are in most Courts 2 Sam. 12. Thou hast done this thing in secret Besides what if the Senate should neglect to punish private persons would any infer that therefore they ought not to be punish'd at all But the reason why David was not proceeded against as a malefactor is not much in the dark He had condemn'd himself in the 5th verse The man that hath done this thing shall surely die To which the Prophet presently replies Thou art the man So that in the Prophet's judgment as well as his own he was worthy of death but God by his Soveraign Right over all things and of his great mercy to David absolves him from the guilt of his Sin and the sentence of death which he had pronounc'd against himself verse 13th The Lord hath put away thy sin thou shalt not die The next thing you do is to rail at some bloody Advocate or other and you take a deal of pains to refute the conclusion of his Discourse Let him look to that I 'le endeavour to be as short as I can in what I 'ue undertaken to go through with But some things I must not pass by without taking notice of as first and formost your notorious contradictions for in the 30th Page you say The Israelites do not deprecate an unjust rapacious Tyrannical King one as bad as the worst of Kings are And yet page 42 you are very smart upon your Advocate for maintaining that the Israelites asked for a Tyrant Would they have leaped out of the Frying-pan into the fire say you and grâ—an under the cruelty of the worst of Tyrants rather than live under bad Judges especially being us'd to such a form of Government First you said the Hebrews would rather live under Tyrants than Judges here you say they would rather live under Judges than Tyrants and that they desir'd nothing less than a Tyrant So that your Advocate may answer you out of your own Book For according to your Principles 't is every King's right to be a Tyrant What you say next is very true The Supreme Power was then in the people which appears by their own rejecting their Judges and making choice of a Kingly Government Remember this when I shall have occasion to make use of it You say that God gave the children of Israel a King as a thing good and profitable for them and deny that he gave them one in his anger as a punishment for their sin But that will receive an easie answer for to what purpose should they cry to God because of the King that they had chosen if it were not because a Kingly Government is an evil thing not in it self but because it most commonly does as Samuel forewarns the people that theirs would degenerate into Pride and Tyranny if y' are not yet satisfied hark what you say your self acknowledg your own hand and blush 't is your Apparatus ad Primatum God gave them a King in his anger say you being offended at their sin in rejecting him from ruling over them and so the Christian Church as a punishment for it's forsaking the pure Worship of God has been subjected to the more than Kingly Government of one mortal head So that if your own comparison holds either God gave the Children of Israel a King as an evil thing and as a punishment or he has set up the Pope for the good of the Church Was there ever any thing more and light mad than this man is Who would trust him in the smallest matters that in things of so great concern says and unsays without any consideration in the world You tell us in your 29th Page That by the constitution of all Nations Kings are bound by no Law That this had been the judgment both of the Eastern and Western part of the VVorld And yet pag. 43. you say That all the Kings of the East ruled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to Law nay that the very Kings of Egypt in all matters whatsoever whether great or small were tied to Laws Though in the beginning of this Chapter you had undertook to demonstrate that Kings are bound by no Laws that they give Laws to others but have none prescribed to themselves For my part I 've no reason to be angry with ye for either y' are mad or of our side You do not defend the King's cause but arguë against him and play the fool with him Or if y' are in earnest that Epigram of Catullus Tantò pessimus omnium Poeta Quantò tu optimus omnium Patronus The worst of Poets I my self declare By how much you the best of Patrons are That Epigram I say may be turn'd and very properly applied to you for there never was so good a Poet as you are a bad Patron Unless that stupidity that you complain your Advocate is immers'd over head and ears in has blinded the eyes of your own understanding too I 'le make ye now sensible that y' are become a very brute your self For now you come and confess that the Kings of all Nations have Laws prescribed to them But then you say again They are not so under the power of them as to be liable to censure or punishment of death if they break them Which yet you have proved neither from Scripture nor from any good Authour Observe then in short to prescribe Municipal Laws to such as are not bound by them is silly and ridiculous and to punish all others but leave some one man at liberty to commit all sort of Impieties without fear of punishment is most unjust the Law being general and not making any exception neither of which can be suppos'd to hold place in the Constitutions of any wise Law-maker much less in those of God's own making But that all may perceive how unable you are to prove out of the writings of the Jews what you undertook in this Chapter to make appear by 'em you confess of your own accord That there are some Rabbins who affirm that their fore fathers ought not to have had any other King than God himself and that he set other Kings over them for their punishment And of those men's opinion I declare my self to be It is not fitting nor decent that any man should be a King that does not far excel all his Subjects But where men are Equals as in all Governments very many are they ought to have an equal interest in the Government and hold it by turns But that all Men should be Slaves to one that is their Equal or as it happens most commonly far inferior to 'em and very often a Fool who can so much as entertain such a thought without Indignation Nor does it make for the Honour of a Kingly Government that our Saviour was of the posterity of some Kings more than it does for the commendation of the worst of Kings that he was the Offspring of some of them too The Messias is a King We acknowledg him so to be and
rejoyce that he is so pray that his Kingdom may come for he is worthy Nor is there any other either equal or next to him And yet a Kingly Government being put into the hands of unworthy and undeserving persons as most commonly it is may well be thought to have done more harm than good to Mankind Nor does it follow for all this that all Kings as such are Tyrants But suppose it did as for argument sake I 'le allow it does least you should think I 'm too hard with ye Make you the best use of it you can Then say you God himself may properly be said to be the King of Tyrants nay himself the worst of all Tyrants If the first of these conclusions does not follow another does which may be drawn from most parts of your Book viz. That you perpetually contradict not only the Scriptures but your own self For in the very last fore-going Period you had affirmed that God was the King of all things having himself created them Now he created Tyrants and Devils and consequently by your own reason is the King of such The 2'd of these Conclusions we detest and wish that blasphemous Mouth of yours were stopt up with which you affirm God to be the worst of Tyrants If he be as you often say he is the King and Lord of such Nor do you much advantage your Cause by telling us that Moses was a King and had the absolute and supream power of a King For we could be content that any other were so that could refer our matters to God as Moses did and consult with him about our affairs Exod. 18. v. 19. But neither did Moses notwithstanding his great familiatity with God ever assume a Liberty of doing what he would himself What says he of himself The people come unto me to enquire of God They came not then to receive Moses his own Dictates and Commands Then says Jethro ver 19. Be thou for the people to God-ward