should happen that the Kingdom of England should be of a contrary Opinion must it not in all moral probability open a gap to a new breach and thereby hazard the rending asunder those two Crowns in Blood the uniting of which were so wisely design'd by H. 7. and as happily took effect in King James without Blood and what must the consequence of it be but that we once more fall to the old trade again Furit omnis turba suoque Marte cadunt And when perhaps it shall be said of the Conqueror as of Alexander in his Expedition against the Parthian That he lost more by the War than he got by the Victory whereas Prudence in the Adventure looks at the return and in the hazard at the likelihood and advantage of the success Lastly We hereby take off all occasions of jealousie to which almost every thing serves for Fuel scarce any thing for Physick it being but natural That he must fear many whom many fear how groundlesly soever But may some say Peace without safety is but a breathing or bare Truce at best How can that man sleep securely over whose head a drawn Sword hangs by a single Hair And who shall be Judg of that The Prince whose safety depends on the love of his Subjects and never Acts but by his Council or the Multitude who besides that number and Truth are seldom of the same side never condsier what they do or the true reason why it happen'd to be so hung What causes that Thunder in the Clouds but the cross encounter of Fire and Water mutually tending to their centre of safety And while a people keep within their own Circle what danger is there of a Prince's breaking in upon them God had looked upon the Earth and pronounc'd it corrupt before he sent a Deluge among them to cleanse it In short there is an old saying Divide impera and I think another no ways inferior Vis unita fortior I am sure it is true in experience he that would pluck off a Horses Tail must do it hair by hair and he that would shake a Faggot in pieces must first pull out some considerable Stick or cut the Band. I come now to the disadvantages or inconveniencies that have attended the laying by the right Heir Revolts Usurpation and Exclusion differ in term and sound but are the same in effect and which they hold in common never wanted their Embroils The revolt of the Ten Tribes from Rehoboam was the fore-runner of the Captivity for having drein'd and weaken'd themselves with intestine War what wonder if like the Frog and Mouse in the Fable they became a prey to the next offerer The Senate of Rome excluded Nero but mist their aim for one part of the Army set up Galba another Otho against him a third Vitellius against Otho a fourth Vespasian against Vitellius still bickering and beating one another to pieces until Vespasian brought all into one hand again Harold usurp'd on Edgar Atheling and what was the effect of it but that it open'd William the Conqueror a passage to the Kingdom and gave both encouragement and success to the enterprise In like manner those more prosperous Usurpations of William Rufus and Henry the First upon their elder Brother Robert King Stephen on Maude the Daughter of Henry the First and her Son afterwards Henry the Second King John on his Nephew Arthur Henry the Fourth on Richard the Second and Richard the Third on Edward the Fifth were they not founded in Blood and defended with more and therefore he that shall bring them in precedent had as good save a ramble abroad and instance in O. Cromwel at home In short the Exclusion of our King Edward the Third Son and Heir of Isabella Daughter and Heiress of France under pretence of a Salique Law occasioned the loss of their best men and Kingdom also and did not we half lose it again on the same account by Henry 4. his Usurping on Richard 2 It is true Henry 5. recovered it again but his Son Henry 6. almost as soon lost it by the civil Broils between him and Richard Duke of York slain at Wakefield which yet ended not till his Son Edw. 4. had recovered the Possession And what fruit I pray did we reap of those Wars or rather were they not such as of which the Poet speaks Bella geri placuit nullos habitura triumphos How much better then is it by learning from other mens harms to keep the beaten road with safety than upon every new notion to entangle our selves in those passes wherein so many before us have lost their way And especially having the light of an Act of Parliament directing and telling us That the ambiguity of several Titles pretended to the Crown then not so perfectly declar'd but that men might expound them to every ones sinister affection and sense contrary to the right legality of the Succession and Posterity of the Lawful Kings and Emperors of this Realm had been the cause of that great effusion and destruction of mans Blood And what can any man expect but that the same cause will again produce the