Aristotle whom you name so often if you had read him would have taught you as much in the beginning of his Politicks where he says they judge amiss that think there is but little difference betwixt a King and a Master of a Family For that there is not a numerical but a specifical Difference betwixt a Kingdom and a Family For when Villages grew to be Towns and Cities that Regal Domestick Right vanished by degrees and was no more owned Hence Diodorus in his first Book says That anciently Kingdoms were transmitted not to the former King's Sons but to those that had best deserved of the People And Justine Originally says he the Government of Nations and of Countries was by Kings who were exalted to that height of Majesty not by popular Ambition but for their Moderation which commended them to good Men. Whence it is manifest that in the very beginning of Nations that Fatherly and Hereditary Government gave way to vertue and the peoples right Which is the most natural reason and cause and was the true rise of Kingly Government For at first men entred into Societies not that any one might insult over all the rest but that in case any should injure other there might be Laws and Judges to protect them from wrong or at least to punish the wrong doers When men were at first dispers'd and scattered asunder some wise and eloquent man perswaded them to enter into Civil Societies that he himself say you might exercise Dominion over them when so united Perhaps you meant this of Nimrod who is said to have been the first Tyrant Or else it proceeds from your own malice only and certainly it cannot have been true of those great and generous spirited men but is a fiction of your own not warranted by any authority that I ever heard of For all ancient Writers tell us that those first Instituters of Communities of men had a regard to the good and safety of Mankind only and not to any private advantages of their own or to make themselves great or powerful One thing I cannot pass by which I suppose you intended for an Emblem to set off the rest of this Chapter If a Consul say you had been to be accused before his Magistracy expired there must have been a Dictator created for that purpose though you had said before that for that very reason there were two of them Just so your Positions always agree with one another and almost every Page declares how weak and frivolous whatever you say or write upon any subject is Under the ancient English-Saxon Kings you say the people were never called to Parliaments If any of our own Country-men had asserted such a thing I could easily have convinced him that he was in an error But I am not so much concerned at your mistaking our affairs because y' are a Foreigner This in effect is all you say of the Right of Kings in general Many other things I omit for you use many digressions and put things down that either have no ground at all or are nothing to the purpose and my design is not to vye with you in impertinence CHAP. VIII IF you had published your own opinion Salmasius concerning the Right of Kings in general without affronting any persons in particular yet notwithstanding this alteration of affairs in England as long as you did but use your own liberty in writing what your self thought fit no English man could have had any cause to have been displeased with you nor would you have made good the opinion you maintain ever a whit the less For if it be a positive command both of Moses and of Christ himself That all men whatsoever whether Spaniards French Italians Germans English or Scotch should be subject to their Princes be they good or bad which you asserted Page 127. to what purpose was it for you who are a foreigner and unknown to us to be tampering with our Laws and to read us Lectures out of them as out of your own Papers and Miscellanies which be they how they will you have taught us already in a great many words that they ought to give way to the Laws of God But now it is apparent that you have undertaken the defence of this Royal Cause not so much out of your own inclination as partly because you were hired and that at a good round price too considering how things are with him that set you on work and partly 't is like out of expectation of some greater reward hereafter to publish a scandalous Libel against the English who are injurious to none of their Neighbours and meddle with their own matters only If there were no such thing as that in the case is it credible that any man should be so impudent or so mad as though he be a stranger and at a great distance from us yet of his own accord to intermeddle with our affairs and side with a party What the Devil is it to you what the English do amongst themselves What would you have Pragmatical Puppy what would ye be at Have you no concerns of your own at home I wish you had the same concerns that that famous Olus your fellow busie-bosie body in the Epigram had and perhaps so you have you deserve them I 'm sure Or did that Hotspur your Wife who encouraged you to write what you have done for out-law'd Charles his sake promise you some profitable Professors place in England and God knows what Gratifications at Charles his Return But assure your selves my Mistress and my Master that England admits neither of Wolfes nor Owners of Wolfes So that it 's no wonder you spit so much venom at our English Mastiffs It were better for you to return to those Illustrious Titles of yours in France first to that hunger-starved Lordship of yours at St. Lou and in the next place to the Sacred Consistory of the most Christian King Being a Counsellor to the Prince you are at too great a distance from your own Country But I see full well that she neither desires you nor your Counsel nor did it appear she did when you were there a few years ago and began to lick a Cardinal's Trencher she 's in the right by my troth and can very willingly suffer such a little fellow as you that are but one half of a man to run up and down with your Mistress of a Wife and Desks full of Trifles and Fooleries till you light some where or other upon a Stipend large enough for a Knight of the Grammar or an Illustrious Critick on Horseback if any Prince or State has a mind to hire a Vagabond Doctor that is to be sold at a good round Price But here 's one that will bid for you whether you 're a Merchantable Commodity or not and what you are worth we shall see by and by You say The Parricides assert that the Government of England is not meerly Kingly but that it is a mixt
him as our Guide and adoring the impresses of his Divine Power manifested upon all occasions we went on in no obscure but an illustrious Passage pointed out and made plain to us by God himself Which things if I should so much as hope by any diligence or ability of mine such as it is to discourse of as I ought to do and commit them so to writing as perhaps all Nations and all Ages may read them it would be a very vain thing in me For what stile can be august and magnificent enough what man has parts sufficient to undertake so great a Task since we find by Experience that in so many Ages as are gone over the World there has been but here and there a man found who has been able worthily to recount the Actions of Great Heroes and Potent States can any man have so good an opinion of himself as to think himself capable to reach these glorious and wonderful Works of Almighty God by any Language by any stile of his Which Enterprize though some of the most Eminent Persons in our Commonwealth have prevailed upon me by their Authority to undertake and would have it be my business to vindicate with my Pen against Envy and Calumny which are proof against Arms those Glorious Performances of theirs whose opinion of me I take as a very great honour that they should pitch upon me before others to be serviceable in this kind to those most Valiant Deliverers of my Native-Countrey and true it is that from my very youth I have been bent extremely upon such sort of Studies as inclin'd me if not to do great things my self at least to celebrate those that did yet as having no confidence in any such Advantages I have recourse to the Divine Assistance And invoke the Great and Holy God the Giver of all good Gifts that I