disputable Titles which will needs be the result of any alter'd Succession and what now do these Laws affirm to which Mr. H. must affix his discent of the Crown by his own words when he says 't is of a Civil Nature why the Civil and Imperial 't is true differ from our own in this that with them he is lookt upon an Heir that is left so by the Testator in his Will and by them a Testamentary Succession was more esteem'd then a Legitimate and Lawful one yet even that imply'd there was one that was Legitimate or born so and the Reason why they rely'd so much upon Testamentary Inheritances was I believe because those were confirm`d by the very Laws of their 12. Tab. which was their first and Fundimental and therefore as long as the Testamentary was valid they would by no means admit the Legitimate one But still even in those Testamentary donations I believe they for the most part 〈◊〉 most of their Patrimony to the Eldest as well as we see among our selves our Tenants in fee simple that have as absolute a disposition of it by Will or those that have recover'd against the tail by fine or the like still leave their Eldest their Heir tho Impower'd to give it to whom they please And then for our own Law the very Custom of the Realm by which we must be more immediately Govern'd that makes the Eldest Son the only Heir to his Ancestor or else the next of Kin to the Predecessor deceas'd and that is the Reason an old Aphorism obtain'd even with our own Antient Lawyers that expressly insinuates such an Hereditary Succession to be by Divine Institution when they tell us that 't is not mankind but the Almighty makes them Heirs I know that the saying more properly refers to the Order or appointment of the Divine Will that such an one shall be the First-Born because it makes him to come into the World first but if it can be prov'd from the Text as in many places it may and in some we have shown that God himself in express Terms made the younger Subject we may be so bold to say that he instituted too such a Subjection to be paid to the Eldest And now let us consider the paternal Right which our Republicans so much deride which Mr. Sidney in ridicule would force us to derive from the Eldest Son of Noah which Plato Redivivus would expose in the Empire of Reuben the Brief History calls a new Notion of the present Age and Mr. Hunt laughs at in the merry conceit of calling it the Court of King Adam and King Father 't is true the most Sacred and Divinest truth may be made Ridiculous only by laughing at it and the World has not wanted even such a Blasphemous Buffoon to burlesque the whole Bible but I shall shew them here as in the most proper place in what Sense those Fathers might be said to be Kings and that the Absurdities they suggest are sar from any Consequences of such a Supposition And why for Gods sake must we be put to prove only for Asserting that the first Man had a Monarchichal Dominion tho it were at first over Beasts why must we therefore make out too that he kept up his Majesty after the manner of our Kings And that Adam in his Garden of Eden in the first Year of the World had built him an House like a Solomon that was hardly finish'd in Fifteen That he that had but Fig-Leaves to cover him had laid the Foundations of his Court in costly Stone and erected a Pile whose Porches and Pillars were of pure Caedar and all the Building built up out of Caedar Beams they may as well expect we should make out this too 〈◊〉 bring all the Forrest of Lebanon to be laid out in a Palace of Paradice Is it not enough for us to maintain that the first Government in the World was Monarchial when we can prove all the Dominion and Power was imparted to a single Person and when God himself seem'd to make but that one Man to prevent even a possibility of a Competitor and a Division of the Soveraignty without being obliged to make the very Origen of Monarchy adaequate to the Improvement of it and that a Soveraign for almost seven thousand year agon had the same Pompous and Imperial sway that a series of time and a Revolution of Ages has settled in the King of Great-Britain Many things are clear from Analogy of Reason tho they cannot be demonstrated to Sense the naturalist and Chymical Operators may well conclude that the mineral Vermilion is made by some 〈◊〉 Subterraneous heat that 〈◊〉 the sumes of Mercury and Sulphur in which Mines 't is found from their being able to make the Cinnabar its Resemblance by an Artificial 〈◊〉 out of the Butter of Antimony in which is both Sulphur and Mercury tho themselves were never working under ground and in the Mines If we must be put upon such a piece of Impertinence as the Postscript would have it to find out this King Adam's Court too I 'll just take the Liberty to put them to just such another task They will have their instituted Common-wealth to Commence from the World's insancy even before that of Israel before that Moses as they say had divided their Land unto them by Lot and turned the several Tribes into so many Republicks And then let them tell me what sort of a Republick it was that the Patriarchs liv'd under and were ruled by where it was that Abraham and his Fellow Citizens consulted to make Laws for the Benefit of the Common-wealth of his Family so great that his train'd Servants 318 sought 4 Kings where it was that Lot and his Herds-men when they pitch'd their Tents in the Plain set up their Stadthouse and commenced Burgomasters if in those days there was any Government purely Democratical that is 〈◊〉 Licentious it must have been seen in the Cities and Towns of those times some Sodom or Gomorrah yet even there the Text tells us Bera was King of the one and Birsha of the other let them tell us where Isaac when he settled in the Valley of Gerar set up his Servants for Senators tho he was grown so great since they will have it so in the Common-wealth of his Houseshold that a mighty King of those times whom the Text expresly calls so Abimilech told him that he was much mightier than he and the Philistines envyed and 〈◊〉 him too for it Let them tell us how Jacob liv'd in the Republick of his Sons and Servants in Succoth tho such a numerous train that they could venture to invade the City of the Shechemites inhabited by the Subjects of Hamor the Hivite whom the Scripture calls the Prince of the Country and sure these Patriarchs were somewhat more than the ordinary Fathers of Families as Plato would make them when their Forces were so
