meerly as they prescribed The King deposed by Act of Parliament submitted and resigned in hope of life which he could not have The other as unhappy Richard II. Prisoner to the Usurper Henry of Lancaster his Cousin-Germane The Fate of subdued Kings by Traytors is ever to run into the same Center Traytors leave nothing undone of the last Act of destroying Now the actings being thus what are the considerations upon it First these Persons and the Parliament were the first that ever acted so in England and so must derive the Justice and Authority of it out of themselvs and nothing from whatsoever had been done before Next there was no such thing as King or Parliament in the Nature of it As well Jack Cade or Wat Tyler if they had compleated their Rebellion might have convened any party out of the People calling it a Parliament set himself up King for one Subject hath as much Right to be King as any other Next such a Parliament as it was it was the Subject of an Army the Army of the Usurper by which he had got Possession and destroyed the King's Power so as in effect condemning deposing was the Act of the Army absolutely for so it must be done by such a party called a Parliament and for the purpose and so are all our Mock-shews to set up any wickedness own Authority but act servilly and are meer imposture Next the Act horrid Treason as was imaginable or possible to be in Nature Now the Question comes to be Whether doing wickedly can create a lawfulness If so all sins and villanies by the perpetrating them lose their Natures to be evils and become lawful A conceipt nothing that comes into imagination can be more monstrous There must be a first lawfulness in every Act else the doing it is a Wickedness and still that wickedness perpetuated and multiplied in the after-acting it Next this condemned by the first Parliament that was upon the change of the Power for so long as the Power continued it stood for good as all Wickedness does But the Parliament under the rightful King damns it as traiterous detestable to be driven out of the World never to rise up again pulling down God's Judgments upon the Land Civil War and all the Plagues of it I shall conclude this that Wickedness can be no President Now having gone along with him upon his particulars which he only asserts not proves my next is to take notice and mind him that he is very near losing his cause which I fear he will do anon for he is arguing to a lawfulness in their putting the King to death and it is his business to keep himself out of it and likewise the Parliament's Cause and War and the Religion Protestant and Presbyterian
Prerogative she did every thing with her Parliament as with Subjects they knew their own business and she would keep them to it and abundantly the better for their obedience for every thing is good or evil as it is governed Not a Fast or Humiliation day or Preaching His Plea for the Lords p. 409. as learned Mr. Prin hath given the recital of it that they could set up for themselves but she would check it and bring them to Humiliation for it So dangerous a wise Prince sees it popular liberty but to begin to creep out They had essayes upon her about Marriage she would not admit the pressure upon her nor suffer them to be Judg in it Then after that of her Successor that went nearer to her Camden's An aâ—s Elizb a pinching thought and in this the repulse of them was harder because apparently did depend upon it the safety or danger of the Kingdoms after her yet in this she was resolved 't was too precious to her to part with it to them kept it to the last hour of her life when she could live no longer then she declared a Successor imprisoned their Members that promoted it laid absolute peremptory command upon the House against it Pryn's Plea for the Lords p. 410 411. at other times imprisoned their Members and would usually tell them when they exceeded that it was in Her to give them being and to dissolve their being and to assent and dissent to any thing done in Parliament This from the best and wisest of Princes well knowing that it is not possible for a Prince to be just to the People without true obedience from the people King James his time by some Passages then in the Parliaments will shew us the difference betwixt Regal Right and Parliamentary Right Parliament 5 James Dr. Rawley's result from Sir Francis Bacon p. 38 39. the Earl of Salisburyes words to a Committee of the House That matter of War or Peace was Arcanum Imperii and must be kept within the vail nevertheless that sometimes Parliaments have been made acquainted with matter of War and Peace in a generality but it was upon one of these two motives when the King and Councel conceived that either it was material to have some declaration of the zeal and affection of the people or else when the King needed to demand monies and aids for the charge of the War The Earl of Northampton at the same time another of the Council of State that both by Philosophy and Civil Law Ordinatio belli et pacis est absoluti Imperii He further reasoned That the composition of the House of Common was meerly Democratical and intended to have a private and local Wisedome as to the places that sent them and not fit to examine secrets of State which depend upon variety of circumstances and although there be divers Gentlemen in the mixture of the House that are of good capacity and insight in matters of State yet that was the accident of the person not the intention of the place and things are to be taken in the institution not in the practice The Parliament of the 18th of King James was a Parliament of contest and dispute and held out long by an able King and a severe People It was an effectual Parliament as to the granting of Subsidies and reforming abuses yet in the end thrown off The evills that it had to work upon were the evils of Peace and making danger of Religion a Monster and looking at it through the glass of their own Passions would dictate extreams to the King about it and the Spanish match formidable and the Kings unkindnesses from Parliaments had put him upon petty helps as livelihoods Monopolies about those bred no breach but was matter served them to work upon and wholly put to them and the persons offenders in it exposed and the King himself a chief actor to suppress it And to pull down the Chancellor Bacon for Bribery was their work yet at last it had not a legal end of a Parliament but dissolved by Proclamation and Crimination The King enforced to this for this King never acted to publick offence by his Passion but meerly his necessity Therefore I shall resort back and take some remarks and passages of the proceedings along with me to find where the stone of it was After the matter of the punishments were over the great and high considerations as for diversion of the Match with Spain and declaring war against that King for the Palatinate and new devised pressures upon Papists and pressing executions of Laws upon them so as they involve all the Kings Interest into their hands under the notion that it was the Kingdomes Interest The King hearing of this and it beating thorow his sides betakes himself to high resolution and to prevent the prejudice of receiving it formally from them writes thus to the Speaker These are to command You to make known in Our Name unto the House that none therein shall presume henceforth to meddle with any thing concerning Our Government or deep matters of State and namely not to deal with Our dearest Son's Match with the Daughter of Spain and also not to meddle with any mans particulars which have their due motion in Our ordinary Courts of Justice And whereas we hear they have sent a Messenger to Sir Edwin Sandis to know the reasons of his late restraint You shall in Our Name resolve them That it was not for any misdemeanor of his in Parliament But to put them out of doubt of any question of that nature that may arise among them hereafter You shall resolve them in Our Name That we think Our selves very free and able to punish any mans misdemeanors in Parliament as well during their Sitting as after Their Answer by way of Petition to the King first Palliating over and with the manner and inducements to go upon such things they have these words In the discourse whereof we did not assume to our selves any power to determine of any part thereof nor intrude upon the Sacred bounds of your Royall Authority to whom and to whom only we acknowledg it doth belong to Resolve of Peace and War and of the Marriage of the most Noble Prince your Son but as your most loyal and humble Subjects and Servants representing the whole Commons of your Kingdome who have a large interest in the happy and prosperous Estate of your Majesty and your Royal Posterity and of the flourishing Estate of Our Church and Common-wealth did resolve out of our cares and fears truly and plainly to demonstrate these things to your Majesty which we were not assured could otherwise come so safely and clearly to your knowledg and that being done to lay the same down at your Majesties feet without expectation of any other answer of your Majesty touching these higher points then what at your good pleasure and in your own time should be held fit Now if we do but