that thou mayst bring their causes unto God And Moses himself says Deut. 4. v 5. I have taught you statutes and judgments even as the Lord my God commanded me Hence it is that he is said to have been faithful in all the hause of God Numb 12 v. 7. So that the Lord Jehovah himself was the people's King and Moses no other than as it were an Interpreter or a Messenger betwixt him and them Nor can you without In piety and Sacriledg transfer this absolute supream Power and Authority from God to a man not having any Warrant from the word of God so to do which Moses used only as a Deputy or Substitute to God under whose Eye and in whose presence himself and the people always were But now for an aggravation of your wickedness though here you make Moses to have exercis'd an absolute and unlimitted Power in your apparat ad primat Page 230. You say that he together with the seventy elders ruled the people and that himself was the chief of the people but not their Master If Moses therefore were a King as certainly he was and the best of Kings and had a Supream and Legal Power as you say he had and yet neither was the people's Master nor Govern'd them alone then according to you Kings though indued with the Supream Power are not by Vertue of that Sovereign and Kingly Right of theirs Lords over the people nor ought to Govern them alone much less according to their own Will and Pleasure After all this you have the Impudence to feign a command from God to that people to set up a King over them as soon as they should be possessed of the holy land Deut. 17. For you craftily leave out the former words and shalt say I will set a King over me c. And now call to mind what you said before Page 42d and what I said I should have occasion to make use of viz. That the power was then in the people and that they were entirely free What follows argues you either Mad or irreligious take whether you lift God say you having so long before appointed a Kingly Government as best and most proper for that people what shall we say to Samuel's opposing it and God's own acting as if himself were against it How do these things agree He finds himself caught and observe now with how great malice against the Prophet and impiety against God he endeavours to disentangle himself We must consider says he That Samuel's own Sons then Judged the people and the people rejected them because of their corruption now Samuel was loth his Sons should be lay'd aside and God to gratify the Prophet intimated to him as if himself were not very well pleased with it Speak out ye wretch and never mince the matter You mean God dealt deceitfully with Samuel and he with the people It is not your Advocate but your self that are Frantick and Distracted who cast off all reverence to God Almighty so you may but seem to Honour the King Would Samuel prefer the Interest of his Sons and their Ambition and their Covetousness before the general good of all the people when they asked a thing that would be good and profitable for them Can we think that he would impose upon them by cunning and subtilty and make them believe things that were not Or if we should suppose all this true of Samuel would God himself countenance and gratify him in it would he dissemble with the people So that either that was not the right of Kings which Samuel taught the people or else that right by the Testimony both of God and the Prophet was an evil thing was burdensom injurious unprofitable and chargeable to the Common-wealth Or Lastly which must not be admitted God and the Prophet â—eceiv'd the People God frequently protests that he was extreamly displeas'd with them for asking a King v. 7th They have not rejected thee but they have rejected me that I should not reign over them As if it were a kind of Idolatry to ask a King that would even suffer himself to be ador'd and assume almost Divine Honour to himself And certainly they that subject themselves to a worldly Master and set him above all Laws come but a little short of chusing a strange God And a strange one it commonly is brutish and void of all sense and reason So 1st of Sam. Chap. 10th v. 19th And ye have this day rejected your God who himself saved you out of all your adversities and your tribulation and ye have said unto him Nay but set a king over us c. and Chap 12th v. 12th Ye said unto me Nay but a king shall reign over us when the Lord your God was your king and v. the 17th See that your wickedness is great that ye have done in the sight the Lord in asking you a king And Hosea speaks contemptibly of the King Chap. 13. v. 10th 11th I will be thy king where is any other
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-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
out of The King you say is supposed not capable of committing any crime because no punishment is consequential upon any crime of his Whoever therefore is not punisht offends not it is not the theft but the punishment that makes the thief Salmasius the Grammarian commits no Soloecisms now because he is from under the Ferular when you have overthrown the Pope let these for God's sake be the Canons of your Pontificate or at least your Indulgences whether you shall chuse to be called the High Priest St. â—yranny or of St. Slavery I pass by the Reproachful language which towards the latter end of the Chapter you give the State of the Commonwealth and the Church of England 't is common to such as you are you contemptible Varlet to rail at those things most that are most praise-worthy But that I may not seem to have asserted any thing rashly concerning the Right of the Kings of England or rather concerning the Peoples Right with respect to their Princes I will now alledg out of our ancient Histories a few things indeed of many but such as will make it evident that the English lately tried their King according to the setled Laws of the Realm and the Customs of their Ancestors After the Romans quitted this Island the Britains for about forty years were sui Juris and without any Kings at all Of whom those they first set up some they put to death And for that Gildas reprehends them not as you do for killing their Kings but for killing them uncondemned and to use his own words Non pro veri examinatione without inquiring into the matter of fact Vortigerne was for his Incestuous Marriage with his own Daughter condemn'd as Nennius informs us the most ancient of all our Historians next to Gildas by St. German and a General Council of the Britains and his Son Vortimer set up in his stead This came to pass not long after St. Augustine's death which is enough to discover how â—utilous you are to say as you have done that it was a Pope and Zachary by name who first held the lawfulness of judging Kings About the year of our Lord 600 Morcantius who then Reign'd in Wales was by Oudeceus Bishop of Landaff condemn'd to Exile for the Murther of his Uncle though he got the Sentence off by bestowing some Lands upon the Church Come we now to the Saxons whose Laws we have and therefore I shall quote none of their Presidents Remember that the Saxons were of a German Extract who neither invested their Kings with any absolute unlimited power and consulted in a Body of the more weighty affairs of Government whence we may perceive that in the time of our Saxon Ancestors Parliaments the name it self only excepted had the Supreme Authority The name they gave them was Councils of Wise-men and this in the Reign of Ethelbert of whom Bede says That he made Laws in imitation of the Roman Laws cum concilio sapientum by the advice or in a Council of his Wise-men So Edwyn King of Northumberland and Ina King of the VVest-Saxons having consulted with their VVise-men and the Elders of the people made new Laws Other Laws K. Alfred made by the advice in like manner of his Wise-men and he says himself That it was by the consent of them all that they were commanded to be observed From these and many other like places it is as clear as the Sun that chosen Men even from amongst the Common People were Members of the Supreme Councils unless we must believe that no Men are wise but the Nobility We have likewise a very Ancient Book called the Mirror of Justices in which we are told That the