as also the more forward we go in discovering the New But tho from the Roman Invasion he leaps presently into the Saxon Heptarchy yet we may read too there were many petty Kings that they suffered here after their Conquest it being the Roman Pride of having Kings their Subjects and why those might not still retain an Hereditary Succession I cannot understand especially since Dr. Heylin reckons up 16 Kings that succeeded after the Roman Forces had left them naked as indeed they were without a Metaphor to the incursion of the Pict the first five or six of them lineally succeeding one another from Father to Son and the rest not known to have succeeded so only because there 's nothing left us of them but their Names After the consolidating of that Heptarchy into a single Monarchy the learned Man whom I before have cited has shown this disingenuous Author unfortunately to have stumbled in the very Threshold and proved by Authentick Citation that his elected Egbert was the next of kin to the Royal Stock that all the following Succession of the Saxon and Danish Monarchs ran in the blood or was disposed of by the Will and Testament of the deceased Prince The renowned City of London as he calls her is obliged to him for his Civilities and I shall thank him too for his Complement in letting her know that her Approbation had heretofore no small Influence on the Succession And for the securing the Crown on the right head 't is recorded to their Glory and may that glorious act of their Ancestors be still perpetuated in our lasting Annuals and imitated too by the Posterity of her present Inhabitants who then adhered to King Edmond their Lineal and Lawful Prince and that because they knew he was so A Prince Worthy of a better time and who had he found more faithful and but better Subjects might have been in Condition to have made it so His Citizens then clave to him when his very Clergy 〈◊〉 him but their Religion in those days was too little to expect their Loyalty much whereas ours now as the best Argument of their being truly Religious still show themselves as eminently Loyal The Citizens then for I shall insist upon it for their Encouragement now would not concur with Canute's Election by the Priests and Nobility And why because a perfect Exclusion of the right Heir and the next Lawful Son and Successor to their late King And the Fiction that the Factious Author tells us of a Child chosen in the Womb proves but the Story the Fable of a Monk for which he might as well have cited their Legends M Westminster Paris nor any other Authentick Historians ancient enough so much as mention it and our modern Baker says expresly upon 〈◊〉 Death his third Son Edmund call'd Iron-Side but the Eldest living at his Fathers Death succeeded and was Crowned at Kingston upon Thames That a great part of the Nobility favoured the Dane because they feared him but the Londoners stood firm to Edmund and 〈◊〉 the Authors of his Election and upon his very using of the word here I can't but observe what the worthy Dr. has sufficiently proved too how common among Historians that word Election is used only for a Confirmation or acknowledgment of the Right and how against Reason he still misapplies it to Choice why did he not undertake to prove from Baker too that this Prince was elected by the Londoners only because he says they were the cause of his Election which perhaps he would have done but that he found he must have made that Author contradict himself as I believe he has done the rest who tells us just before he was Crown'd at Kingston as the eldest living at his Fathers Death And the Interest of that Metropolis for the right Line was such and so considerable together with that Princes own Courage and Conduct that he remained Conqueror in three several Battels and had been so in the fourth too the last I believe the Dane would have dared to offer had not that false Edric the Traytor to his Father acted o're the same Treason to the Son and revolted in the fight when the Forces of the Foe where on the point of flying The taking but half his Kingdom at that Duel and Accommodation in the Isle of Alney was more 〈◊〉 than fortunate when still his trusty Citizens would have fought for the whole and spent their last blood for the right Line they had first espoused the parting with some of his right was quickly succeeded with the losing of all and his Life to the Bargain and England might well be too weak for its self when 't was made half Denmark so dangerous is it to Princes to forgo the least of their right which only introduces the loss of a greater share or to part with a piece of Prerogative for the patching up some popular divisions whose twisted Interest like Cords that are a twining if it catch but the Skirts of the Purple will soon wind away the whole robe the Observation is here verified upon our old Records and been newly transcribed in Blood in our latter days and the Son of our Royal Martyr treads the best Politicks for the Prevention in that unfortunate Testimony of his Father and if Soveraignty be somewhat that is Divine a Subjects robbing of the Crown must be next to that of a Church and a sin that savours as much of sacriledg But to let you know in short the design of this Historian's Complement upon which we have dwelt too long the pretty Parenthesis was applyed to another purpose 't was publisht at a time when the City was Influencing an House of Commons that were for altering Succession and they as great an Influence with the City At a Banquet of Politicks after their Parliament Feast and His time to let them know the Approbation of that renowned City had then no little Influence on the Succession And besides in the very same Page he had prepared for them the pretty President of the Saxons preferring a brave and deserving Bastard before a cruel and Legitimate Prince He means that Athelstan whom he resolves rather erroniously to suppose Illegitimate than Ingeniously to allow him as he truly was the Lawful Heir But Baker and others tell us the Truth tho' he will not and say this Athelstan was the Eldest and no way spurious But the telling of the Truth would have prevented this malicious Authors Factious insinuation of the D. Temper which to make the more remarkable he must mark out in Emphatical Italicks only to save the crying Monmouth and York But the Card is turned there now and the Loyal Heart Trump instead of his Clubs and to be hoped they 'l make good the best part of the Observation which he never designed they should stand and fall with their Loyal Progenitors in the defence of the right Line and the Royal Blood In short upon the whole united and