may as substantially and as truly discuss and refute the Sawciness and Lies of this Foreign Declamator as our Noble Generals piously and successfully by force of Arms broke the King's Pride and his unruly Domineering and afterwards put an end to both by inflicting a memorable Punishment upon himself and as throughly as a single person did with case but of late confute and confound the King himself rising as it were from the Grave and recommending himself to the People in a Book publish'd after his death with new Artisices and Allurements of Words and Expressions Which Antagonist of mine though he be a Foreigner and though he deny it a thousand times over but a poor Grammarian yet not contented with the Salary due to him in that Capacity chose to turn a Pragmatical Coxcomb and not only to intrude in State-Affairs but into the Affairs of a Foreign State tho he brings along with him neither Modesty nor Understanding â—or any other qualification requisite in so great an Arbitrator but Sawciness and a little Grammar only Indeed if he had publish'd here and in English the same things that he has now wrote in Latin such as it is I think no man would have thought it worth while to return an Answer to them but would partly despise them as common and exploded over and over already and partly abhor them as sordid and Tyrannical Maxims not to be endured even by the most abject of Slaves Nay men that have even sided with the King would have had these thoughts of his Book But since he has swol'n it to a considerable bulk and dispers'd it amongst Foreigners who are altogether ignorant of our Affairs and Constitution it 's sit that they who mistake them should be better informed and that he who is so very forward to speak ill of others should be treated in his own kind If it be asked why we did not then attack him sooner why we suffered him to triumph so long and pride himself in our silence For others I am not to answer for my self I can boldly say That I had neither had words nor Arguments long to seek for the defence of so good a Cause if I had enjoyed such a measure of health as would have endur'd the fatigue of writing And being but yet weak in Body I am forced to write by piece-meal and break off almost every hour though the Subject be such as requires an unintermitted study and intenseness of mind But though this bodily Indisposition may be a hindrance to me in setting forth the just Praises of my most worthy Countreymen who have been the Saviours of their Native Country and whose Exploits worthy of Immortality are already famous all the World over yet I hope it will be no difficult matter for me to defend them from the Insolence of this silly little Scholar and from that sawey Tongue of his at least Nature and Laws would be in an ill case if Slavery should find what to say for it self and liberty be mute and if Tyrants should find men to plead for them and they that can master and vanquish Tyrants should not be able to find Advocates And it were a deplorable thing indeed if the Reason Mankind is endu'd withal and which is the gift of God should not furnish more Arguments for mens Preservation for their Deliverance and as much as the nature of the thing will bear for making them equal to one another than for their oppression and for their utter ruine under the Domineering Power of One single Person Let me therefore enter upon this Noble Cause with a chearfulness grounded upon this Assurance That my Adversary's Cause is maintain'd by nothing but Fraud Fallacy Ignorance and Barbarity whereas mine has Light Truth Reason the Practice and the Learning of the best Ages of the World of its side But now having said enough for an Introduction since we have to do with Criticks let us in the first place consider the Title of this Choice Piece Defensio Regia pro Car. Primo ad Car. Secundum A Royal Defence or the King's Defence for Charles the First to Charles the Second You undertake a wonderful piece of work whoever you are to plead the Father's Cause before his own Son a hundred to one but you carry it But I summon you Salmasius who heretofore sculk'd under a wrong name and now go by no name at all to appear before another Tribunal and before other Judges where perhaps you may not hear those little Applauses which you use to be so fond of in your School But why this Royal Defence dedicated to the King 's own Son We need not put him to the torture he confesses why At the King charge says he O mercenary and chargeable Advocate could you not afford to write a Defence for Charles the Father whom you pretend to have been the best of Kings to Charles the Son the most indigent of all Kings but it must be at the poor King 's own Charge But though you are a Knave you would not make your self ridiculous in calling it the King's Defence for you having sold it it
of our Fugitives only I wish they had clove there to this day for we know very well that there 's nothing more common with them than to have their mouths full of Curses and Imprecations which indeed all good men abominate but withal despise As for others it 's hardly credible that when they heard the news of our having inflicted a Capital Punishment upon the King there should any be found especially in a Free State so naturally adapted to Slavory as either to speak ill of us or so much as to censure what we had done Nay 't is highly probable that all good men applauded us and gave God thanks for so illustrious so exalted a piece of Justice and for a caution so very useful to other Princes In the mean time as for those fierce those steel hearted men that you say take on for and bewall so pitifully the lamentable and wonderful death of I know not who them I say together with their tinkling Advocate the dullest that ever appeared since the Name of a King was born and known in the world we shall e'en let whine on till they cry their eyes out But in the mean time what School-boy what little insignificant Monk could not have made a more elegant Speech for the King and in better Latin than this Royal Advocate has done But it would be folly in me to make such particular Animadversions upon his Childishness and Frenzies throughout his Book as I do here upon a few in the beginning of it which yet I would be willing enough to do for we hear that he is swollen with Pride and Conceit to the utmost degree imaginable if the ill-put-together and immethodical bulk of his book did not protect him He was resolved to take a course like the Soldier in Terence to save his Bacon and it was very cunning in him to stuff his Book with so much Childishness and so many silly whimsies that it might nauseate the smartest man in the world to death to take notice of 'em all Only I thought it might not be amiss to give a specimen of him in the Preface and to let the serious Reader have a taste of him at first that he might guess by the first dish that 's serv'd up how noble an Entertainment the rest are like to make and that he may imagine within himself what an infinite number of Fooleries and Impertinencies must heeds be heaped up together in the body of the Book when they stand so thick in the very Entrance into it where of all other places they ought to have been shunned His tittle-tattle that follows and his Sermons fit for nothing but to be worm eaten I can easily pass by as for any thing in them relating to us we doubt not in the least but that what has been written and published by Authority of Parliament will have far greater weight with all wise and sober men than the Calumnies and Lies of one single impudent little Fellow who being hired by our Fugitives their Countrey 's Enemies has scrap'd together and not scrupled to publish in Print whatever little Story any one of them that employed him put into his head And that all men may plainly see how little conscience he makes of setting down any thing right or wrong good or bad I desire no other Witness than Salmasius himself In his book entituled Apparatus contra Primatum Papae he says There are most weighty Reasons why the Church ought to lay aside Episcopacy and return to the Apostolical Institution of Presbyters That a far greater â—ischief has been introduced into the Church by Eâ—…copacy than the Schisms themselves