Saxons when they first subdued the Brittains and chose themselves Kings required an Oath of them to submit to the Judgment of the Law as much as any of their Subjects Cap. 1. Sect. 2. In the same place 't is said that it is but just that the King have his Peers in Parliament to take Cognizance of wrongs done by the King or the Queen and that there was a Law made in King Alored's time that Parliaments should be holden twice a year at London or oftner if need were Which Law when through neglect it grew into disuse was revived by two Statutes in King Edward the Third's time And in another ancient Manuscript called Modus tenendi Parliamenta we read thus If the King dissolve the Parliament before they have dispatcht the business for which the Council was summon'd he is guilty of Perjury and shall be reputed to have broken his Coronation Oath For how can he be said to grant those good Laws which the people chuse as he is sworn to do if he hinders the People from chusing them either by summoning Parliaments seldomer or by dissolving them sooner than the Publick Affairs require or admit And that Oath which the Kings of England take at their Coronation has always been looked upon by our Lawyers as a most sacred Law And what remedy can be found to obviate the great Dangers of the whole State which is the very end of summoning Parliaments if that Great and August Assembly may be dissolved at the pleasure many times of a silly head-strong King To absent himself from them is certainly less than to dissolve them and yet by our Laws as that Modus lays them down the King neither can nor ought to absent himself from his Parliament unless he be really indisposed in Health nor then neither till twelve of the Peers have been with him to inspect his Body and give the Parliament an account of his Indisposition Is this like the Carriage of Servants to a Master On the other hand the House of Commons without whom there can be no Parliament held tho summoned by the King may withdraw and having made a Secession expostulate with the King concerning Male-administration as the same Book has it But which is the greatest thing of all amongst the Laws of King Edward commonly called the Confessor there is one very excellent relating to the Kingly Office which Office if the King do not discharge as he ought Then says the Law He shall not retain so much as the Name of a King And lest these words should not be sufficiently understood the Example of Chilperic King of France is subjoyn'd whom the People for that Cause deposed And that by this Law a wicked King is liable to Punishment that Sword of King Edward called Curtana denotes to us which the Earl of Chester used to carry in the Solemn Procession at a Coronation A token says Mathew Paris that he has Authority by Law to punish the King if he will not do his Duty and the Sword is hardly ever made use of but in Capital Punishments This same Law together with other Laws of that good King Edward did William the Conqueror ratifie in the Fourth Year of his Reign and in a very full Council held at Verulam confirm'd it with a
and teach such a Doctor as you That the word Tyrant for all your concern is barely to have some understanding of words may be applied to one who is neither a Traytor nor a Murtherer But the Laws of England do not make it Treason in the King to stir up Sedition against himself or the people Nor do they say That the Parliament can be guilty of Treason by deposing a bad King nor that any Parliament ever was so tho they have often done it but our Laws plainly and clearly declare that a King may violate diminish nay and wholly lose his Royalty For that expression in the Law of St. Edward of losing the name of a King signifies neither more nor less than being deprived of the Kingly Office and Dignity which befel Chilperic King of France whose example for illustration-sake is taken notice of in the Law it self There is not a Lawyer amongst us that can deny but that the highest Treason may be committed against the Kingdom as well as against the King I appeal to Glanvile himself whom you cite If any man attempt to put the King to death or raise Sedition in the Realm it is High Treason So that attempt of some Papists to blow up the Parliament-House and the Lords and Commons there with Gunpowder was by King James himself and both Houses of Parliament declared to be High Treason not against the King only but against the Parliament and the whole Kingdom 'T would be to no purpose to quote more of our Statutes to prove so clear a Truth which yet I could easily do For the thing it self is ridiculous and absurd to imagine That High Treason may be committed against the King and not against the people for whose good nay and by whose leave as I may say the King is what he is So that you babble over so many Statutes of ours to no purpose you toil and wallow in our Ancient Law-Books to no purpose for the Laws themselves stand or fall by Authority of Parliament who always had power to confirm or repeal them and the Parliament is the sole Judge of what is Rebellion what High Treason Iaesa Majestas and what not Majesty never was vested to that degree in the Person of the King as not to be more conspicuous and more August in Parliament as I have often shown But who can endure to hear such a senseless Fellow such a French Mountebank as you declare what our Laws are And you English Fugitives so many Bishops Doctors Lawyers who pretend that all Learning and Ingenuous Literature is fled out of England with your selves was there not one of you that could defend the King's Cause and your own and that in good Latin too to be submitted to the judgment of other Nations but that this brain-sick beggarly Frenchman must be hired to undertake the Defence of a poor indigent King surrounded with so many Infant-Priests and Doctors This very thing I assure you will be a great imputation to you amongst Foreigners and you will be thought deservedly to have lost that Cause that you were so far from being able to defend by Force of Arms as that you cannot so much as write in behalf of it But now I come to you again good-man goose-cap who scribble so finely if at least you are come to your self again for I find you here towards the latter end of your Book in a deep sleep and dreaming of some voluntary Death or other that 's nothing to the purpose Then you deny that 't is possible for a King in his right wits to embroil his people in Seditions to betray his own Forces to be slaughtered by Enemies and raise Factions against himself All which things having been done by many Kings and particularly by Charles the late King of England you will no longer doubt I hope especially being addicted to Stoicism but that all Tyrants as well as profligate Villains are downright mad Hear what Horace says Whoever through a senseless Stupidity or any other cause whatsoever hath his Understanding so blinded as not to discern truth the Stoicks account of him as of a mad-man And such are whole Nations such are Kings and Princes such are all Man kind except those very few that are Wise So that if you would clear King Charles from the Imputation of acting like a Mad-man you must first vindicate his integrity and show that he never acted like an ill man But a King you say cannot commit Treason against his own Subjects and Vassals In the first place since we are as free as any People under Heaven we will not be impos'd upon by any Barbarous Custom of any other Nation whatsoever In the second place Suppose we had been the King's Vassals that Relation would not have obliged us to endure a Tyrant to Reign and Lord it over us All Subjection to Magistrates as our own Laws declare is circumscribed and confined within the bounds of Honesty and the Publick Good Read Leg. Hen. 1. Cap. 55. The Obligation betwixt a Lord and his Tenants is mutual and remains so long as the Lord protects his Tenant this all our Lawyers tells us but if the Lord be too severe and cruel to his Tenant and do him some heinous Injury The whole Relation betwixt them and whatever Obligation the Tenant is under by having done Homage to his Lord is utterly dissolv'd and extinguish'd These are the very words of Bracton and Fleta So that in some Case the Law