upon this KEEPER of their LIBERTIES and you saw the Sycophant spitting in its mouth his Papers are the very Picture of this piece and the Representation of Rebellion with a Pen. The next that Mounts the Throne is STEPHEN and the little Right tho some Relation he had to the Crown to be sure won't be past by when this Author for the sake of his sinking Cause has caught at every Plank to hold up her Head in that desperate Condition and where he could not meet the least solid substantial Argument graspt at every empty Shadow And truly here he tells us that STEPHEN acknowledg'd his Election in the very Words of a Charter from the People and so would any man that had no better Title and tho I shall condemn his Usurpation can allow of his Politicks in letting them know how much he was beholden to them and yet that People were strong enough to pull off his Crown too which his own hands rather had put on for as Bradshaw told the King The People of England had constituted them a Court when that unanswerable Martyr observed not half their Consents did concur or were askt so also in this Case many of the Nobility most of the Commonalty lookt upon it as a manifest Usurpation and those whose Concurrence he had were but an handful of his Friends and at his Coronation had but three Bishops few of the Nobility and not one Abbot and also as Historians observe those very perjur'd Prelates and Lords came many of them to an ill-end or else to worse Calamities before their life was ended And the revengeful Cruelties of the Scot lookt somewhat like a Judgment for their Perjury when they spar'd neither the Gray-Hair for whom Reverence might plead nor the Tender-Infant for whom its Innocence but Butchered the one in their Beds the other on their Mothers Breasts the Barbarity of those avengers is as horribly describ'd in Mat. Paris But agen I cannot see why he was not as much an Invader as his Grandfather the Conqueror only that came from Normandy this out of Boleign that was forct to fight first with Harold an hardy Foe this his Invasion facilitated by the Weakness of a Woman but as weak as she was He knew her Title to be strong and as strong as this Author would have him with the People yet he found himself too weak only with the pretence of his Election to defend his Vsurpation found an Army of Flemmings would give him a better Title to the Crown than all this Power of Parliament to the Peopledom and that a good Garrison would hold out longer in his defence than our Authors House of Commons and in truth his being so good a Souldier would not suffer him to be long a precarious King an hundred thousand Pound of the good old Kings Treasure did him more good than all their suffrages it brought Men and Arms out of Britany and Flanders and built so many Castles for those sort of Monarch-makers till the whole Kingdom seemed all over but one CITADEL and all its Government but an entire Garrison Yet as secure as he thought himself both in Subjects and his Strength the prevalency of Right and Justice soon encompast him with as many Dangers His Nobility begin to be incensed against him and that out of a sence of his having injured an Heir The provok't Empress Lands with a strong party and her presence soon proclaimed the Justice of her Cause and made that Oath they had swallowed for her without any Operation or Effect to work now as strongly a pitcht Battle and a fierce one too is fought his Souldiers forsook him at last as well as his People and he forc't to sight so desperately for a cause that was ever as desperate till himself is taken a Prisoner by her from whom he took the Crown and tho she brought a War for her Right was received peaceably entered Her Capital City in Triumph and by her Loyal Londoners welcom'd with Acclamation and Joy And pray what was the Consequence now of this debarred Right but what always attends it BLOOD the Scots had with a Savage sort of a Revenge shed some for her before she spilt a great deal before she came to this and before the ground which had drunk so much Gore could be said to be dry at Winohester 't is moistened with a fresh supply and that too with a War of Women MATIL'D the Queen invades Maud the Empress the worst cause as it is wont prevails best and here the Right Heir is again driven from the enjoyment of her Right by that which commonly does it the SWORD and then at last after all the various events of WAR which whatever the Fortune be must still end in the loss of Lives that Just Astrea which then too seemed to have left the Earth and upon it nothing but wrong look't down from Heaven this fierce King in fuller Assembly than in what he was chose acknowledges that Hereditary Right against which he had fought and Henry in the Right of his Mother Maud to be the Lawful Successor And one would think now this succeeding Monarch's Right should have been allowed Hereditary beyond dispute beyond Contradiction when so much Blood had been spilt in the Defence of it when acknowledged so by this Popular Advocates own People and before them owned too by him that had interrupted the Succession and excluded the Right and Lawful Heir But what cannot Malice suggest or Faction invent till this transport against Government this rage of Rebellion suspends the calm Operations of the Soul and the dictates of common Sense till it hurry these blind Pretenders to verity into the greatest falsehoods transports them into perfect Lyes and Absurdities and to labour even against the Contradictions of Truth and Reason Here he still impudently tells us against plain matter of Fact the Confessions of his own Creatures the People and the Acknowledgment of his own Favourite the Vsurper That in all these Transactions there was no Consideration of any Right but what universal consent conferr'd And his Exception to our Henry the Second's Right must also now result from his Mother Mawds Title before I am glad we can get him to tolerate any such thing as Title at all but I would ask this Gentleman if he has any thing to dispose of whether he might not cedere de bonis as the Civilians in another Case Phrase it only for the letting his Successor and Heir Inherit it or whether upon such a Cession or making it over his Son should not succeed into this Patrimony till he had knockt his bountiful Father in the head or he was pleased to step aside into the next World to let his Successor have more Room in this I fancy he would be glad such a Resignation might pass without an Attournment of his LIFE too Maud the Empress was sufficiently pleased only with the Succession of her Son and