were which were before apprehended That the Plague which Episcopacy introduced depressed the whole body of the Church under a miserable Tyranny Nay had put a yoke even upon the necks of Kings and Princes That it would be more beneficial to the Church if the whole Hierarchy it self were extirpated than if the Pope only who is the Head of it were laid aside page 160. That it would be very much for the good of the Church if Episcocy were taken away together with the Papacy That if Episcopacy were once taken down the Papacy would fall of it self as being founded upon it page 171. He says he can show very good reasons why Episcopacy ought to be put down in those Kingdoms that have renounced the Pope's Supremacy but that he can see no reason for retaining it there That a Reformation is not entire that is defective in this point That no reason can be alledged no probable cause assigned why the Supremacy of the Pope being once disowned Episcopacy should notwithstanding be retained page 197. Tho he had wroâ—e all this and a great deal more to this effect but four years ago he is now become so vain and so impudent withal as to accuse the Parliament of England for not only turning the Bishops out of the House of Lords but for abolishing Episcopacy it self Nay he persuades us to receive Episcopacy and defends it by the very same Reasons and Arguments which with a great deal of earnestness he had confuted himself in that former Book to wit That Bishops were necessary and ought to have been retained to prevent the springing up of a Thousand pernicious Sects and Heresies Crafty Turn-coat Are you not asham'd to shift hands thus in things that are Sacred and I had almost said to betray the Church whose most solemn Institutions you seem to have asserted and vindicated with so much noise that when it should seem for your interest to change sides you might undo and subvert all again with the more disgrace and infamy to your self It 's notoriously known That when both Houses of Parliament being extremely desirous to Reform the Church of England by the pattern of other Reformed Churches had resolved to abolish Episcopacy the King first interposed and afterwards waged War against them chiefly for that very cause which proved fatal to him Go now and â—oast of your having Defended the King who that you might the better defend him do now openly betray and impugn the Cause of the Church whose Defence you your self had formerly undertaken and whose severest Censures ought to be inflicted upon you As for the present form of our Government since such a Foreign insignificant Professor as you having laid aside your Boxes and Desks stufft with nothing but Trifles which you might have spent your time better in putting into order will needs turn busie-body and be troublesome in other mens matters I shall return you this answer or rather not to you but to them that are wiser than your self viz. That the Form of it is such as our present distractions will admit of not such as were to be wish'd but such as the obstinate Divisions that are amongst us will bear What State soever is pestered with Factions and defends it self by Force of Arms is very just in having regard to those only that are found and untainted and
your Bones well-thrash'd with a Fool 's staff for thinking to stir up Kings and Princes to War by such Childish Arguments Then you cry aloud to all Nations who I know full well will never heed what you say You call upon that Wretched and Barbarous Crew of Irish Rebels too to assert the King's Party Which one thing is sufficient evidence how much you are both a Fool and a Knave and how you out-do almost all Mankind in Villany Impudence and Madness who scruple not to implore the Loyalty and Aid of an execrable People devoted to the Slaughter whom the King himself always abhorr'd or so pretended to have any thing to do with by reason of the guilt of so much innocent Blood which they had contracted And that very perfidiousness and Cruelty which he endeavoured as much as he could to conceal and to clear himself from any suspition of you the most villanous of Mortals as fearing neither God nor Man voluntarily and openly take upon your self Go on then undertake the Kings Defence at the Encouragement and by the Assistance of the Irish You take care and so you might well lest any should imagine that you were about to bereave Cicero or Demosthenes of the praise due to their Eloquence by telling us before hand that you conceive you ought not to speak like an Orator 'T is wisely said of a Fool you conceive you ought not to do what is not in your Power to do and who that knows any thing of you ever expects any thing like an Orator from you Who neither uses nor is able to publish any thing that 's Elaborate Distinct or has so much as Sense in it but like a second Crispin or that little Grecian Tzetzes so you do but write a great deal take no pains to write well nor could write any thing well though you took never so much pains This Cause shall be argued say you in the hearing and as it were before the Tribunal of all Mankind That 's what we like so well that we could now wish we had a discreet and intelligent Adversary and not such a hair-brain'd Blunderbuss as you to deal with You conclude very Tragically like Ajax in his Raving I will proclaim to Heaven and Earth the Injustice the Villany the Perfidiousness and Cruelty of these Men and will deliver them over convicted to all Posterity O Flowers that such a witless senseless Bawler one that was born but to spoil or transcribe good Authors should think himself able to writ any thing of his own that will reach Posterity Whom together with his frivolous Scribles the very next Age will bury in Oblivion unless this Defence of the King perhaps may be beholden to the Answer I give to it for being looked into now and then And I would entreat the Illustrious States of Holland to take off their Prohibition and suffer the Book to be publickly sold For when I have detected the Vanity Ignorance and Falshood that it is full of the farther it spreads the more effectually it will be supprest Now let us hear how he Convicts us A DEFENCE OF THE People of England CHAP. I. I Persuade my self Salmasius that you being a vain flashy man are not a little proud of being the King of Great Britain's Defender who himself was stil'd the Defender of the Faith For my part I think you deserve your titles both alike for the King defended the Faith and you have defended him so that betwixt you you have spoil'd both your Causes which I shall make appear throughout the whole ensuing Discourse and particularly in this very Chapter You told us in the 12th Page of your Preface that so good and so just a cause ought not to be embelisht with any flourishes of Rhetorick that the King needed no other defence than by a bare Narrative of his Story and yet in your first Chapter in which you had promised us that bare Narrative you neither tell the Story aright nor do you abstain from making use of all the skill you have in Rhetorick to set it off So that if we must take your own judgment we must believe the King's Cause to be neither good nor just But by the way I would advise you not to have so good an opinion of your self for no body else has so of you as to imagin that you are able to speak well upon any subject who can neither play the part of an Orator nor an Historian nor express your self in a stile that would not be ridiculous even in a Lawyer but like a Mountebank's Jugler with big swelling words in your Preface you rais'd our expectation as if some mighty matter were to ensue in which your design was not so much to introduce a true Narrative of the King's Story as to make your own empty intended flourished go off the better For being now about to give us an account of the matter of fact you find your self encompassed and affrighted with so many Mâ—nstâ—rs of Novelty that y' are at a loss what to say first what next and what last of all I le tell ye what the matter is with you In the first place you find your self affrighted and astonish'd at your own monstrous Lies and then you find that empty head of yours not encompass'd but carried round with so many trifles and fooleries that you not only now