it self warrants even a Slave or a Vassal to oppose his Lord and allows the Slave to kill him if he vanquish him in Battle If a City or a whole Nation may not lawfully take the Course with a Tyrant the Condition of Freemen will be worse than that of Slaves Then you go about to excuse King Charles's shedding of Innocent Blood partly by Murders committed by other Kings and partly by some Instances of Men put to Death by them lawfully For the matter of the Irish Massacre you refer the Reader to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and I refer you to Eiconoclastes The Town of Rochel being taken and the Towns-men betray'd assistance shown but not afforded them you will not have laid at Charlos's door nor have I any thing to say whether he was faulty in that business or not he did mischief enough at home we need not enquire into what Misdemeanors he was guilty of abroad But you in the mean time would make all the Protestant Churches that have at any time defended themselves by force of Arms against Princes who were profess'd Enemies of their Religion to have been guilty of Rebellion Let them consider how much it concerns them for the maintaining their Ecclesiastical Discipline and asserting their own Integrity not to pass by so great an Indignity offered them by a Person bred up by and amongst themselves That which troubles us most is that the English likewise were betray'd in that Expedition He who had design'd long ago to convert
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
in overlooking or secluding the rest be they of the Nobility or the common people nay though profiting by experience they should refuse to be governed any longer either by a King or a 〈◊〉 of Lords But in railing at that Supreme Council as you call it and at the Chair man thére you make your self very Ridiculous for that Council is not the Supreme Council as you dream it is but appointed by Authority of Parliament for a certain time only and consisting of â—orty Persons for the most part Members of Parliament any one of whom may be President if the rest Vote him into the Chair And there is nothing more common than for our Parliaments to appoint Committees of their own Members who when so appointed have Power to meet where they please and hold a kind of a little Parliament amongst themselves And the most weighty Affairs are often referred to them for Expedition and Secresie the care of the Navy the Army the Treasury in short all things whatsoever relating either to War or Peace Whether this be called a Council or any thing else the thing is ancient though the name may be new and it is such an Institution as no Government can be duly administred without it As for our putting the King to death and changing the Government forbear your bawling don't spit your Venom till going along with you through every Chapter I show whether you will or no by what Law by what Right and Justice all that was done But if you insist to know by what Right by what Law by that Law I tell you which God and Nature have enacted viz. that whatever things are for the Universal Good of the Whole State are for that reason lawful and just So wise Men of old used to answer such as you You find fault with us for Repealing Laws that had obtained for so many years but you do not tell as whether those Laws were good or bad nor if you did should we heed what you said for you buisy Puppy what have you to do with our Laws I wish our Magistrates had â—…ed more than they have both Laws and â—â—wyers if they had they would have consulted the Interest of the Christian Religion and that of the People better then they have done It frets you That Hob-goblins Sons of the Earth scarce Gentlemen at home scarce known to their own Countrymen should presume to do such things But you ought to have remembred what not only the Scriptures but Horace would have taught you viz. Valet ima summis Mutare insignem attenuat Deus Obscura promens c. The Power that did create can change the Scene Of things make mean of great and great of mean The brightest Glory can Eclipse with Night And place the most obscure in dazling Light But take this into the Bargain some of those who you say are scarce Gentlemen are not at all inferiour in birth to any of your party others whose Ancestors were not Noble have taken a course to attain to true Nobility by their own Industry and Vertue and are not inferior to men of the Noblest Descent and had rather be 〈◊〉 â—â—ns of the Earth provided to be their own Earth their own Native Country and â—ct like Men at home then being destitute of House or Land to relieve the necessities of Nature in a Foreign Country by selling of Smoke as thou dost an inconsiderable Fellow and a Jâ—ck-straw and who depâ—ndest upon the good will of thy Masters for a poor Stâ—pend for whom it were better to forgo thy travelling and return to thy own Kindred and Country-men if thou hadst not this one piece of Cunning to babble out some silly Prelections and Fooleries at so good a rate amongst Foreigners You find fault with our Magistrates for admitting such a Common-shore of all sorts of Sects Why should they not It belongs to the Church to cast them out of the Communion of the faithful not to the Magistrate to Banish them the Country provided they do not offend against the Civil Laws of the State Men at first united into Civil Societies that they might live safely and enjoy their Liberty without being wrong'd or opprest that they might live Religiously and according to the Doctrine of Christianity they united themselves into Churches Civil Societies have Laws and Churches have a Discipline peculiar to themselves and far differing from each other And this has been the occasion of so many Wars in Christendom to wit because the Civil Magistrate and the Church confounded their Jurisdictions And therefore we do not admit of the Popish Sect so as to tolerate Papists at all for we do not look upon that as a Religion but rather as an Hierarchical Tyranny under a â—loak of Religion cloath'd with the Spoils of the Civil Power which it has usurp'd to it self contrary to our Saviour's own Doctrine As for the Independents we never had any such amongst us as you describe they that we call Independents are only such as hold that no Classes or Synods have a Superiority over any particular Church and that therefore they ought all to be pluckt up by the roots as Branches or rather as the very Trunk of Hierarchy it self which is your own opinion too And from hence it was that the name of Independents prevailed amongst the Vulgar The rest of your Preface is taken up in endeavouring not only to stir up the hatred of all Kings and Monarchs against us but to perswade them to make a General War upon us Mithridates of old though in a different cause endeavoured to stir up all Princes to make War upon the Romans by laying to their charge almost just the same things that you do to ours viz. that the Romans aim'd at nothing but the Subversion of all Kingdoms that they had no regard to any thing whether Sacred or Civil that from their very first rise they never enjoy'd any thing but what they had acquir'd by force that they were Robbers and the greatest Enemies in the world to Monarchy Thus Mithridates exprest himself in a Letter to Arsaces King of the Parthians But how came you whose business it it is to make silly Speeches from your Desk to have the Confidence to imagine that by your persuasions to take up Arms and sounding an Alarm as it were you should be able so much as to influence a King amongst Boys at play especially with so shrill a Voice and unsavoury Breath that I believe if you were to have been the Trumpeter not so much as Homer's Mice would have waged War against the Frogs So little do we fear you Slug you any War or Danger from Foreign Princes through your silly Rhetorick who accuse us to them just as if you were at play That we toss Kings heads like Balls play at Bowls with Crowns and regard Scepters no more then if they were Fool 's Staves with heads on But you in the mean time you silly Logerhead deserve to have
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