and somewhat at least of a good opinion of that new Soveraignty in a single Person so easily to admit 〈◊〉 for the depravity of Mens manners can never arise to such an Acme of transcendent Wickedness as only for mischief sake to undermine a Government they think the best and for an Instance their own Malitious Accusations as common as they are False fly in the very Face of this Conjecture for they make now the most Debauch't Atheists at present the greatest Sticklers for our Government Now if the Depravity of their manners would make them neglect the Monarchy they love I am sure we have such a Number of true Profligate Villains on their side that as Mortally hate it that we should soon have it undermin'd 'T is a strange Paradox that a Republick which was always the result of a Rebellion and which is restless till it return to that Government from which it revolted should be lookt upon by these prejudic'd preposterous Politicians for a piece of 〈◊〉 which can proceed from nothing else but from the Turbulent Hunjour and discontents of some restless Spirits that dislike the Constitution of that under which they were Born and would that of any to which they are Subjected yet still can Fancy that Monarchy which they will have Establish't by the common Consent of the People to proceed from a Corruption of their Manners when this their Peoples Consent and Unanimous Agreement for it should determine him at least to think it eligible for the best And if the People that in a defection from a Government who must be supposs'd the least Number shall be allow'd to reform for the better by running into a Republick as I know he thinks of the Rebellious Dutch yet why should not even there the Universal Consent of almost all the King of Spains Subjects in retaining of their Monarchy make it preferable much Over-ballance the Scales against the revolt of an handful of Rebels unless he Fancies the Nevills the Sydneys the Harringtons c. the Wisest and the most Honest part of the World And that they are always among such Renegadoes And can in Reason three or four petty Common-wealths most of them in Europe too and such as by the Machinations of some of these sort of 〈◊〉 Contents and by the Poison of their Principles were Debauch't in their Loyalty and animated to Rebel be so prevalent an Argument as to perswade Men in their Wits that the Monarchy's in which almost all our Christian World Conspires and all the Heathen agrees as far as it is known and which Government we have still found even in those unknown parts as far and as fast as they have been Discover'd that this all the while must be the worse Frame only from it's being by so few rejected and so generally receiv'd But to Convince any reasonable Soul unprejudic'd that these Democratical Devil 's wont stick to give their God the Lye and set themselves a Contradiction to all History and Truth this Daemon of Plato as an Ingenious Author and Answerer of his Diabolical Principles has Naturally nam'd him let him but consider this 〈◊〉 Falsehood of his Factious Heart tho that I believe fails him too in asserting this Impudent Paradox That Moses Theseus Romulus were the Founders of Democracies when for the First his own God if he believe any and against whom he Rebels too if he do had appointed him the Supream Ruler and also a Judge to lead them in their Decampments and give them their Laws in the Camp against whose absolute Monarchy he can object nothing but that they did not call him King and yet even that is done too by those Primitive Rebels in the Rebellion of Corah when they Expostulate with him for making himself altogether a Prince over them that is what our Modern ones call Arbitrary Absolute but even that is literally said and Moses was King in Jesurun And will our Murmurers at the Lords Anointed never be Convinc'd till they are Confounded with the same Fate till Fire come again from Heaven or they go quick down into Hell The Survivors of those discontented Mutineers upbraiding Moses for destroying of that Rebellious Brood whom God only in his Judgments had destroy'd the Almighty would have Consum'd them too in a moment neither was his Anger stay'd till Fourteen Thousand fell in a Plague our Land has Labour'd under all these Judgments but because the Almighty's resentments of our Rebellious Practices are not declar'd to us as of old out of a Cloud and he does not reveal himself now to his Vice-gerent as then to his Servant Moses and the Glory of the Lord discends not in a visable Brightness upon our Tabernacle Must we therefore be so vainly blind as to think they were not sent us for those Sins that have most deserv'd them our Conspiring against our Rulers especially when the manner of our Punishments has been so Remarkably the same with their sufferings as well as our transcrib'd Villanies the very Copy of their Crimes For that of Theseus we have the good Authority of an Authentick Historian that writ his Life who tells us when he first went to reduce them to one City and the Government of ONE the Common Ordinary people were well enough pleas'd with his Proposal And to those that were Powerful and Great he told them his Government should not be altogether Regal which in their Greek was Tyrannical if they would allow him for their King this prevail'd he says upon them too either out of Fear of his Force or the Power of his Perswasions now can such a False and Factious Imposture can such a Wretch Insinuate well his being no King that calls himself so and only because he Consulted their Opinions in Weighty Affairs make it a Democracy then we need not contend here for a Republick our King still Consulting his great Council in Arduis Regni And for Romulus his founding his Rome a Democracy so far from truth that I defie him to show the least shadow from any Colour of History for such a piece of Imposture Florus in the very First line of his Prologue calls him King Romulus and in the same tells us Rome in it's first Age and Infancy for about two hundred and fifty years was Govern'd by Kings Tacitus too in his very first Remarkable too for an unintended verse tells us that in the beginning 't was Kings had the Government of the City of Rome and afterward tells us this very Romulus Govern'd them Arbitrarily and at his will Sext. Aur. vict says he was the first King of the Romans that he lead them forth against the Sabines that he sought and that he made a League which none I think but Kings by themselves can do so that should it be allow'd what is contrary to some of the very Express Words of our formention'd Historians that Romulus was not an absolute Prince yet still here is still