do not but never did know what was â—it to â—e spoken and in what method Among the mâ—…y 〈◊〉 that you find in expressing the â—â—inousness of so 〈◊〉 a piece of impiety this one offers iâ— self you say which 〈◊〉 â—…y 〈◊〉 and must often be repeated to wit that the Sâ—◠〈◊〉 self never bâ—hâ—ld a more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But by your good leave Sir the Sun has beheld many things that blind Bernard never saw But we are content you should mention the Sun over and over And it will be a piece of Prudence in you so to do For though our wickedness does not require it the coldness of the 〈◊〉 that you are making does The original of Kings you say is as ancient as that of the Sun May the Gods and Goddesses Damasippus bless thee with an everlasting Solstice that thou maist always be warm thou that canst not stir a foot without the Sun Perhaps you would avoid the imputation of being called a Doctor Umbraticus But alas you are in perfect darkness that make no difference betwixt a Paternal power and a Regal and that when you had called Kings Fathers of their Country could fancy that with that Metaphor you had persuaded us that whatever is applicable to a Father is so to a King Alas there 's a great difference betwixt them Our Fathers begot us Our King made not us but we him Nature has given Fathers to us all but we our selves appointed our own King So that the people is not for the King but the King for them We bear with a Father though he be harsh and severe and so we do with
that he might lawfully prey upon mankind bear down all that stood in his way and turn all things up-side down Did the Romans ever maintain as you say they did That any man might do these things suo Jure by vertue of some inherent right in himself Salust indeed makes C. Memmius a Tribune of the people in an invective Speech of his against the pride of the Nobility and their escaping unpunish'd howsoever they misbehaved themselves to use these words viz. to do whatever one has a mind to without fear of Punishment is to be a King This Saying you catch'd hold off thinking it would make for your purpose but consider it a little better and you 'll find your self deceiv'd Does he in that place assert the right of Kings Or does he not blame the common-people and chide them for their sloth in suffering their Nobility to Lord it over them as if they were out of the reach of all Law and in submitting again to that Kingly Tyranny which together with their Kings themselves their Ancestors had lawfully and justly rejected and banish'd from amongst them If you had consulted Tully you would have understood both Salust and Samuel better In his Oration pro C. Rabirio There is none of us ignorant says he of the manner of Kings These are their Lordly dictates Mind what I say and do accordingly Many passages to this purpose he quotes out of Poets and calls them not the right but the custom or the manner of Kings and he says We ought to read and consider them not only for curiosity sake but that we may learn to beware of 'em and avoid ' em You perceive how miserably you 're come off with Salust who though he be as much an enemy to Tyranny as any other Author whatsoever you thought would have Patroniz'd this Tyrannical right that you are establishing Take my word for 't the right of Kings seems to be tottering and even to further its own ruin by relying upon such weak props for its support and by endeavouring to maintain it self by such Examples and Authorities as would hasten its down-fall if it were further off than it is The extremity of right or law you say is the height of injury Summum jus summa injuria this saying is verified most properly in Kings who when they go to the utmost of their right fall into those courses in which Samuel makes the Right of Kings to consist And 't is a miserable Right which when you have said all you can for you can no otherwise defend than by confessing that it is the greatest injury that may be The extremity of Right or Law is said to be when a man ties himself up to Niceties dwells upon Letters and Syllables and in the mean time neglects the intent and equity of the Law or when a written Law is cunningly and maliciously interpreted this Cicero makes to have been the rise of that common saying But since 't is certain that all right flows from the fountain of Justice so that nothing can possibly be any man's right that is not just 't is a most wicked thing in you to affirm that for a King to be unjust rapacious tyrannical and as ill as the worst of 'em ever were is according to the right of Kings and to tell us that a Holy Prophet would have persuaded the people to such a senseless thing For whether written or unwritten whether extreme or remiss what Right can any Man have to be injurious Which lest you should confess to be true of other Men but not of Kings I have one Man's Authority to oppose you with who I think was a King himself and professeth that that Right of Kings that you speak of is odious both to God and himself It is in the 94th Psalm Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee that frameth mischief by a law Be not therefore so injurious to God as to ascribe this Doctrine to him viz. that all manner of wicked and flagitious Actions are but the Right of Kings since himself tells us that he abhors all fellowship with wicked Princes for this very reason Because under pretence of Soveraignty they create Misery and Vexation to their Subjects Neither bring up a false Accusation against a Prophet of God for by making him to teach us in this place what the Right of Kings is you do not produce the right Samuel but such another empty Shadow as was raised by the Witch of Endor Tho for my own part I verily believe that that infernal Samuel would not have been so great a Lyar but that he would have confess'd that what you call the Right of Kings is Tyranny We read indeed of Impieties countenanced by Law Jus datum sceleri you your self confess that they are bad Kings that have made use of this boundless License of theirs to do every thing Now this Right that you have introduc'd for the Destruction of Mankind not proceeding from God as I have prov'd it does not must needs come from the Devil and that it does really so will appear more clearly hereafter By vertue of this Liberty say you Princes may if they will And for this you pretend to have Cicero's Authority I 'm always willing to mention your Authorities for it generally happens that the very Authors you quote them out of give you an Answer themselves Hear else what Cicero says in his 4th Phillippicke What cause of War can be more just and warrantable than to avoid Slavery For tho a People may have the good fortune to live under a Gentle Master yet they are in a miserable Condition whose Prince may Tyrannize over them if he will May that is can has Power enough so to do If he meant it of his Right he would contradict himself and make that an unjust Cause of War which himself had affirm'd with the same Breath to be a most just one It is not therefore the Right of all Kings that you describe but the Injuriousness and Force and Violence of some Then you tell us what private men may do A private Man say you may Lie may be Ungrateful and so may Kings but what then May they therefore Plunder Murder Ravish without controul 'T is equally prejudicial and destructive to the Common-wealth whether it be their own Prince or a Robber or a Foreign Enemy that Spoils Massacres and Enslaves them And questionless being both alike Enemies of Humane Society the one as well as the other may lawfully be oppos'd and punish'd and their own Prince the rather because he tho raised to that Dignity by the Honours that his People have conferr'd upon him and being bound by his Oath to defend the Publick Safety betrays it notwithstanding all At last you grant That Moses prescribes Laws according to which the King that the People of Israel should chuse ought to Govern tho different from this Right that Samuel proposeth which words contain a double Contradiction to what you