and holy Ancestors says he appointed those things to obtain for Laws that the people Enacted And hence it is that Lucius Crassus an Excellent Roman Orator and at that time President of the Senate when in a Controversie betwixt them and the common people he asserted their rights I beseech you says he suffer not us to live in subjejection to any but your selves to the entire body of whom we can and ought to submit For though the Roman Senate Govern'd the people the people themselves had appointed them to be their Governours and had put that power into their hands We read the term of Majesty more frequently applied to the people of Rome than to their Kings Tully in Orat. pro Plancio It is the condition of all free people says he and especially of this people the Lord of all Nations by their Votes to give or take away to or from any as themselves see cause ' â—is the duty of the Magistrates patiently to submit to what the body of the people Enact Those that are not ambitious of Honour have the less obligation upon them to Court the people those that affect Preferment must not be weary of entreating them Should I scruple to call a King the servant of his people when I hear the Roman Senate that reign'd over so many Kings profess themselves to be but the peoples servants You 'l object perhaps and say that all this is very true in a popular State but the case was altered afterwards when the Regal Law transferred all the people's right into Augustus and his Successors But what think you then of Tiberius whom your self confess to have been a very great Tyrant as he certainly was Suetonius says of him that when he was once called Lord or Master though after the Enacting of that Lex Regia he desired the person that gave him that appellation to forbear abusing him How does this sound in your ears a Tyrant thinks one of his Subjects abuses him in calling him Lord. The same Emperour in one of his Speeches to the Senate I have said says he frequently heretofore and now I say it again that a good Prince whom you have invested with so great power as I am entrusted with ought to serve the Senate and the body of the people and sometimes even particular persons nor do I repent of having said so I confess that you have been good and just and indulgent Masters to me and that you are yet so You may say that he dissembled in all this as he was a great Proficient in the art of Hypocrisie but that 's all one No man endeavours to appear otherwise than he ought to be Hence Tâ—â—itus tells us that it was the custom in Rome for the Emperours in the Circus to worship the people and that both Nero and other Emperours practised it Claudian in his Panegyrick upon Honorius mentions the same custom By which sort of Adoration what could possibly be meant but that the Emperours of Rome even after the Enacting of the Lex Râ—gia confessed the whole body of the people to be their Superiors But I find as I suspected at first and so I told ye that you have spent more time and pains in turning over Glossaries and Criticising upon Texts and propagating such like Laborious trifles than in reading sound Authors so as to improve your knowledg by them For had you been never so little versed in the Writings of Learned men in former ages you would not have accounted an opinion new and the product of some Enthusiastick heads which has been asserted and maintained by the greatest Philosophers and most famous Politicians in the world You endeavour to expose one Martin who you tell us was a Taylor and one William a Tanner but if they are such as you describe them I think they and you may very well go together though they themselves would be able to instruct you and unfold those mysterious Riddles that you propose as Whether or no they that in a Monarchy would have the King but a servant to the Common-wealth will say the same thing of the whole body of the people in a popular State And whether all the people serve in a Democracy or only some part or other serve the rest And when they have been an Oedipus to you by my consent you shall be a Sphinx to them in good earnest and throw your self headlong from some precipâ—ce or other and break your neck for else I 'm afraid you 'l never have done with your Riddles and Fooleries You ask Whether or no when St. Paul names Kings he meant the people I confess St. Paul commands us to pray for Kings but he had commanded us to pray for the people before vers 1. But there are some for all that both among Kings and common people that we are forbidden to pray for and if a man must not so much as be prayed for may he not be punished What should hinder But when Paul wrote this Epistle he that reigned was the most profligate person in the world That 's false For Lodovicus Capellus makes it evident that this Epistle likewise was writ in Claudius his time When St. Paul has occasion to speak of Nero he calls him not a King but a Lion that is a wild savage beast from whose Jaws he is glad he was delivered 2 Tim. 4. So that it is for Kings not for beasts that we are to pray that under them we may live a quiet and a peaceable life in all godliness and honesty Kings and their Interest are not the things here intended to be advanced and secured 't is the publick peace Godliness and honesty whose establishment we are commanded to endeavour after and to pray for But is there any people in the world that would not chuse rather to live an honest and a careful life though never free from War and troubles in the defence of themselves and their Families whether against Tyrants or Enemies for I make no difference than under the power of a Tyrant or an enemy to spin out a life equally troublesome accompanied with Slavery and Ignominy that the latter is the more desirable of the two I 'le prove by a Testimony of your own not because I think your authority worth quoting but that all men may observe how double-tongu'd you are and how Mercenary your Pen is Who would not rather say you bear with those dissentions that through the emulation of great men often happen in an Aristocratical Government than live under the Tyrannical Government of one where nothing but certain misery and ruin is to be look'd for The people of Rome prefer'd their Commonwealth though never so much shatter'd with Civil broils before the intollerable yoke of their Emperours When a people to avoid sedition submits to a Monarchy and finds by experience that that is the worse evil of the two they often desire to return to their former Government again These are your own words and more you have
the Law of Nature to oppress their Subjects and go unpunished because as circumstances may fall out it may sometimes be a less mischief to bear with them than to remove them Remember what your self once wrote concerning Bishops against a Jesuit you were then of another opinion than you are now I have quoted your words formerly you there affirm that seditious Civil dissentions and discords of the Nobles and Common people against and amongst one another are much more tolerable and less mischievous than certain misery and destruction under the Government of a single person that plays the Tyrant And you said very true For you had not then run mad you had not then been bribed with Charles his Jacobusses You had not got the King's-Evil I should tell you perhaps if I did not know you that you might be ashamed thus to prevaricate But you can sooner burst than blush who have cast off all shame for a little profit Did you not remember that the Commonwealth of the people of Rome flourished and became glorious when they had banished their Kings Could you possibly forget that of the Low-Countries which after it had shook off the yoke of the King of Spain after long and tedious Wars but Crown'd with success obtained its Liberty and feeds such a pitiful Grammarian as your self with a Pension not that their youth might be so infatuated by your Sophistry as to chuse rather to return to their former Slavery than inherit the Glorious Liberty which their Ancestors purchased for them May those pernicious principles of yours be banished with your self into the most remote and barbarous corners of the World And last of all the Commonwealth of England might have afforded you an example in which Charles who had been their King after he had been taken captive in War and