same effects and the like Asterism the like Revolutions To draw towards an end It is the advice of our Saviour Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets Would any one think ye submit to be brain'd by a Billet albeit in amends it were said to his Heir the like shall never be done to your self especially when the same hand that did the one cannot promise for any that shall come after it To one praying Lycurgus to settle a popular State in Lacedaemon that the basest might have the same Authority as the highest Begin quoth he to do it it in thy own house first I know not of what Spirit other men are but if there be such a one to be found let him throw the first stone And yet who knows but there may be somewhat more than we see Is there no old grudg No Manet altâ mente repôstum No Spreti injuria Is it all pure Religion and undefil'd All dry down-right conscience No biass No interest No self in the case 't is very well Judas made a charitable motion for the Poor yet it might have seem'd better had he not carried the Bag tho he headed no Party In short Commines saith He is to be esteemed a good Prince whose Virtues are not over-ballanc'd by his Vices And the Persians never condemn'd any man tho convicted till his former life had been weigh'd by the same Ballance and found wanting To apply it I skill not to flatter even the dead and yet a moral justice is due to the living or our Saviour had never said The laborer is worthy of his hire and Solomon Withhold it not Is not his Royal Highness the Son
which you may read at large in Bodin But I come to the second That the Kingdoms of England c. are a Supreme Imperial Monarchy which will the better appear when by examining those marks of Sovereignty we find no more in them than what the Laws of these Realms have ever acknowledg'd to be the undoubted right of our Kings and that whether we respect the Common Law Statute Law or their Power in Ecclesiasticks I 'll take my rise from the marks of Sovereignty 1. The Power of making Laws The Laws of most Kingdoms saith the Lord Bacon have been like Buildings of many pieces patcht up from time to time according to the occasion without form or model and as to our own that they are mixt as our Language of British Roman Saxon Danish Norman Customs Edgar the Saxon collected those of his time and gave them the force of a Fagot bound which formerly were dispersed The Danes impos'd upon us their Dane-Law And the third of that name before the Conquest Ex immensa Legum congerie quas Britanni Romani Angli Daci condiderunt optima quaeque selegit in unam coegit quod vocari voluit Legem communem Some of which bear his name to this day as Ordain'd by him After him William the Conqueror whom Polidor Virgil calls our Law-giver brought in somewhat of a new Law as may be seen in this That tho he made but little or no alteration in the Fundamentals but formulis juris he found here yet whether it were to honor his own Language or to shew some mark of Conquest he set forth his Publick Edicts in the Norman Tongue and caused our Laws to be written in the same And likewise his Justiciaries Lawyers and Ministerial Officers being at that time all Normans it may be none of the least reasons why all our Pleadings and Entries were in that Tongue until altered by Statute That because of the great mischiefs that had hapned to divers by means of the said Laws being written in the French Tongue which they understood not That therefore all Pleas for the future should be pleaded in the English Tongue and enrolled in the Latin and that we receiv'd our ancient Tenures from the Normans is obvious every where And King John planted the English Laws in Ireland But to come nearer home and examin how our present constitutions agree with it nor are they other than what has been the Practice of all former Parliaments wherein both Houses are so subordinate to the King in the making of Laws that neither of them singly nor both of them together can make any binding Law without the Kings concurrence they might in all times 't is true propose advise or consent or to borrow a Metaphor Spawn of themselves but in the Royal Consent only like the male touch lay the vis plastica which gave the Embrion life and quicken'd it into Laws and the reason of it is because the Legislative Power resideth solely in the King ut in subjecto proprio and the consent of the Lords and Commons is no sharing of that Power which is indivisible but a requisite condition to complete the Kings Power for otherwise all those Bills that have pass'd both Houses and for want of the Royal-Assent lie buried in oblivion might as occasion serv'd be rak'd from their forgotten Embers and set up for Laws Which also further appears in the several forms of our Kings giving their Royal Assent as Le Roy voit Le Roy est Assensus Le Roy