was done accordingly the Conspiracy of the Witness was soon afterward detected his Innocency declar'd and the poor Gentleman for want of a due process at Law plainly Murder'd and all the Conviction I wish to such unjust reproachers of the Constitution of any of our Courts of Judicature that they may never have the benefit of those Laws they Condemn and only have the Fate to Fall by that Justice of the Republick they so much extol The Villains that sign'd the Warrant for our late Kings Execution did not more Sacrifice his Person than this Impious Wretch has Murder'd him again in Effigie with a redoubl'd Cruelty to blast that unblemishable reputation which if Dearer than Life must be the greater Treason He tells us the Parliament never made War upon him because by Law says the Sycophant He can do no wrong but this shall not be allow'd for a Maxim with such Malecontents when it makes for the Monarch But what if a Parliament of Rebels put out in their Declaration that He has wrong'd the Law and vote that he Levies War to destroy the Fundamental Liberty of the People to set up Arbitrary Government send down a Traytor to keep him out of his own Garrisons when their Guards could not secure his Life from the rage of the London Rable instigated too by that Villanous Assembly that made his Repairing to Hull for the Preservation of himself an Insurrection of their King for the Destruction of the People And can such a senseless piece of Sedition imagin that undistinguishing Bullet they brought into the Field could be commanded to take off none but Evil Councellors and Seducers or that ARMS which soon silence all LAWS especially when lifted against their Soveraign would favourable consider his Right and a Maxim of our own that he could do no wrong He tells us the King was displeas'd for parting with his Power to dissolve Parliaments and took unheard of ways to demand Members with Arms Most Inhumane Wretch even to the Pious Memory of so good a Prince to give him the Lye in his Grave does not himself tell us as if his Prophetick Soul had foreseen the suggestion of such a Rebel in his making it his deepest plaint The Injury of all Injuries is that some will Falsely divulge that I repining at the Establishment of the Parliament endeavour'd by force and open Hostility to undo what by Royal assent I had done While at the same time the Contradictory Wretches would asperse him for a resolv'd and a wilful occasioner of his ruin but for the demand of the Members so far from Irregularity That this Malicious Accuser is a double Traytor to his Memory by being an Abetter of those that were truly so and representing it False the King was advis'd in Scotland of those Conspirators having Invited that Nation to come into ours Arm'd And shall not bringing in a Foreign Power an Actual Levying War be allow'd Treason He had his Witnesses ready for the proving every Article his Attorny had drawn up all their Impeachments and could not their King have the benefit of those Laws he gives Life too Could not their King Impeach a Commoner when they themselves can any Lord. He order'd Him to inform the House of Peers with the Matter of the Charge and a Serjeant at Arms to accuse them to the Commons did they or could they call this an unheard of way or Irrogular Proceeding and will the protection of their House extend to an Inditement for High-Treason as well as an Execution upon Debt certainly this President won't be found among all the Miscellanies of Parliament tho that Industrious Author might have cited too his Majestys Murder out of their Journal But let them blush at their late Arbitrary Proceedings against their Fellow Subjects and Remember what they deny'd their King Here was an obstruction of Justice that was already a Rebellion against the Executive Power of the Law such an one as only their next Ordinance for seizing the Militia could make it more so the Serjeant that was sent to Arrest their Persons is countermanded and if again attempted 't is Order'd and Resolved they 'll stand upon their Desence and make Resistance how should the Mildest Father of the most Merciful Son Mollifie so many Tygers Tugging for the Praerogative with the pretence of Privileges Why he tells us himself went attended with some Gentlemen his followers much short of his Ordinary Guard to desire he might proceed against Traytors only in a free and Legal Tryal that he had furnisht himself with proof and wanted nothing for that Evidence which he could have produced But what I am sure they were resolv'd to deny their Soveraign even what they made the Rabble clamor for against himself JUSTICE the Chronicle tells us none of his Followers mov'd farther than the Stairs but only he himself with the Palsgrave enter'd the House demanded whom before he had Accus'd and the Villains themselves so Conscious of his Equitable demand and their own Guilt that they fear'd their very delivery from their Friends and that Death I doubt they had so justly deserv'd the Criminals were fled he renews his Charge and so satisfy'd returns but so were not those whom nothing could Content at last but his Life they load it with all the Obloquies and Exasperations imaginable such Protectors of Liberties could only think Treason against him worthier of Protection then their injur'd King an Execution of Law is Voted a Breach of Priviledge the demanding the Benefit of it by him that gives it it's being they made MURDER the City Guards are set up in several places the Train-Bands are Commanded down to Westminster a greater Army sure then only the Kings Retinue to protect Impeacht Traytors and with the late Hosanna's of our Old-Baily they lead in Triumph that Primitive Council of Six accus'd for High-Treason and what Security had this present King that the like Cabal should not have been as well Secur'd from his Justice had they been but detected in some of their late Sessions they were all Members too the Difference between our King and Commons in as high a ferment the Charge that then was given to the Lords the Articles that were offer'd to the Commons appear upon Record but the Counterpart of this Kings Declaration only there they had not come so far as to contrive his Murder their Accusation was for aspersing of his Majesties Government and altering the affections of his People Countenancing Tumults against him inviting a Foreign Nation the Scots as too this Actually did and Conspiring to Levy War as these did to Raise an Insurrection And might not any Jealous Soul fear such Parliaments that protected such Traytors and might not such Traytors been again protected by such Parliaments when the City too was their own again the Guards set the Watches plac'd the Streets Chain'd and that when they could accuse no King for Breach of Priviledge or Coming to their House with