that may save in all thy cities and thy judges of whom thou saidest give me a king and princes I gave thâ—â— a king in mine anger and took him 〈…〉 my wrath And Gidem that warlike Judg that was greater than a King I will not rule over you says he 〈…〉 shall my son rule over you the Lord shall rule over you Judges Chap the 8th Intimating thereby that it is not fit for a man but for God only to exercise Dominion over men And hence Josephus in his Book against Aâ—… an Egyptian Grammarian and a â—oulmouth'd fellow like you calls the Commonwealth of the Hebrews a Theocracy because the principality was in God only In Isaiah Chap. 26. v. 13. The people in their repentance complain that it had been mischievous to them that other Lords besides God himself had had Dominion over them All which places prove clearly that God gave the Israelites a King in his anger but now who can forbear laughing at the use you make of Abimelech's story Of whom it is said when he was kill'd partly by a woman that hurl'd a piece of a Mill-stone upon him and partly by his own Armour-Bearer that God rendred the wickedness of Abimelech This History say you proves strongly that God only is the Judge and Avenger of Kings Yea if this Argument holds he is the only Judge and Punisher of Tyrants Villanous Rascals and Bastards whoever can get into the Saddle whether by right or by wrong has thereby obtain'd a Soveraign Kingly right over the people is out of all danger of punishment all inferior Magistrates must lay down their Arms at his feet the people must not dare to mutter But what if some great notorious robber had perished in War as Abimelech did would any man infer from thence That God only is the Judge and Punisher of High-way men Or what if Abimelech had been condemn'd by the Law and died by an Executioner's hand would not God then have rendred his wickedness You never read that the Judges of the Children of Israel were ever proceeded against according to Law And yet you confess That where the Government is an Aristocracy the Prince if there be any may and ought to be call'd in question if he break the Laws This in your 47th Page And why may not a Tyrant as well be proceeded against in a Kingly Government Why because God rendred the wickedness of Abimelech So did the Women and so did his own Armour-bearer over both which he pretended to a right of Soveraignty And what if the Magistrates had rendred his wickedness Do not they bear the Sword for that very purpose for the punishment of Malefactors Having done with his powerful argument from the History of Abimelech's death he bâ—takes himself as his custom is to Slanders and Calumnies nothing but dirt and filth comes from him but for those things that he promis'd to make appear he hath not prov'd any one of them either from the Scriptures or from the Writings of the Rabbins He alledges no reason why Kings should be above all Laws and they only of all mortal men exempt from punishment if they deserve it He falls foul upon those very Authors and Authorities that he makes use of and by his own Discourse demonstrates the truth of the opinion that he argues against And perceiving that he is like to do but little good with his arguments he endeavours to bring an odium upon us by loading us with slanderous accusations as having put to death the most Vertuous innocent Prince that ever reign'd VVas King Solomon says he better than King Charles the First I confess some have ventur'd to compare his Father King James with Solomon nay to make King James the better Gentleman of the 〈◊〉 Solomon was David's Son David had been Sauâ—… â—…n but king James was the Son of the End of Darly who as â—uchanan tells us because Dâ—… the Musitian get into the Queen's Bed-Chamber at an unseasonable time kill'd him a little after he could not get to him then because he had Bolted the Door on the inside So that King James being the Son of an Earâ— was the better Gentleman and was frequently called a second Solomon though it is not very certain that himself was not the Son of David the Musitian too But how could it ever come into your head to make a comparison betwixt King Câ—ries and Solomon For that very King Charles whom you praise thus to the sky that very man's obâ—…acy and covetousness and cruelty his hard usage of all good and honest men the Wars that he rais'd the Spoilings and Plunderings and Conflagrations that he occasioned and the death of innumerable of his Subjects that he was the cause of does his Son Charles at this very time whilest I 'm a writing confess and bewail in the Stool of Repentance in Scotland and renounces there that Kingly right that you assert but since you delight in Parallels let 's compare King Charles and King Solomon together a little Solomon began his reign with the death of his Brother who had justly deserved it King Charles began his with his Father's Funeral I do not say with his Murder and yet all the marks and tokens of Poyson that may be appeared in his dead body but the suspition lighted upon the Duke of Buckingham only whom the 〈◊〉 notwithstanding cleared to the Parliament though he had killed the King and his Father and not only soâ— but he dissolved the Parliament lest the matter should be enquired into Solomon oppressed the people with heavy Taxes but he spent that â—…upon the Temple of God and in raising other publick Buildings King Charles spent his in Extravag 〈◊〉 Solomon was enticed to Idolatry by many Wives This man by one Solomon though he were seduced himself we read not that he seduced others but King Charles seduced and enticed others not only by large and ample rewards to corrupt the Church but by his Edicts and Ecclesiastical Constitutions he compelled them to set up Altars which all Protestants abhor and to bow down to Crucifixes painted over them on the Wall But yet for all this Solomon was not condemned to die Nor does it follow because he was not that therefore he ought not to have been Perhaps there were many Circumstances that made it then not expedient But not long after the people both by words and actions made appear what they took to be their right when Ten Tribes of Twelve revolted from his Son and if he had not saved himself by flight it is very likely they would have stoned him notwithstanding his Threats and big swelling words CHAP. III. HAving proved sufficiently that the Kings of the Jews were subject to the same Laws that the people were That there are no exceptions made in Scripture That 't is a most false assertion grounded upon no reason nor warranted by any Authority to say That Kings may do what they list with Impunity That God has exempted them
endeavoured to suppress and obscure was then brought to light by the furious passion or to speak more mildly by the ignorant indiscrâ—â—t zeal of one of them After you have displaâ—'d Ambrose his ignorance you show your own or rather vent a Heresie in affirming point blank That under the old Testament there was no such thing as forgiveness of sins upon the account of Christ's sufferings since David confess'd his transgression saying Against thee only have I sinned P. 68. 'T is the Orthodox tenet that there never was any remission of sins but by the blood of the Lamb that was slain from the beginning of the world I know not whose Disciple you are that set up for a broacher of new Heresies but certain I am that that great Divine's Disciple whom you are so angry with did not mistake himself when he said that any one of David's Subjects might have said against thee only have I sinned as properly and with as much right as David himself Then you quote St. Augustine and produce a company of Hipponensian Divines What you alledg out of St. Austin makes not at all against us We confess that as the Prophet Daniel has it it 's God that changeth times sets up one Kingdom and pulls down another we only desire to have it allow'd us that he makes use of men as his Instruments If God alone gave a Kingdom to King Charles God alone has taken it from him again and given it to the Parliament and to the People If therefore our Allegiance was due to King Charles because God had given him a Kingdom for the same reason it is now due to the present Magistracy For your self confess that God has given our Magistra es such power as he useth to give to wicked Princes for the punishment of the Nation And the consequence of this will be that according to your own opinion