Advisera c. and makes good this point That the Power of making Laws resides in the King and that he may as he sees cause either refuse or ratifie And this the Law of Scotland calls his Majesties best and most incommunicable Prerogative And as the Legislative Power resides in the King solely so also to him belongs it to interpret those Laws Si disputatio oriatur Justiciarii non possunt eam interpretari sed in dubiis obscuris Domini Regis erit expectanda interpretatio voluntas cum ejus sit interpretari cujus est condere saith the Lord Ellesmer from Bracton and Britton His is the interpretation of the Law whose is the Power of making the Law In his recurrendum ad Regem justitiae fontem whence he is said to carry all the Laws in scrinio pectoris sui in his Breast To give one instance for all When King Charles the First of happy memory had just given his Royal Assent to the Petition of Right he told the Houses That his meaning was to confirm all their Liberties as knowing that according to their own Protestations they neither meant nor could hurt his Prerogative c. And on the last day of the Session before his Royal Assent to the Bills saying he would tell them the cause why he came so suddenly to end that Session he adds Tho I must avow that I own an account of my actions to none but God And again charging both Houses with their Profession during the hammering that Petition that it was in no ways to trench upon his Prerogative saying they had neither intention nor power to hurt it he commands them all to take notice that what he had spoken was the true meaning of what he had granted But especially adds his Majesty you my Lords the Judges for to you only under me belongs the Interpretation of Laws for none of the Houses of Parliament joynt or separate what new Doctrin soever may be raised have any power either to make or declare a Law without my consent And as the King is the sole Lawgiver and Interpreter of that Law when given so also is he exempt and free from the Law for as much as concerneth the coactive force of the Law as being the Head of the Law and of the Common-wealth and consequently no man can give Sentence of condemnation against him if he do any thing against that Law for besides that every Sentence must be given by a Superior upon his Inferior there must be some Supreme whereunto all are subject but it self to none because otherwise the course of Justice would go infinitely in a Circle every Superior having his Superior without end which cannot be yet admitting it might the People cannot do it for they have no power themselves or if they had are his Subjects and a Parliament cannot do it for besides that they are his Subjects also and not his Peers who shall try him for he is Principium Caput finis Parliamenti and it can neither begin nor end without his Presence in Person or by Representation and hence it is that his Death Dissolves them Again if the People may call him to account the State is plainly Democratical if the Peers it is Aristocratical if either or both of them 't is no way Monarchical which is directly contrary
and then thus altered viz. By the Assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and at the special instance and request of the Commons and in the fifth of the same King By the Advice and Assent of his Lords Spiritual and Temporal and at the request of the Commons which so continued without any variation in substance until the 18th of Henry 6. at what time it became as we have it now viz. By the Advice and Assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons Besides if the Lords Spiritual were not a third Estate what is the reason that at the making of the Statute of Praemunire that the Commons having declared that they would stand to the King in the defence of his Liberties and praying that all the Lords as well Spiritual as Temporal severally and all the Estates of Parliament might be examined how they thought of that matter The Lords Temporal being so demanded answered every one by himself and in like manner the Lords Spiritual severally examin'd answered by themselves which affords me a double Argument 1. That by all the States of Parliament there must be necessarily intended more than two if it were for no other reason than mere propriety of Speech 2. That the King could not make up that other or third Estate because he is desired to examin all the States severally which he could not do if he had been one of them himself so in the 40th of Edw. 3. which I should have named first when the King asks advice of his Parliament Whether King John could have subjected the Realm as what in him lay he did The Prelates by themselves the Dukes Earls and Barons by themselves and the Commons by themselves answered That he could not From which nothing seems clearer to me than that the Lords Spiritual are