was found incurable was put to death But they have defaced and impoverished the Island with Civil broils and discords which under its Kings was happy and swam in Luxury Yea when it was almost buried in Luxury and Voluptuousness and the more inured thereto that it might be enthralled the more easily when its Laws were abolished and its Religion agreed to be sold they delivered it from Slavery You are like him that published Simplicius in the same Volume with Epictetus a very grave Stoick Who call an Island happy because it swims in Luxury I 'm sure no such Doctrine ever came out of Zeno's School But why should not you who would give Kings a power of doing what they list have liberty your self to broach what new Philosophy you please Now begin again to act your part There never was in any King's Reign so much blood spilt so many Families ruined All this is to be imputed to Charles not to us who first raised an Army of Irishmen against us who by his own Warrant Authorized the Irish Nation to conspire against the English who by their means slew Two hundred Thousand of his English Subjects in the Province of Uâ—… besides what Numbers were sâ—ain in other parts of that Kingdom who sollicited two Armies towards the destruction of the Parliament of England and the City of London and did many other actions of Hostility before the Parliament and people had Listed one Soldier for the preservation and defence of the Government What Principles what Law what Religion ever taught men rather to consult their ease to save their money their blood nay their lives themselves than to oppose an enemy with force for I make no difference betwixt a Foreign Enemy and another since both are equally dangerous and destructive to the good of the whole Nation The People of Israel saw very well that they could not possibly punish the Benjamites forSpanâ— Murthering the Levite's Wife without the loss of many Men's lives And did that induce them to sit still Was that accounted a sufficient Argument why they should abstain from War from a very Bloody Civil War Did they therefore suffer the Death of one poor Woman to be unrevenged Certainly if Nature teacheth us rather to endure the Government of a King though he be never so bad than to endanger the lives of a great many Men in the recovery of our Liberty it must teach us likewise not only to endure a Kingly Government which is the only one that you argue ought to be submitted to but an Aristocracy and a Democracy Nay and sometimes it will persuade us to submit to a Multitude of Highway-men and to Slaves that Mutiny Fulvius and Rupilius if your Principles had been received in their days must not have engaged in the Servile War as their Writers call it after the Praetorian Armies were Slain Crassus must not have Marched against Spartacus after the Rebels had destroyed one Roman Army and spoil'd their Tents Nor must â—â—mpâ—y have undertaken the Piratick War But the State of Rome must have pursued the dictates of Nature and must have submitted to their own Slaves or to the Pyrates rather than run the hazard of losing some Mens lives You do not prove at all that Nature has imprinted any such notion as this of yours on the minds of Men And yet you cannot forbear boding us ill luck and denouncing the Wrath of God against us which may Heaven divert and inflict it upon your self and all such Prognosticators as you who have punished as he deserved one that had the name of our King but was in Fact our implacable Enemy and we have made Atonement for the Death of so many of our Countreymen as our Civil Wars have occasion'd by shedding his Blood that was the Author and Cause of them Then you tell us that a Kingly Government appears to be more according to the Laws of Nature because more Nations both in our days and of old have submitted to that Form of Government than ever did to any other I answer If that be so it was neither the effect of any Dictate of the Law of Nature nor was it in Obedience to any Command from God God would not suffer his own People to be under a King he consented at last but unwillingly what Nature and right Reason dictates we are not to gather from the practice of most Nations but of the wisest and most prudent The Grecians the Romans the Italians and Carthagenians with many other have of their own accord out of choice preferr'd a Commonwealth to a Kingly Government and these Nations that I have named are better instances than all the rest Hence Sulpitius Severus says That the very Name of a King was always very odious among freeborn People But these things concern not our present purpose nor many other Impertinences that follow over and over again I 'll make haste to prove that by Examples which I have proved already by Reason viz. That it is very agreeable to the Law of Nature that Tyrants should be punished and that all Nations by the instinct of Nature have punished them which will expose your Impudence and
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
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
the Land And I cannot upon this occasion but congratulate my self with the Honour of having had such Ancestors who founded this Government with no less prudence and in as much Liberty as the most worthy of the Ancient Romans or Grecians ever sounded any of theirs and they must needs if they have any knowledg of our Affairs rejoyce over their Posterity who when they were almost reduced to Slavery yet with so much Wisdom and Courage 〈◊〉 and asserted the State which they so wisely sounded upon so much Liberty from the unruly Government of a King CHAP. IX I Think by this time 't is sufficiently evident that Kings of England may be judged even by the Laws of England and that they have their proper Judges which was the thing to be proved What do you do farther for whereas you repeat many things that you have said before I do not intend to repeat the answers that I have given them 'T is an easie thing to demonstrate even from the nature of the things for which Parliaments are summon'd that the King is above the Parliament The Parliament you say is wont to be assembled upon weighty affairs such as wherein the safety of the Kingdom and of the people is concerned If therefore the King call Parliaments together not for his own concerns but those of the Nation nor to settle those neither but by their own consent at their own discretion what is he more than a Minister and as it were an agent for the people since without their Suffrages that are chosen by the people he cannot Eâ—… the least thing whatsoever either with relation to himself or any body else Which proves likewise that 't is the King's duty to call Parliaments whenever the people desire it since the peoples and not the King 's concerns are to be treated of that Assembly and to be ordered as they see cause For although the King's assent be required for fashion sake which in lesser matters that concerned the welfare of private persons only he might refuse and use that form the King will advise yet in those greater affairs that concern'd the publick safety and liberty of the people in general he had no Negative voice for it would have been against his Coronation Oath to deny his assent in such cases which was as binding to him as any Law could be and against the chief article of Magna Charta Cap. 29. We will not deny to any man nor will we delay to render to every man Right and Justice Shall it not be in the King's power to deny Justice and shall it be in his power to deny the Enacting of Just Laws Could he not deny Justice to any particular person and could he to all his people Could he not do it in inferior Courts and could he in the Supreme Court of all Or can any King be so arrogant as to pretend to know what 's just and profitable better than the whole body of the people Especially since he is created and chosen for this very end and purpose to do Justice to all as Braction says Lib. 3. Cap. 9. that is to do Justice according to such Laws as the people agree upon Hence is what we find in our Records 7 H 4. Rott Parl. num 59. The King has no Prerogative that derogates from Justice and Equity And formerly when Kings have refused to confirm Acts of Parliament to wit Magna Charta and