our present Magistrates being rais'd and appointed by God cannot lawfully be deposed by any but God himself Thus you overthrow the opinion you pretend to maintain which is a thing very frequent with 〈◊〉 Your Apology for the King carries it's deaths-wound in it You have attained to such a prodigious degree of Madness and Stupidity as to prove it unlawful upon any account whatsoever to lift up ones finger against Magistrates and with the very next breath to affirm that it 's the duty of their Sujects to rise up in Rebellion against them You tell us that St. Jerom calls Ismael that slew Gedalia a Parricide or Traytor And it is very true that he was so For Gedalia was Deputy Governour of Judaea a good man and slain by Ismael without any cause The same Author in his Comment upon the Book of Ecclesiastes says that Solomon's command to keep the King's Commandment is the same with St. Paul's Doctrine upon the same subject And deserves commendation for having made a more moderate Construction of that Text than most of his Contemporaries You say you will forbear enquiring into the Sentiments of Learned Men that lived since St. Augustine's time but to shew that you had rather dispence with a lie than not quote any Author that you think makes for you in the very next period but one you produce the Authorities of Isidore Gregory and Otho Spanish and Dutch Authors that liv'd in the most barbarous and ignorant ages of all whose Authorities if you knew how much we despise you would not have told a lye to have quoted them But would you know the reason why he dares not come so low as to the present times Why he does as it were hide himself and disapear when he comes towards our own times The reason is Because he knows full well that as many Eminent Divines as there are of the Reformed Church so many Adversaries he would have to encounter Let him take up the Cudgels if he thinks fit he will quickly find himself run down with innumerable Authorities out of Luther Zuinglius Calvin Bucer Martyr Paraeus and the rest I could oppose you with Testimonies out of Divines that have flourished even in Leyden Though that famous University and Renowned Commonwealth which has been as it were a Sanctuary for Liberty those Fountains and Streams of all Polite Learning have not yet been able to wash away that slavish rust that sticks to you and infuse a little humanity into you Finding your self destitute of any assistance or help from Orthodox Protestant Divines you have the impudence to betake your self to the Sorbonists whose Colledge you know is devoted to the Romish Religion and consequently but of very weak authority amongst Protestants We are willing to deliver so wicked an assertor of Tyranny as you to be drown'd in the Sorbon as being asham'd to own so despicable a slave as you show your self to be by maintaining that the whole body of a Nation is not equal in power to the most slothful degenerate Prince that may be You labour in vain to lay that upon the Pope which all free Nations and all Orthodox Divines own and assert But the Pope and his Clergy when they were in a low condition and but of small account in the world were the first Authors of this pernicious absurd Doctrine of yours and when by preaching such Doctrine they had gotten power into their own hands they became the worst of Tyrants themselves Yet they engaged all Princes to themselves by the closest tye imaginable perswading the world that was now besotted with their Superstition that it was unlawful to Depose Princes though never so bad unless the Pope dispensed with their Allegiance to them by absolving them from their Oaths But you avoid Orthodox Writers and endeavour to burden the truth with prejudice and calumny by making the Pope the first assertor of what is a known and common received opinion amongst them which if you did not do it cunningly you would make your self appear to be neither Papist nor Protestant but a kind of a Mongrel Idumean Herodian For as they of old adored one most inhumane bloody Tyrant for the Mâ—ssias so you would have the world fall down and worship all You boast that you have confirm'd your opinion by the Testimonies of the Fathers that flourished in the four first Centuries whose Writings only are Evangelical and according to the truth of the Christian Religion This man is past all shame how many things did they preach how many things have they published which Christ and his Apostles never taught How many things are there in their Writings in which all Protestant Divines differ from them But what is that opinion that you have confirm'd by their Authorities Why that evil Princes are appointed by God Allow that as all other pernicious and destructive things are What then why that therefore they have no Judge but God alone that they are above all humane Laws that there is no Law written or unwritten no Law of Nature nor of God to call them to account before their own
the nature of the thing it self So that whether you make the world of your mind or no your Doctrine must needs be mischievous and destructive and such as cannot but be abhorred of all Princes For if you should work men into a perswasion that the Right of Kings is without all bounds they would no longer be subject to a Kingly Government if you miss of your aim yet you make men weary of Kings by telling them that they assume such a power to themselves as of right belonging to them But if Princes will allow of those Principles that I assert if they will suffer themselves and their own power to be circumscribed by Laws instead of an uncertain weak and violent Government full of cares and fears they will reign peaceably quietly and securely If they slight this counsel of mine though wholsome in its self because of the meanness of the Author they shall know that it is not my counsel only but what was anciently advised by one of the wisest of Kings For Lycurgus King of Lacedemon when he observed that his own Relations that were Princes of Argos and Messana by endeavouring to introduce an Arbitrary Government had ruin'd themselves and their people he that he might benefit his Countrey and secure the Succession to his own Family could think upon no better expedient than to communicate his Power to the Senate and taking the great men of the Realm into part of the Government with himself and by this means the Crown continued in his Family for many ages But whether it was Lycurgus or as some learned men are of opinion Theopompus that introduced that mixt form of Government among the Lacedemonians somewhat more than a hundred years after Lycurgus his time of whom it is recorded That he used to boast that by advancing the Power of the Senate above that of the Prince he had setled the Kingdom upon a sure Foundation and was like to leave it in a lasting and durable condition to his Posterity which of them soever it was I say he has left a good Example to Modern Princes and was as creditable a Councellor as his Counsel was safe For that all men should submit to any one man so as to acknowledge a Power in him superior to all humane Laws neither did any Law ever Enact nor indeed was it possible that any such Law should ever be for that cannot be said to be a Law that strikes at the root of all Laws and takes them quite away It being apparent that your Positions are inconsistent with the nature of all Laws being such as render them no Laws at all You endeavour notwithstanding in this Fourth Chapter to make good by Examples what you have not yet been able to do by any Reasons that you have alledged as yet Let 's consider whether your Examples help your Cause for they many times make things plain which the Laws are either altogether silent in or do but hint at We 'll begin first with the Jews whom we suppose to have known most of the mind of God and then according to your own method we 'll come to the times of Christianity And first for those times in which the Israelites being subject to Kings who or howsoever they were did their utmost to cast that flavish yoke from off their necks Eglon the King of Moab had made a Conquest of them the Seat of his Empire was at Jericho he was no contemner of the True God when his Name was mentioned he rose from his Seat The Israelites