one Estate distinct from the Lords Temporal or otherwise what needed they have been examin'd by those several names of Spiritual and Temporal or as severally answer'd by the same appellations 5. And now if yet there remain'd any doubt we have one Act of Parliament clear in point where the question being whether the making of Bishops had been duly and orderly done according to Law the Statute says which is much tending to the slander of all the State of the Clergy being one of the greatest States of this Realm And so having found Three Estates without the King I think in good manners we ought to spare him I have hitherto offered some Reasons nor without their Authorities I come now to somewhat more direct if yet those of the 40th of Edw. 3. the 16th of Rich. 2. and the 8th of Qu. Eliz. last mentioned could be thought otherwise I 'll begin with the Statute of H. 8. where this Kingdom is called an Empire governed by one Supreme Head and King unto whom a Body Politick compact of all sorts and degrees of People divideth in Terms and by names of Spiritualty and Temporalty been bounden and who can believe that the Authority of a Parliament should utter any thing in Parables or under double meanings contrary to the common sense of the express words or that there was ever intended by the words divided in Terms and by names of Spiritualty and Temporalty so many mere words and no more However to take off all doubt Sir Edw. Coke says The High Court of Parliament consisteth of the Kings Majesty sitting there as in his Royal Politick Capacity and of the Three Estates of the Realm viz. the Lords Spiritual the Lords Temporal and the Commons And so Cowel The word Parliament in England we use it for the Assembly of the King and the Three Estates viz. the Lords Spiritual Lords Temporal and the Commons And Title Statute he saith it signifieth a Decree or Act of Parliament made by the Prince and the Three Estates unto whom as I said before they are subordinate in the Legislation and of no Power of themselves but joyned to their Figure have the full strength of their places which in short we may thus farther demonstrate under the familiar instance of a Dean and Chapter of whom the Dean is no part but Caput Capituli the Head of them And now if any one shall demand why this term of the Three Estates does not so frequently occur to us of Ancient time I answer That before the Commons were brought in there was no thought of it and since that time no dispute of it until of late where many a worse twig was even learnedly made use of to stilt and bolster a Ricketed Cause· However it is not too late that the Point is cleared now And so we have it in the Act for Unifermity of Publick Prayers made the 14th of this King where the Form of Prayer for the Fifth of November is thus entitled A Form of Prayer with Thanksgiving to be used yearly on the Fifth day of November for the happy deliverance of the King and the Three Estates of the Realm c. And with this agrees the Kingdom of Scotland of which Mr. Cambden in his History of Britain says That their Supreme Court is their Parliament which consisteth of Three Estates The Lords Spiritual the Lords Temporal and the Commons for Cities and Burghs of which the King is Directus totius Dominus And so a Parliament of that Kingdom reckons them It is ordained by the King by Consent and Deliverance of the Three Estates And the Act of asserting the Kings Supremacy over all Persons and in all Causes Ecclesiastical and the late Indictment against Argile and the Acts for the Acknowledging and Asserting the Right of Succession to the Imperial Crown of Scotland And that other for ratifying all former Laws for the security of the Protestant Religion agree in point with it Nor is it strange they should inasmuch as neither their Langue nor their Laws especially such as are criminal as may be seen by comparing their Regiam Majestatem with our Glanvil De Legibus written in Henry the Second's time much differ from ours And the Union of the two Crowns in the Person of King James is called An Union or rather a re-uniting of two Mighty Famous and Ancient Kingdoms yet anciently but one And that the Laws of Ireland a distinct Realm or Kingdom from both say nothing of this matter I take it to be for the same reason that the Romans made no Law against Parricide They never dreamt it SECTION VII Admitting what has been before offer'd wherein has our present King merited less than any of his Royal Ancestors with a short recapitulation of Affairs as they had been and were at his Majesties most happy Restauration and that he wanted not the means of a just Resentment had he design'd any I Have hitherto shewn that the Crown of England c. is Supreme Sovereign and Imperial nor will it be from the purpose now to demand Wherein has our present King less merited than