the God that Governs this and all above and this so communicated remains still Divine whereever it is lodged the Question is reduced to this Whether it appertains to a Multitude as many or a Soveraign Sole whether with their St. Peter 't is seated in the Ordinance of Man or the Powers with St. Paul are ordained of God That this Divine Power and Right is in Kings he has superseded my Labor to prove by letting us know 't is the Opinion of most of our Orthodox Divines and their Sentiments are sufficient to determine the point especially in Matters to be proved from the Bible whose best Explanation one would think must be found amongst those whose Profession it is to expound unless you would imagine the Bishops the better Readers upon the Statute Hunt and his Casuists the most Conversant among the Critiques That this power Divine is placed in the People I 'll shew it is the Opinion both of viiolent Jesuits and the most virulent Phanaticks and their Seditious conspiring in the same sense the most powerful persuasive with me that their Sentiments are Erroneous their Position a Lye Bellarmine tells us God has made all Men by Nature equal and therefore the Power is given to the People Buchanan tells us That they have the Power and from them their Kings derive their Right Parsons proves Kings have been Lawfully chastised by their Subjects Knox says Princes for just Causes may lawfully be deposed or bridled by the Nobility Suarez shows the Power of Deposing a King to be in the Pope or the Common-wealth And Calvin seems for suppressing the rage of unruly Kings as well as the Ephori did those of Lacedaemon Mariana a Jesuit of Spain says The Common-wealth from whence the Kings have their power can call their King to an account Beza Calvin's Successor at Geneva tells us The States-men of the Kingdom must restrain the fury of their Tyrants or they are Traitors to their Country These few Instances may serve of four or five rank Romish Priests that have been transcrib'd almost to a word in the Writings of some of the false Reformers of our late Times and those that truly reformed our Religion so long agon who so far agreed with the Romanist from whom they dissented But whose Errors in such pernicious Principles in themselves might be imputed to the multiplicity of Matters then to be reformed which might make them want time for all Amendments and that Rome from which they did well for the more purity of Worship to withdraw was as an old Aphorism tells us never built in one day But to see now those that have had all the Advantages of time Instruction of the former Ages experience of this and of what Positions still were the promoters of Rebellion in both those whose fury against the Romish Faith sometimes has exceeded the Moderation of the Christian and whose Zealous Rage has made them preposterously judge the best reformed Church in the World our own Antichrist 't is matter of Astonishment to see such espousing her Doctrines wedded to her Principles whom in their canting Tropologies they still represent as a Whore Yet still love for her Lewdness The Restauration of the King was brought about he tells us without the Assistance of any of the Cavalier party and the recovered Nation obliged a wary General The Suggestion is somewhat Impudent so boldly to deny truth when the memory of man can give him the Lye prethee did the recovered Nation oblige the Wary General or the Wary General compel the Nation not yet recovered 't was well he had an Army at his Heels and that at his Devotion too or else his long Parliament would hardly have Dissolved so soon and then it would have been long before we should have had a free one The Parliament upon the returning of the secluded Members was made up of meerly Presbyterian and how likely they would have brought in the King had their Session continued to Sit may be guest from their expiring Votes and sure you may believe the Words of dying Men. ORDERED that the General give no Commission to any Officer who will not declare that the War undertaken by the Parliament against the Forces of the King was just and Lawful ORDERED that they further declare that they believe the Magistracy and Ministry to be the Ordinances of God ORDERED that they and their Sons who have assisted the King against this Parliament be made incapable to serve in the next And had not some of the Honest Cavaliers in spight of this Exclusion-Bill crept into the next Senate Had not that Honourable Person that eminent Instrument of the Restauration the present Earl of Bath whose bold and Loyal Undertakings may they last beyond our Annals and be as they merit eternal been ready to sollicite His Majesties Cause whose Goodness could not but incline so good a General 't is shrewdly to be suspected these his Presbyterians that cursed then His Majesty with their expiring breath in that blessed Vote that sanctified all their Rebellion against his Father that those that cryed Crucifie him to the last would hardly have brought him into the City with their Hosannah's But when the Net was spread for them 't is no wonder they did their Garments and when the Birds that had lived so long wild within their Wood were once Caged they might well be for cutting down their Branches in the way and their greatest glory is they cryed out then their O King Live for ever when 't was too late to Vote again the Sons of Charles Steward should dye without Mercy A Leaf or two this Gentleman spends upon the Reflections that have been made upon the Censures that have been past upon the Procedings of some of our late Parliaments and upon the Forgeries that have been contrived for the creating a belief of a Protestant Plot but I hope as much possest as he was the Devil of Sedition has left him now as he does Witches and Wizzards when he has got them in the hold and brought them to the Stake sure his Eyes are illuminated now by the discovering so many Deeds of Darkness and he was only blinded then with too much Light that of Phrensy or he that was co-eval almost with the Transactions of the last Rebellious Parliaments would have observed somewhat to make him suspect the Loyalty of some of the late Did not that begin with an Impeachment against the Duke of Bucks and these with the Banishment of a nearer Duke Was not the late King by that accused of Arbitrary Power and Popery and were not both these Accusations level'd at our present in several Votes Was there not an actual Plot of Papists discovered only from finding some Letters of a poor Priest in Clerkenwell and have we not had a notable one now as deep as Hell that none but Heaven can sound the bottom Was not the good old Queen