had served him Eighteen Years they sent a present to him not as to an Enemy but to their own Prince notwithstanding which outward Veneration and Profession of Subjection they kill him by a wile as an Enemy to their Countrey You 'l say perhaps that Ehud who did that action had a Warrant from God for so doing He had so 't is like and what greater Argument of its being a warrantable and praise-worthy action God useth not to put men upon things that are unjust treacherous and cruel but upon such things as are virtuous and laudable But we read no where that there was any positive Command from Heaven in the case The Israelites called upon God So did we And God stirred up a Saviour for them so he did for us Eglon of a Neighbouring Prince became a Prince of the Jews of an Enemy to them he became their King Our Gentleman of an English King became an Enemy to the English Nation so that he ceas'd to be a King Those Capacities are inconsistent No man can be a Member of a State and an Enemy to it at the same time Antony was never lookt upon by the Romans as a Consul nor Nero as an Emperor after the Senate had voted them both Enemies This Cicero tells us in his Fourth Philippick If Antony be a Consul says he Brutus is an Enemy but if Brutus be a Saviour and Preserver of the Commonwealth Antony is an Enemy none but robbers count him a Consul By the same reason say I who but Enemies to their Countrey look upon a Tyrant as a King So that Eglon's being a Foreigner and King Charles a Prince of our own will make no difference in the case both being Enemies and both Tyrants they are in the same circumstances If Ehud kill'd him justly we have done so too in putting our King to Death Sampson that Renowned Champion of the Hebrews tho his Countrey-men blam'd him for it Dost thou not know say they that the Philistines have dominion over us yet against those Philistines under whose Dominion he was he himself undertook a War in his own person without any other help and whether he acted in pursuance of a Command from Heaven or was prompted by his own Valour only or whatever inducement soever he had he did not put to death one but many that tyranized over his Countrey having first called upon God by Prayer and implored his Assistance So that Sampson counted it no act of Impiety but quite contrary to kill those that enslaved his Countrey ' tho they had dominion over himself too and tho the greater part of his Countrey-men submitted to their Tyranny But yet David who was both a King and a Prophet would not take away Saul's life because he was God's Anointed Does it follow that because David refused to do a thing therefore we are obliged not to do that very thing David was a private person and would not kill the King is that a president for a Parliament for a whole Nation David would not revenge his own quarrel by putting his Enemy to death by stealth does it follow that therefore the Magistrates must not punish a Malefactor according to Law He would not kill a King must not an Assembly of the States therefore punish a Tyrant He scrupled the killing of God's Anointed must the People therefore scruple to condemn their own Anointed Especially one that after having so long professed Hostility against his own
people had wash'd off that anointing of his whether Sacred or Civil with the Blood of his own Subjects I confess that those Kings whom God by his Prophets anointed to be Kings or appointed to some special service as he did Cyrus Isa 44. may not improperly be called the Lord 's Anointed but all other Princes according to the several ways of their coming to the Government are the People 's Anointed or the Army's or many times the Anointed of their own Faction only But taking it for granted That all Kings are God's Anointed you can never prove That therefore they are above all Laws and not to be called in question what Villanies soever they commit What if David laid a charge upon himself and other private persons not to stretch forth their hands against the Lord 's Anointed Does not God himself command Princes not so much as to touch his anointed Which were no other than his people Psal 105. He preferred that Anointing wherewith his People were Anointed before that of Kings if any such thing were Would any man offer to infer from this place of the Psalmist That Believers are not to be called in question tho they offend against the Laws because God commands Princes not to touch his Anointed King Solomon was about to put to death Abiathar the Priest tho he were God's Anointed too and did not spare him because of his Anointing but because he had been his Father's Friend If that Sacred and Civil Anointing wherewith the High-Priest of the Jews was anointed whereby he was not only constituted High-Priest but a Temporal Magistrate in many cases did not exempt him from the Penalty of the Laws how comes a Civil Anointing only to exempt a Tyrant But you say Saul was a Tyrant and worthy of death What then It does not follow that because he deserved it that David in the circumstances he was then under had power to put him to death without the People's Authority or the command of the Magistracy But was Saul a Tyrant I wish you would say so indeed you do so though you had said before in your Second Book page 32. That he was no Tyrant but a good King and chosen of God Why should false Accusers and Men guilty of Forgery be branded and you escape without the like ignominious Mark For they practice their Villanies with less Treachery and Deceit than you write and Treat of matters of the greatest moment Saul was a good King when it serv'd your turn to have him so and now he 's a Tyrant because it suits with your present purpose But 't is no wonder that you make a Tyrant of a good King for your Principles look as if they were invented for no other design than to make all good Kings so But yet David tho he would not put to Death his Father-in-Law for Causes and Reasons that we have nothing to do withal yet in his own Defence he raised an Army took and possessed Cities that belong'd to Saul and would have defended Kâ—ilah against the King's Forces had he not understood that the Citizens would be false to him Suppose Saul had besieged the Town and himself had been the first that had scal'd the Walls do you think David would presently have thrown down his Arms and have betray'd all those that assisted him to his anointed Enemy I believe not What reason have we to think David would have stuck to do what we have done who when his Occasions and Circumstances so required proffered his Assistance to the Philistines who were then the professed Enemies of his Country and did that against Saul which I am sure we should never have done against our Tyrant I 'm weary of mentioning your Lies and asham'd of them You say t is a Maxim of the English That Enemies are rather to be spared than Friends and that therefore we conceived we ought not to spare our King's Life because he had been our Friend You impudent Lyar what Mortal ever heard this Whimsy before you invented it But we 'll excuse it You could not bring in that thread-bare Flourish of our being more fierce than our own Mastiffs which now comes in the fifth time and will as oft again before we come to the end of your Book without some such Introduction We are not so much more fierce than our own Mastiffs as you are more hungry than any Dog whasoever who return so greedily to what you have vomitted up so often Then you tell us That David commanded the Amalekite to be put to Death who pretended to haveÌ„ killed Saul But that Instance neither in respect of the Fact nor the Person has any Affinity with what we are discoursing of I do not well understand what cause David had to be so severe up-upon that Man for pretending to have hastned the King's Death and in effect but to have put him out of his pain when he was dying unless it were to take away from the Israelites all Suspicion of his own having been instrumental in it whom they might look upon as one that had revolted to the Philistines and was part of their Army Just such another Action as this of David's do all Men blame in Domitian who put to Death Epaphroditus because he had helped Nero to kill himself After all this as another