some others our Ancestors have brought them to it by force of Arms. And yet our Lawyers never were of opinion that those Laws were less valid or less binding since the King was forced to assent to no more than what he ought in Justice to have assented to voluntarily and without constraint Whilest you go about to prove that Kings of other Nations have been as much under the power of their Senates or Counsels as our Kings were you do not argue us into Slavery but them into Liberty In which you do but that over again that you have from the very beginning of your Discourse and which some silly Leguleians now and then do to argue unawares against their own Clients But you say VVe confess that the King where-ever he be yet is supposed still to be present in his Parliament by vertue of his power insomuch that whatever is transacted there is supposed to be done by the King himself and then as if you had got some petty bribe or small morsel and tickled with the remembrance of your Purse of Gold We take say you what they give us and take a Halter then for I 'm sure you deserve it But we do not give it for granted which is the thing you thought would follow from thence That therefore that Court acts only by vertue of a Delegated Power from the King For when we say that the Regal Power be it what it will cannot be absent from the Parliament do we thereby acknowledg that Power to be Supreme does not the King's Authority seem rather to be transferred to the Parliament and as being the lesser of the two to be comprised in the greater Certainly if the Parliament may resâ—ind the King's Acts whether he will or no and revoke Priviledges granted by him to whomsoever they be granted If they may set bounds to his Prerogative as they see cause if they may regulate his yearly Revenue and the Expences of his Court his Retinue and generally all the concerns of his Houshold If they may remove his most intimate Friends and Counsellors and as it were pluck them out of his bosom and bring them to condign punishment Finally if any Subject may by Law appeal from the King to the Parliament all which things that they may lawfully be done and have been frequently practised both our Histories and Records and the most eminent of our Lawyers assure us I suppose no man in his right wits will deny the Authority of the Parliament to be superiour to that of the King For even in an Interregnum the Authority of the Parliament is in being and than which nothing is more common in our Histories they have often made a free Choice of a Successor without any regard to an Hereditary descent In short the Parliament is the Supreme Councel of the Nation constituted and appointed by a most free people and armed with ample power and authority for this end and purpose viz. to consult together upon the most weighty affairs of the Kingdom the King was created to put their Laws in execution Which thing after the Parliament themselves had declared in a publick Edict for such is the Justice of their Proceedings that of their own accord they have been willing to give an account of their actions to other Nations is it not prodigious that such a pitiful fellow as you are a man of no authority of no credit of no estate in the world a meer Burgundian 〈◊〉 should have the imprudence to accuse the Parliament of England asserting by a publick Instrument their
own and their Countries Right of a detestable and â—â—rrid Imposture Your Country may be aâ—…amed you Rascall to have brought forth a little inconsiderable fellow of such profligate impudence But perhaps you have somewhat to tell us that may be for our good Go on we 'l hear you VVhat Laws say you can a Parliament Enact in which the Bishops are 〈◊〉 present Did you then ye madman expell the Order of Bishops out of the Church to introduce them into the State O wicked wretch who ought to be delivered over to Satan whom the Church ought to forbid her Communion as being a Hypocrite and an Atheist and no Civil Society of men to acknowledg as a member being a publick enemy and a Plague-sore to the common liberty of Mankind who where the Gospel fails you endeavour to prove out of Aristetle Halicarnassaeus and then from some Popish Authorities of the most corrupt ages that the King of England is the head of the Church of England to the end that you may as far as in you lies bring in the Bishops again his Intimates and Table-Companions grown so of late to rob and Tyrannize in the Church of God whom God himself hath deposed and degraded whose very Order you had heretofore asserted in Print that it ought to be rooted out of the world as destructive of and pernicious to the Christian Religion What Apostate did ever so shamefully and wickedly desert as this man has done I do not say his own which indeed never was any but the Christian Doctrine which he had formerly asserted The Bishops being put down who under the King and by his permission held Plea of Ecclesiastical Causes upon whom say you will that Jurisdiction devolve O Villain have some regard at least to your own Conscience Remember before it be too late if at least this admonition of mine come not too late remember that this mocking the Holy Spirit of God is an inexpiable crime and will not be left unpunisht Stop at last and set bounds to your fury lest the wrath of God lay hold upon you suddenly for endeavouring to deliver the flock of God his Anointed ones that are not to be touched to Enemies and cruel Tyrants to be crusht and trampled on again from whom himself by a high and stretched out arm had so lately delivered them and from whom you your self maintained that they ought to be delivered I know not whether for any good of theirs or in order to the hardning of your own heart and to further your own damnation If the Bishops have no right to Lord it over the Church certainly much less have Kings whatever the Laws of men may be to the contrary For they that know any thing of the Gospel know thus much that the Government of the Church is altogether Divine and Spiritual and no Civil Constitution Whereas you say That in Secular Affairs the Kings of England have always had the Sovereign Power Our Laws do abundantly declare that to be false Our Courts of Justice are erected and suppressed not by the King's Authority but that of the Parliament and yet in any of them the meanest Subject might go to Law with the Ring nor is it a rare thing for the Judges to give Judgment against him which if the King should endeavour to obstruct by any Prohibition Mandate or Letters the Judges were bound by Law and by their Oaths not to obey him but to reject such Inhibitions as null and void in Law the King could not imprison any man or seize his Estate as forfeited he could not punish any man not summoned to appear in Court where not the King but the ordinary Judges gave Sentence which they frequently did as I have said against the King Hence our Bractan lib. 3. cap. 9. The Regal Power says he is according to Law he has no power to do any wrong nor can the King do any thing but what the Law warrants Those Lawyers that you have consulted men that have lately fled their Countrey may tell you another tale and acquaint you with some Statutes not very Ancient neither but made in King Edward 4th's King Henry 6th's and King Edward 6th's days but they did not consider That what power soever those Statutes gave the King was conferred upon him by Authority of Parliament so that he was beholding to them for it and the same power that conferr'd it might at pleasure resume it How comes it to pass that so acute a disputant as you should suffer your self to be imposed upon to that degree as to make use of that very Argument to prove the King's Power to be Absolute and Supreme than which nothing proves more clearly That it is subordinate to that of the Parliament Our Records of the greatest Authority with us declare That our Kings owe all their Power not to any Right of Inheritance of Conquest or Succession but to the people So in the Parliament Rolls of King Hen. 4. numb 108. we read That the Kingly Office and Power was granted by the Commons to King Henry the 4th and before him to his Predecessor King Richard the 2d just as Kings use to grant Commissioners places and