the Army when both Impeachers and Impeach'd had forfeited their Heads to the King They had Counterplotted this with an Ordinance of the House for the Disbanding the Army but the Army found they had a more fearful Ordnance for them in the Field they had under their Command the Militia of the Camp and so resolve to command that too of the City The Contrivance for this is first Fairfax his Remonstrance to which the Commons submit but for that the Apprentices that had served them before against their King come now in as tumultuous a manner and frightn'd them into a Flight to the Army that so their City might retain its Militia The Westminster-men that stay'd plot against the Men at Windsor that were fled call in the Members that their Army had impeach'd for this the Soldiers sign an Engagement send a Remonstrance and themselves as soon conspire to follow march toward the City draw up at Hownslow-heath send their General with a Party to make a new Parliament or patch up the old To prevent the Personal Treaty with the King they drew up their Agreement of the PEOPLE resolv'd on their Votes of Non-addressing which recall'd they again re-extorted rejected the Lords for refusing to Judge their King whom having dispatcht there remain'd the Rump that is the remnant of the Commons the Creatures or rather Created Council of an Army and all the late flourishing Democracy of the long Parliament and the two Houses turn'd into a perfect Oligarchy of Officers And all what those Devils had possest themselves of by Treason before torn from their hands by a Legion of worse with as much Treachery and Plot. And one would think that all Plotting that all conspiring should have been over now but you shall see that the same principles that prevail'd upon the Rebels to ruin the Monarchy and run it into a Republick that promoted the Army to destroy the then Democracy and so set up their own Oligarchy did also incite a single Usurper among those few to set up for himself and turn it into true Tyranny Their own positions first plac'd the Supremacy in the Parliament because the two States were greater than the King that made but one The Army places the supremacy in their Sword because it was greater in the Field than the two States in the House and then comes Cromwel and setl'd the supremacy on himself because the sole Commander of all the Army his success at Dunbar and the routing of the Scot did so much his business that there could remain but little opposition of a Rump and a Man that is made by a weaker power but once a General can soon make himself by his own strength the Generalissimo he had formerly been so prevalent as to procure Petitions Addresses Remonstrances for the establishment of that patch'd piece of Parliament and all our Metaphysicks will allow that what can create can as soon annihilate he found his Omnipotency in this point he knew he had set them up against all Right and therefore had the more to run them down without Wrong and that as he did design so he effected too It was indeed a Parliament of Soldiers and he serv'd them like a General only by signifying to them to Disband and they not daring to deny determin their sitting to be on the fifth of November following But he not willing to tarry so long a Servant to those he could command to obey those that would not so soon Disband he comes and Cashiers by April 1653. and with his Lambert and Harrison sends packing that everlasting Parliament And now here is the result of their principles in a second Plot upon themselves and a new model of Government for the former they had abolisht was but the Government of a few an absolute Oligarchy tho' they were pleas'd to call it the Common-wealth of England as if it had been but Democratical when not the tenth part of the People were represented by those Administrators but so they had the confidence to call them a Parliament too but their words had commonly as much sense in them as their actions had Loyalty But Oliver having Plotted them out of all had now no great need of any Politick Plot for himself It would puzzle now our Politicians to tell me where at this time was their Supream original power of the People their natural Liberty and that Delegatory right they are to communicate to Representatives There was no King no Parliament no Rump and as yet no Protector The Disciples of Mr. Sidney's Doctrine must say forsooth The Supream Power was then in the People but as the Devil would have it Cromwel had got the supream strength Strength and power I confess are mighty different and just distinguisht by the same Metaphysicks the Scots put upon the King at Newark when they would persuade him The Army was one thing and the Soldiers of it another but if this People had then the supream power why did they not assemble themselves into a Parliament since there was no Writ from above to call them to the Assembly But our History tells us Oliver call'd it and what for why say our Republicans That the People might confer upon him their supream original Power which he could not assume without their consent very good So Cromwel was willing this supream power should be settl'd upon him by Parliament therefore he calls the Parliament i.e. gives it the supream power they in common Civility could not avoid to give it him again But where but a grain of sense settle this Supremacy in him that call'd them to assemble or in those that were assembl'd at his call I confess if the cunning Canary Birds could but contrive as once they did design such a rare Parliament that like the Bird of Asia should rise from the ashes of it's Ancestors we might have one then not only long but everlasting But even this tho' then attempted to have been enacted would have been but Nonsense and absurd and sit only to have past in that Parliament which he call'd who made many Laws just as ridiculous for thosethat have a power to dissolve themselves by the same reason would have a power to summon another and then must is sue out their Writs either before their dissolution or after if after then it is without authority and by no part of the Government and if before then a new one must be summoning before the old is dissolv'd and if the Writs should be but of force from the time of dissolution the Country Electors must be said to be conven'd by the supream Authority that is dissolv'd Cromwel and his Conspirators foresaw they would be confounded with such absurdities and they found themselves plung'd into as much confusion and then pray what did they do with this Sidney's supream original power that they did not know what to make of or how to use tho' it lay upon their hands why they
