to depose him He is Absolute and so not to be deposed But the Frenzy has carried him away first and removed him from us and now he is not himself And therefore as before by his greatness and Absoluteness so now by his weakness and Impotency he falls not at all within the reach of the Law to be judged or punished by it but is succeeded to by the next heir as not being or as to him that is already dead But if the distemper be of a lower nature as in your Case you seem to put it by instancing in this destemper particularly after that of a fool and madman Why then his Absoluteness being premis'd and presupposed it must necessarily secure him in his Crown He is still himself and so the very man whom the Law invests with Sovereignty and makes Absolute Which therefore cannot be pretended to justify any in the Assassinating of his Person or Usurping his Throne The Law in the case instanced of an Hereditary Kingdom does not necessarily provide to make the wisest and the best man King As appears plainly by entailing the Sovereignty on the King's heirs before it is known what they will prove a Man or a Woman a Ruffain or a sober person and not settling it by election upon one of mature judgment approv'd integrity and greatest experience And yet the Law does much the wisest by this Entail As thereby however running the hazzards of some inconveniences which may happen yet avoiding that grand mischief of Factions and Sidings and Disunions which are diametrically oppos'd to Government and which cannot but fall out in such canvasings and elections Those inconveniences if at any time they happen are but as maimes and blemishes in the Government but this of Schism and Disunion is the very death and destruction of it Which therefore as is natural for all Bodies it especially fortifies against and labours to prevent And from hence then we may see not the Law onely but the Reason and Wisedom of the Law in not admitting the resistence pleaded for in this supposed Distemper For that this distemper not amounting as was premis'd to Frenzy or Idiotism which is obvious to all and whereby a man is no longer a man or reasonable creature must become the subject of much dispute and division the occasion for any mutinous and ambitious party to work upon And as sometimes it might really prove to be indeed such a distemper yet it might oftener to be sure be so pretended when it were not Which the Law or Government therefore by admitting in the least should open a necessary gap to Confusion and by consequence to its own destruction And in prevention of a remote and onely not impossible danger which it might fear to receive at some time perhaps from such a distemper'd King if such a distemper without a downright Bedlam madness be not indeed impossible give it self a stab to the heart whereby it must certainly and immediately expire And thus the distemper onely and Feverish indisposition in the King you would pretend to cure by an Absolute Frenzy and Frantickness in the Government For so the Poet has already censured it Furor est ne moriare mori For fear of Death to dye Is Bedlam policy The short of it is this No policy can give an absolute security We must trust some body But herein is the Goodness of God and the Wisedom and Piety of our Ancestours in deriving to us such a Form as brings us nearest to this security and at farthest distance from danger as whereby many most probable and certain inconveniences are avoided And the onely possible mischief which we can fear from our Governour is so very mischievous and destructive to the interest of our Governour himself that we must fear very unreasonably to be afraid of it It is in our power to kill our selves and yet we are not afraid of our selves as Mr. Diggs observes Because there is a natural dearness implanted in us which secures every one from self wrongs We have as little cause to be troubled that 't is in the King's power to make himself no King by destroying his subjects For so the King perishes in the ruine of his people and the man onely survives expos'd to the scorn and hatred and revenge of mankind Every man's interest is the greatest assurance we can desire of his Integrity That will hold to be sure when all ties sacred and humane are laid aside And having that so apparently for our preservation it must be our folly and madness to suspect any such distemper possibly in the King to destroy us But all this being granted at last which we plead for viz. That absolute Hereditary Monarchy is of all Forms the best which you before acknowledge and that ours by Law established is such which you no where deny Yet two objections there are behind which will still stave us off from our desired Conclusion if they be not taken out of the way SECTION VIII The first is from the great hazard and expence it will cost us now to bring things again into their old chanel whereby the remedy is worse than the disease And the Well-being which we pursue and court after in so doing would prove a pitifull peny-worth say you at the price and forfeiture of our very Beings Surely this Objection how gravely and soberly soever you are pleas'd to set it down is no other but the murmurs of the fleshly and beastly part in you as you afterwards phrase it and therefore best answer'd with silence and non-attention or our Saviour's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Get thee behind me Satan For can it put a Supersedeas to our duty because there is hardship and difficulty in the performance of it Must that which is the mark and cognizance of vertue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The straitness of the Gate and narrowness of the way be reasonably made use of by Christians as an argument against it Must that which gives it the Crown be held forth as a check and discouragement to skare us from it Or are we the first that ever delivered this doctrine That Oaths and Covenants must be kept to our own hindrance True supposing we were at our own choice and disposal nothing but our own personal interest concern'd in it The Lion in the way might reasonably put us to flight if we were not as sure what the Prophet threatens while we fly from this Lion to be met with a Bear even utter spoilings and devourings the havock of the Church and the harrassing our Estates from this mishapen power in case we should be so tame and cowardly not to oppose it But when besides the duty to our selves we have every one of us a sacred Obligation to the King and his Royal Family to our Countrey to our Kindred and to our Posterity Non nobis nati sumus could the Heathen say sed partem Patria partem Amici partem Parentes vendicant we should be strangely impos'd