instance of your Impudence you call him not only the anointed of the Lord but the Lord 's Christ who a little before you had said was a Tyrant and acted by the impulse of some Evil Spirit Such mean thoughts you have of that Reverend Name that you are not asham'd to give it to a Tyrant whom you your self confess to have been possessed with the Devil Now I come to that President from which every Man that is not blind must needs infer the Right of the People to be Superior to that of Kings When Solomon was dead the People Assembled themselves at Sichem to make Rehoboam King Thither himself went as one that stood for the place that he might not seem to claim the Succession as his Inheritance the same Right over a freeborn People that every Man has over his Fathers Sheep and Oxen. The People propose Conditions upon which they were willing to admit him to the Government He desires three days time to advise he consults with the old Men they tell him no such thing as that he had an absolute Right to succeed but persuade him to comply with the People and speak them fair it being in their Power whether he should Reign or not Then he adviseth with the young Men that were brought up-with him they as if Salmasius's Phrensy had taken them thunder this Right of Kings into his Ears persuade him to threaten the People with Whips and Scorpions And he answered the People as they advised him When all Israel saw that the King hearkned not to them then they openly protest the Right of the People and their own Liberty What portion have we in David To thy
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
scorn to have Charles compared with so cruel a Tyrant as Nero he resembled him extremely much For Nero likewise often threatned to take away the Senate Besides he bore extreme hard upon the Consciences of good men and compelled them to the use of Ceremonies and Superstitious Worship borrowed from Popery and by him re-introduced into the Church They that would not conform were imprisoned or Banisht He made War upon the Scots twice for no other cause than that By all these actions he has surely deserved the name of a Tyrant once over at least Now I 'le tell you why the word Traytor was put into his Indictment When he assured his Parliament by Promises by Proclamations by Imprecations that he had no design against the State at that very time did he List Papists in Ireland he sent a private Embassie to the King of Denmark to beg assistance from him of Arms Horses and Men expresly against the Parliament and was endeavouring to raise an Army first in England and then in Scotland To the English he promised the Plunder of the City of London to the Scots that the four Northern Counties should be added to Scotland if they would but help him to get rid of the Parliament by what means soever These Projects not succeeding he sent over one Dillon a Traytor into Ireland with private Instructions to the Natives to fall suddenly upon all the English that inhabited there These are the most remarkable instances of his Treasons not taken up upon hear-say and idle reports but discovered by Letters under his own Hand and Seal And finally I suppose no man will deny that he was a Murderer by whose order the Irish took Arms and put to death with most exquisite Torments above a hundred thousand English who lived peaceably by them and without any apprehension of danger and who raised so great a Civil War in the other two Kingdoms Add to all this that at the Treaty in the Isle of Wight the King openly took upon himself the guilt of the War and clear'd the Parliament in the Confession he made there which is publickly known Thus you have in short why King Charles was adjudged a Tyrant a Traytor and a Murderer But say you why was he not declared so before neither in that Solemn League and Covenant nor afterwards when he was delivered to them either by the Presbyterians or the Independents but on the other hand was receiv'd as a King ought to be with all reverence This very thing is sufficient to persuade any rational man that the Parliament entred not into any Councils of quite deposing the King but as their last refuge after they had suffered and undergone all that possibly they could and had attempted all other ways and means You alone endeavour maliciously to lay that to their charge which to all good men cannot but evidence their great Patience Moderation and perhaps a too long forbearing with the King's Pride and Arrogance But in the month of August before the King suffered the House of Commons which then bore the only sway and was governed by the Independants wrote Letters to the Scots in which they acquainted them that they never intended to alter the form of Government that had obtain'd so long in England under King Lords and Commons You may see from henâ—e how little reason there is to ascribe the deposing of the King to the principles of the Independents They that never used to dissemble and conceal their Tenents even then when they had the sole management of affairs profess That they never intended to alter the Government But if afterwards a thing came into their minds which at first they intended not why might they not take such a course tho before not intended as appear'd most advisable and most for the Nation 's Interest Especially when they found that the King could not possibly be intreated or induced to assent to those just demands that they had made from time to time and which were always the same from first to last He persisted in those perverse sentiments with respect to Religion and his own Right which he had all along espoused and which were so destructive to us not in the least altered from the man that he was when in Peace and War he did us all so much mischief If he assented to any thing he gave no obscure hints that he did it against his will and that whenever he should come into power again he would look upon such his Assent as null and void The same thing his Son declared by writing under his hand when in those days he ran away with part of the Fleet and so did the King himself by Letters to some of his own Party in London In the mean time against the avowed sense of the Parliament he struck up a private Peace with the Irish the most barbarous Enemies imaginable to England upon base dishonourable terms but whenever he invited the English to Treaties of Peace at those very times with all the power he had and interest he could make he was preparing for War In this case what should they do who were intrusted with the care of the Government Ought they to have betrayed the safety of us all to our most bitter Adversary Or would you have had them leâ—â— us to undergo the Calamities of another Seven years War not to say worse God put a better mind into them of preferring pursuant to that very solemn League and Covenant their Religion and Liberties before those thoughts they once had of not rejecting the King for they had not gone so far as to vote it all which they saw at last tho indeed later than they might have done could not possibly subsist as long as the King continued King The Parliament ought and must of necessity be entirely free and at liberty to provide for the good of the Nation as occasion requires nor ought they so to be wedded to their first Sentiments as to scruple the altering their minds for their own or the Nation 's good if God put an opportunity into their hands of procuring it But the Scots were of 〈…〉 opinion for they in a Letter to Charles the King's Son call his Father a most Sacred Prince and the putting him to death a most execrable Villany Do not you talk of the Scots whom you know not we know them well enough and know the time when they called that same King a most â—…rable person a Murtherer and Traytor and the putting a Tyrant to Death a most sacred action Then you pick holes in the King's Charge as not being properly penn'd and you ask why we needed to call him a Traytor and a Murtherer after we had stiled him a Tyrant since the word Tyrant includes all the Crimes that may be And then you explain to us grammatically and critically what a Tyrant is Away with those Trisles you Pedagogue which that one definition of Aristotle's that has lately beeen cited will utterly confound