great and their strength so formidable that they sought Kings and were 〈◊〉 by Princes And now let them prove that this paternal Power of these Patriarchal Kings was no more than that of a Burgher in the Town of Amsterdam or that the Cities that were several of them then erected and where the sacred writ expresly says Kings and Princes Reign'd that those were nothing else but as perfect Republicks as Venice Geneva or the united Provinces in the Netherlands And cannot our Seditious Souls be convinc'd that this their Patriarchal Power was Monarchical unless we can prove every patriarch a Crown'd King should we oblige them to make out their Common-wealths of those days after the same manner their Modern ones are now Establish'd they would be put to find out in those primitive times some general revolt of a Rebellious people from their Lawful prince For that was the first Foundation of their 〈◊〉 Republick in the Low-Countries as Mr. Sidney himself will allow tho against common Sense and Reason he cannot let it be called a Rebellion And also is it not one thing to say a paternal Right was once Monarchical but must it make all Monarchs to Rule by a paternal Right conquest of the Sword grounded upon a good pretence of Right is what a great many Kings claim by a long series of Successive Monarchs makes the Title of a great many more as much unquestionable and yet I cannot see why Monarchy may not still be said to have been first founded in a paternal Right tho the claims to Soveraign power since in such several Kingdoms and Nations where it is now Establish'd are 〈◊〉 as several sorts too as there are Subjects that have submitted to be govern'd by it It is a pleasant sort of Diversion to see Mr. Hunt Harangue out half of his Treatise in an impertinent pains to prove the Father of every Family at present not to be the King of it we would have granted it him quietly and the postulate should have been his own in peace without raising upon his War of Words and the thundering charge that he gives this Opinion of puzzl'd senseless vain unlearned paradox For once every parent shall not be a Crown'd Head and every City but a Common-wealth of Kings for that is all they must contend against and then what 's the Contention but just about nothing but that parents have nothing in them that is Analogous to a Monarchical power that they have no Right to govern those very Children they have begot as this Gentleman with his mighty performances thinks he has perfectly prov'd that I think will be found at last to be the greater paradox if not a perfect Lye For first the very Decalogue declares the contrary And the command we have to Honour our Father and Mother implies an Authority that they have that requires Obedience by the Levitical the Laws of the Jews the Rebellious Son was to be ston'd to Death and if the very Bible can call it Rebellion Certainly it must suppose some power against which he could Rebel And what does Mr. Hunt who himself admits of this say to the refuting the very Objection that he raises why he says this was an unnatural severity permitted the offended parent that is an unnatural severity commanded by the very God of Nature For all those their Laws were so many Divine precepts for the regulating his own Theocracy and the very Text tells us this exemplary punishment of Dissobedience to parents was shown that Israel might fear i.e. fear those parents in whom the Almighty's Law had lodged such a power and then if we consider it in the Abstract from any positive Law of God or Divine precept if we look upon it in a pure natural State as the result of Generation for all whatever the postscript impertinently suggests with his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and all the distracted noise that he makes with the procreation work being such an Act of Affection and mere impetus of Love I cannot see why by that darling work that delights Mr. Hunt so much the power of governing those very Children he has begot should be superseded The Gentleman among his many Melancholy moods had it seems some pleasant Fancies For in effect he tells us no more than this that Coition being an Act of Love to the Mother the Government over the Child that she bears him must by no means be call'd a power and if this be not indeed a puzzl'd senseless Opinion I submit to persons that abound with more sense and if it have the least shadow of a consequence I will forfeit all my Right to Reason might it not be as well infer'd too that every Father that chastises his froward Child is an absolute Tyrant because that sort of severity savors of Anger and fury but the Generation work obliged him never to exercise it because that was an Act of extream Love But besides that precept in the Decalogue Honouring our Parents is an Eternal Law of Nature engraven in our Hearts as well as it was in the two Tables of Stone and whereever there is a Natural Veneration there is at the same time an imply'd subjection for those we always reverence most to whom we are most Subjected I know there are inferior Objects upon which many times we place our affection and may in some sense be said to have for them an Esteem but that cannot be properly call'd Honour but is better exprest by the Name of Love and this is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Friends have for one another tho they are Equals or Parents to their Children tho Subject to their power but if we consider the word Honouring it self which in all the Versions of the Decalouge is still render'd so as if it would remember us of the subjection we owe to those we are commanded to Honour that very word it self implys Power in the Person that is to be Honoured for if we abstract our selves from any prepossessions and Engagements of Love we still find we still Honor those most that are also most in power thus our Nobility are respected by us as Honourable because they are in great places of Power and Trust And our King more Honoured by us agen because the very Fountain of Power it self And lastly what strikes us more into a Venerable Horror of the Majesty of Heaven but that awful attribute of his being Almighty so that uncorrupted Nature it self from the Rules of Common gratitude obliges us to Honour our Parents as well as the express precept of the Divine will and then by Consequence subjects us to those whom we are requir'd to respect so much and esteem for Nature as it never according to the Maxim of the Naturalists in Philosophy is said to do any thing foolishly or in vain so neither will it require any thing that is so from others to be done and therefore there is no Natural Law that obliges us to