persecuting and pursuing the bloud of an innocent Subject whom he ought rather to protect and defend Yet this will give David no advantage of renouncing his Allegiance or rising up against the life of his Sovereign And therefore the Prophecy if Saul be the enemy intended in it is yet no command nor carries any the least shadow of allowance or dispensation with it to doe what is evil in God's Eyes Whereby it will be apparent that this great providence of God in the fulfilling and completion of this Prophecy and bringing Saul into his hands was but for a greater trial which God was pleased to make of his Faith and Loyalty to tempt and prove him as he did Abraham before whether he would make use of any indirect course for the bringing about pious and religious ends Or whether as he had received the promise of the Kingdom from God's mere favour to him he could now rely and rest himself wholly upon his power and wisedom even against all the seeming difficulties and impossibilities of flesh and bloud for the enstating it upon him Wherein he so piously acquits himself as notwithstanding the Prophecy they mention to him and this Providence before his eyes together with that carnal prudence which was questionless suggested to him he lets Saul escape Not onely refuses to be his judge not onely absents himself from the sentence and execution but urges and pleads and persuades with his Men not to meddle with him Who can stretch forth his hand against the Lord's anointed and be guiltless Thus subduing the Kingdom and obtaining the promise by Faith as it is witnessed of him while he seems to undoe all to frustrate the promise and forfeit his claim to the Kingdom for God's sake or rather than be guilty of sin in the procuring of it And now let us look back a while and put your case in the same balance with David's and see if you fall not so much short of him in the premisses as you have wickedly out-dar'd and out-done him in the Conclusion David was elected by God and actually anointed by his holy Prophet to the Kingdom You were tied up under the Oath of God against it So far from any lawfull possibility of taking the Kingdom to your selves as you were obliged with life and limb to prevent the designs and Conspiracies of any other and to secure it to the King and his Heirs after him for ever David was an innocent injur'd person one that by Saul's appointment had done most eminent and almost miraculous service against his enemies beside many personal and particular obligations to Saul himself In reward whereof he is now bloudily pursued by Saul and all the power of Israel to take away his life Whereas you after many concessions and Acts of Grace from the King drive him away from his own house with Tumults and popular violence pursue him immediately with an Army imbitter the minds and mouths of the people with all the foulest and falsest reproaches that could be spit against him rob him of his whole revenue turn the deaf ear to all his desires of returning and maliciously prevent and frustrate his renued messages and petitions as I may so term them for peace and accommodation And then lastly for the Providence that signal providence of God in bringing the King into your hands which must be thought to supersede all this and not onely so take away the poison and malignity of this Coloquintida like stirring the water with the Unicorns-horn but baptize all these your trayterous and disloyal actions into just and necessary and religious Nay urge and engage you farther First to imprison and then to Murther your Sovereign For so the following of providence is made the onely via recta and wherewith you as easily silence and swallow up all arguments and objections brought against you as Moses's serpent did the serpents of the Magicians This case of Providence I say of all other runs widest from the parallel and wherein God did as plainly discriminate himself to you and David as David and you have differenc'd and discriminated your selves from each other in the contrary use and application of it For whereas Saul indeed was brought by God's providence according to his former promise into David's hands while he had never the least aim or design at any such thing but always declin'd it and was now in his flight lurking here in this Cave merely for fear and thereby to avoid him who was furiously now upon his March after him What was there of this I beseech you in your case Nay say if all things were not quite contrary For beside your no promise or prophecy for it how many precepts and penalties are urged by God against it Beside your not declining to get the King into your power as David did how many wicked arts and strategems are put in practice to bring it about And whereas you might have thought it something of Providence it may be to have kill'd the King at random or to have taken him prisoner in the field in any one of those great successes you had upon his party though 't is sure Where God is shut out of the cause and quarrel as in that of subjects against their Sovereign there can be no pretence at all of his providence in whatever he suffers to be brought about yet it is very observable and wherein it would well become you to take notice of God's providence That besides those Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance renued by you at your entrance into the Parliament or before you could sit there in any capacity to consult and carry on the war against him How did God provide for the King's safety when you your selves even of your selves without the King did engage your selves and the whole Kingdom First by a Protestation And Secondly your selves and your whole party even without and against the King's consent by a Solemn Vow and Covenant never to be forgotten to defend and preserve his Person and Honour And when all this could not get him into your hands how did God provide for the King again when all his party being slain generally and faln into your hands He yet carries him into the Scots army where you could not compass him at last but by fresh Engagements of safety and honour to his Person Nor is he yet in your hands your hands I mean of the Army who pretended at last to have power over him of which no other account can be given I think than that of Providence till by new Treasons and Rebellions you had plainly acknowledged the depth and desperateness of your former villany And by rising up against your own Masters and violently snatching the King from them once at Holmeby and again at the Isle of Wight by whose authority and Commission onely you were put into arms against him and whereby you did seem and seek to excuse your selves from the crime of Rebellion in so doing you did thereby