Lieutenantships to their Deputies by Edicts and Patents Thus the House of Commons ordered expresly to be entred upon record That they had granted to King Richard to use the same good Liberty that the Kings of England before him had used Which because that King abused to the subversion of the Laws and contrary to his Oath at his Coronation the same persons that granted him that power took it back again and deposed him The same men as appears by the same Record declared in open Parliament That having confidence in the Prudence and Moderation of King Henry the 4th they will and enact That he enjoy the same Royal Authority that his Ancestors enjoyed Which if it had been any other than in the nature of a Trust as this was either those Houses of Parliament were foolish and vain to give what was none of their own or those Kings that were willing to receive as from them what was already theirs were too injurious both to themselves and their Posterity neither of which is likely A third part of the Regal Power say you is conversant about the Mâ—litia this the Kings of England have used to order and govern without Fellow or Competitor This is as false as all the rest that you have taken upon the credit of Fugitives For in the first place both our own Histories and those of Foreigners that have been any whit exact in the relation of our Affairs declare That the making of Peace and War always did belong to the Parliament And the Laws of St. Edward which our Kings were bound to swear that they would maintain make this appear beyond all exception in the Chapter De Heretochus viz. That there were certain Officers appointed in every Province and County throughout the Kingdom that were called Heretochs in Latin
cause from preserving the State which when it was in a tottering condition and almost quite reduced to Slavery and utter ruin the whole body of the people had at first committed to their fidelity prudence and courage And they acted their parts like men they set themselves in opposition to the unruly wilfulness the rage the secret designs of an inveterate and exasperated King they prefer'd the common liberty and safety before their own they out-did all former Parliaments they out-did all their Ancestors in Conduct Magnanimity and steddiness to their cause Yet these very men did a great part of the people ungratefully desert in the midst of their undertaking though they had promised them all fidelity all the help and assistance they could afford them These were for Slavery and peace with sloth and luxury upon any terms Others demanded their Liberty nor would accept of a peace that was not sure and honourable What should the Parliament do in this case ought they to have defended this part of the people that was sound and continued faithful to them and their Country or to have sided with those that deserted both I know what you will say they ought to have done You are not Eurulochus but Elpenor a miserable Enchanted Beast a filthy Swine accustomed to a sordid Slavery even under a Woman so that you have not the least relish of true Magnanimity nor consequently of Liberty which is the effect of it You would have all other men slaves because you find in your self no generous ingenuous inclinations you say nothing you breath nothing but what 's mean and servile You raise another scruple to wit That he was the King of Scotland too whom we condemn'd as if he might therefore do what he would in England But that you may conclude this Chapter which of all others is the most weak and insipid at least with some witty querk There are two little words say you that are made up of the same number of Letters and differ only in the placing of them but whose significations are wide asunder to wit Vis and Jus might and right 'T is no great wonder that such a three letter'd man as you Fur a Thief should make such a Witticism upon three Letters 'T is the greater wonder which yet you assert throughout your Book that two things so directly opposite to one another as those two are should yet meet and become one and the same thing in Kings For what violence was ever acted by Kings which you do not affirm to be their Right These are all the passages that I could pick out of nine long Pages that I thought deserved an answer The rest consists either of repetitions of things that have been answered more than once or such as have no relation to the matter in hand So that my being more brief in this Chapter than in the rest is not to be imputed to want of diligence in me which how irksome soever you are to me I have not slackned but to your tedious impertinence so void of matter and sense CHAP. XII I Wish Salmasius that you had left out this part of your Discourse concerning the King's crimes which it had been more advisable for your self and your party to have done for I 'm afraid lest in giving you an answer to it I should appear too sharp and severe upon him now he is dead and hath received his punishment But since you chose rather to discourse confidently and at large upon that Subject I 'le make you sensible that you could not have done a more inconsiderate thing than to reserve the worst part of your cause to the last to wit that of ripping up and enquiring into the Kings Crimes which when I shall have proved them to have been true and most exorbitant they will render his memory unpleasant and odious to all good men and imprint now in the close of the Controversie a just hatred of you who undertake his defence on the Readers minds Say you His accusation may be divided into two parts one is conversant about his Morals the other taxeth him with such â—…lts as he might commit in his publick capacity I 'le be 〈◊〉 to pass by in silence that part of his life that he spent in Banqueâ—tings at Plays and in the conversation of Women for what can there be in Luxury and Excess worth relating And what would those things have been to us if he had been a private person But since he would be a King as he could not live a private life so neither could his Vices be like those of a private person For in the first place he did a great deal of mischief by his example In the second place all that time that he spent upon his lust and in his sports which was a great part of his time he stole from the State the Government of which he had undertaken Thirdly and lastly he squandered away vast Sums of Money which were not his own but the publick Revenue of the Nation in his Domestick Luxury and Extravagance So that in his private life at home he first began to be an ill King But let us rather pass over to those Crimes that he is charged with on the account of misgovernment Here you lament his being condemned as a Tyrant a Traytor and a Murderer That he had no wrong done him shall now be made appear But first let us define a Tyrant not according to vulgar conceits but the judgment of Aristotle and of all Learned Men. He is a Tyrant who regards his own welfare and profit only and not that of the people So Aristotle defines one in the Tenth Book of his Ethicks and elsewhere and so do very many others Whether Charles regarded his own or the peoples good these few things of many that I shall but touch upon will evince When his Rents and other publick Revenues of the Crown would not defray the Expences of the Court he laid most heavy Taxes upon the people and when they were squandred away he invented new ones not for the benefit honour or defence of the State but that he might hoard up or lavish out in one House the Riches and Wealth not of one but of three Nations When at this rate he broke loose and acted without any colour of Law to warrant his proceedings knowing that a Parliament was the only thing that could give him check he endeavoured either wholly to lay aside the very calling of Parliaments or calling them just as often and no oftner than to serve his own turn to make them entirely at his devotion Which Bridle when he had cast off himself he put another Bridle upon the people he put Garrisons of German Horse and Irish Foot in many Towns and Cities and that in time of Peace Do you think he does not begin to look like a Tyrant In which very thing as in many other Particulars which you have formerly given me occasion to instance in though you