you fore-saw that these of all others are the fittest instruments for the work And by so much the more proper and necessary for the doing of it by how much they are the more inexcusable with those against whom it is done Though after all perhaps this wary discourse of dangers and difficulties may be found in the end but a mere skare-crow The Usurpation is not so firmly setled as not to be removed but by the Faith of miracles Scalpello aperitur ad magnam libertatem via puncto constat securitas And not being built upon the likeing of the people which yet at the best gives but a sandy and uncertain foundation much less can it always hover in the Air. The Devil may keep it a while upon the wing as he did Simon Magus to the astonishment of all But upon Peter's Prayers the Devil is conjur'd down and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Simon styles himself the great one in power falls and tumbles headlong with him into Hell Onely there is one farther offer made yet to hold him up and secure him in his high flying And that is from Success in these words SECTION IX The Lord having once declared his mind say you by a full possession and seconded it with so many signal providences we may doe well to cease from fighting against his Prerogative c. Where God's hand has been so very manifest in the work we may not dare to lift up a finger against it That the hand of God has been very eminent and remarkable in those severe judgments that have overtaken us he must be perfectly blind that does not see and a very formal down-right Atheist that will not acknowledge And indeed can there be evil in a City or in a Nation and the Lord hath not done it Affliction comes not forth of the dust neither does trouble spring out of the ground A sparrow falls not to the ground without your Father much less doth a whole Nation Whosoever is the rod his is the hand that smites us Which yet cannot be supposs'd therefore to justify or acquit the instruments who being Agents likewise as well as instruments not merely passive but active and operative in the judgments must be accountable for every such action of theirs in that rank and relation wherein God has placed them among mankind And so what is just and righteous in God to doe as having a Sovreignty and Lordship over all his creatures may yet be sinfull and damnable in men to act against their Equals and Superiours What is just and righteous in God to whom I am guilty may yet be wicked and damnable in men before whom I am innocent Let every man says St. Paul wherein he is called therein abide with God Though I may doe God's work indeed and serve his End and the interests of his Church as whatever we doe we cannot doe otherwise his infinite wisedom disposing and improving our worst actions to those ends even the crucifixion of Christ to his greater glory and the Salvation of mankind yet we abide not we work not with God in any action how fair and specious soever that carries us out of our calling or disturbes that subjection and subordination wherein God has placed us And sure for the success which follows upon such actions that being ex post facto can never be our Commission for the doing of them No nor secondly any mark or Testimony of God's approbation to them when done First because it is common and indifferent to all actions good and evil according to that of Solomon No man knows either Love or Hatred by all that is before him All things come alike to all There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked and therefore no judgment to be made from thence If the trumpet give an uncertain sound says St. Paul who shall prepare himself for the battel How shall we call that the voice of God or what can we rely upon in an uncertain insignificant sound But then Secondly the alteration of God's Oeconomy since the days of Solomon now that a greater than Solomon is here does yet farther weaken the argument from success as much more enclining the contrary way And being lookt upon through the glass of the Gospel it does rather prejudice and condemn that cause on whose side it stands Lo these are the ungodly these prosper in the world and these have riches in possession Son remember that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things While in the mean time sufferings and afflictions are measured out for the lot of the righteous In the world ye shall have tribulation says our Saviour All that will live godly in Christ Jesus says St. Paul shall suffer persecution And then mark what follows in the next words But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived The godly shall be persecuted by the wicked and so made better but evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse namely for want of persecution For so the Context and Coherence of the words does plainly expound it Being deceived themselves and deceiving others by reason of the low estate of the Godly and their own great power above them and prosperity against them Sutable to that saying of Solomon The prosperity of Fools shall destroy them And indeed success is a bait so proportion'd and well relishing to our palate that the Saints of God Job David Jeremy and the rest have been in danger to be snared by it If it were possible it would seduce the very Elect. And therefore no marvel if the men of the world find some savour and lay so much weight upon it Thus in the Turkish divinity Prosperum scelus virtus vocatur We reade of Selimus justifyed and approved by them for deposing and destroying his Father Nam rerum exitus satis docuit saith the Historian illum quod fecit divino fecisse instinctu coelitùs fuisse proedestinatum The prosperous event did sufficiently declare him to be predestinated and set on by God While in the mean time unfortunate Bajazet who took up arms to defend his life against his brother is bitterly execrated and accursed by them merely upon this account because he was unfortunate and thrived not in the attempt And surely the Providence of God in this Turkish doctrine and those great and flourishing Empires which the worshippers of Mahomet have attained unto from very mean and inconsiderable beginnings did design as by a standing grand Exemplar superadded to this word to take off Christians from gazing after success or applauding themselves at any time in faction or division among themselves by this argument which must plead for the common enemy of Christendom and if throughly received and relyed upon advance Mahomet above Christ And just it is that those who still take pleasure in unrighteousness qui Turcam gerunt in pectore as Erasmus's phrase is should be condemn'd to a Turks