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A92231
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Three great questions concerning the succession and the dangers of popery fully examin'd in a letter to a Member of this present Parliament.
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M. R.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing R50; ESTC R229912
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34,686
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24
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conduct of their own Reason for every mans Reason is Reason to himself but the Reason of the Communitie is the Reason of State not the Reason of the man And therefore the Supreme is always entrusted with this Reason and in the Exercise of it ought to be secured by a transcendent Power to give Check to the pretentions of the Enemies of Society This must be done two ways I. By assuring a strength competent against any Attempts of retrieving their original Right of Nature 2. By an equal Administration of Justice and good Government for Res nolunt male administrari The end of Government is That men may live together unanimously in the equal use of Civil Laws The end of Religion is to be happy in the next World and therefore ought not to interfere with Civil Laws or those by which the good this Life is regulated But because the Motives to Obedience to those Laws do very much depend upon the Rewards and Expectations of a Future State they are therefore necessarily conjoyned so that whatever Religion is established by Law becomes Law and ought not in prudence to be chang'd and disturb'd Whoever hath a private Religion or Opinion seing it is not more in our power to have mentem sanam than corpus sanum yet if the man be not mad or injurious he may and ought to enjoy it freely without punishment provided he do not violate the peace of the City If he do 't is nor Sincerity but Hypocrisie and seeing there may be bona mens in malo articulo all liberty ought to be afforded that can reasonably modestly be claimed by any of those who pretend a tender Conscience Now if you consider throwly these Positions you will find not onely the Reasons of entring into Society but the Causes of its Continuance and Decay fully asserted The Rules of Government are as demonstrable as any Mathematical Problems and where the Supreme is wise there can be no Rebellion or not dangerous and wherever there is the Government is infirm and foolish In order then to your Question you must observe That Power is an equivocal Word and is sometime taken for the Right and Force of Nature sometimes for the Right and Force of Laws In the first sense 't is called vis or potestas in the latter jus or dominium The first sort of Power men in society have renounced and cannot use without returning to the State of War where every man has as equal Right or Power over another as another has over him The second sort of Power is that which the Laws of the Society warrant and by which 't is said Illud tantum possumus quod de jure possumus Now if we consider the Power of Parliaments bounded by Laws in the letter sense 't is plain they can have none to bar the Duke from Succession because the Laws Common and Statute leave them no such Power and in Nature and Reason after entring into Society they can exercise no more than is left them by the Agreements of the Society In the first sense 't is true they have power to do what they please as two is stronger then one But then it must be remembred that the using that Power loosens the bond of the Commonwealth the whole having no more Right over Peter and Paul while they break not the Laws of the Country than Peter and Paul had over all the rest If it were not so there would be no Right nor Wrong in the World neither subsequent nor antecedent to Humane Constitutions Virtue and Viec would be but empty Names Scar-crows for the Fools and the Weak For every thing would be lawful that a man had force or strength enough to justifie A Principle destructive of Government and Society of Peace and Happinesse Everle Thief and Murderer Robber and Traytor if successful being honest persons guilty of no Mischiefs Thus indeed Vice becomes Virtue Prosperum scelus virtus vocatur This therefore not being to be allowed among men much lesse Christians the Parliament cannot justifie a Power of putting by the next Heir by the Constitutions of the Kingdom nor by those of nature which allows not the major part to have recourse to natural Force or Liberty without leaving all the rest of the Members to their choice of entring either into none or a new Form or continuing under the old And those that assert the Parliament may do what they please know not what they say if they deny others the same freedom and if they do 't is bidding all men Draw try who has the strongest Arm and the longest Sword making Might or Power the onely Rule of Justice and Measure of Humane Actions But this so dangerous mistake is grounded upon not considering that what was lawful before I became a Member of the Society ceases to be so after When a Bargain is once concluded between one man and a thousand the thousand cannot without injustice break the Agreement nor without folly expect the single man will not take the first opportunity to be reveng'd and obliege them to their first Contract And whether he prove successful or no it will occasion such Mischiefs Calamities that they will too late repent their Follies and find no other comfort than the sad one which this scrap of Latin affords Supplicium stultorum stultitia But further if you rightly examine things you will find that the Lords onely act for themselves and that the Commons of England do no otherwise represent the People than as Attorneys who therefore are presum'd limited to the first Constitutions and Fundamentals that is the Common Law or Magna Charta whose Bounds if they exceed they forfeit the Patent or Commission by which they act This is agreeable to Reason and the practice of Former Ages when the Commons being ask'd their Consents to new Matters went home and consulted their Principles and according to their directions gave in their Answers as you may find at large in the Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores and as in the present as well as ancient usage in the Dyets of Germany and States of Holland And thus it was in the Senate of Rome who though they had the Supreme power as a Parliament in England yet in the making of any new Law there was a Rogatio Legis an exposing of it in Tables to the view of all for a certain limited time wherein if the meanest shewed Arguments why it should it was wholly laid aside And so dangerous a thing have Innovations in this sort been accounted by the Ancients that among the Locrenses and other Commonwealths of Greece new Laws were propounded with Ropes about the proposers Necks submitting themselves to the loss of their Lives if the proposition were not approved by every single person And in Poland no King can be elected without the consent of every individual Elector And indeed in so material an Instance as the designation of a Supreme Governour upon whom depends thâ— Fates of
of Nations forbid nay make it inconsistent with Society to hang a Man first and convict him after or to punish any one 〈◊〉 post facto My Lord Strafford's Case was never to be brought into president and if that were not sufficient the whole proceedings by Act of Parliament since his Majesties Restauration were condemn'd as illegal and contrary to all Morality And would not the D's Case have been just the same Do you but make it your own and you will be of that Opinion Whence I conclude that the Reasons on which the late House of Commons proceeded against the D. were insufficient because not only not warranted but contrary to the Laws in being as well as to those of Nature and all Societies under Heaven And now I come to your third Question what dangers the Nation may be under in case the Crown descends upon a Popish Successor or more particularly upon his R. H For answer to which we must consider that dangers to any Country are Forraign or Domestick Invasions from abroad or Encroachments a home Against the former every Kingdom is in danger be the Prince of any or no Religion and therefore the People are obliged to be always on their Guard Against the latter the hazard lies in the Princes neglect or breaking of the bounds of his Subjects Liberty Property and Religion and since the safety of all Princes depends upon the contrary why a Popish one should offer it more then another I cannot comprehend and more particularly why his R. H. should design it is not at all likely if we examine either the influence Popery can have over the Government or consider impartially the D's Character Government was first framed for the good of Mankind in this Life without any regard to another and depended upon a due and equal administration of justice in the Governour and Obedience in the governed This was long observed in the World before Religion entered especially Christianity which all allow neither did nor could alter the Laws of the City or Common-wealth Evangelium non abolet politias is every where an allowed Maxim drawn from our Saviour's own Words Friend who made me a Ruler or judge among you The Law is open and by that the controversies between you and your Brother are to be decided He came not to disturb but to enlarge and confirm the peace of the City and his Laws considered a-part are as consistent with those of a Kingdom as the by-Laws of any Corporation within a greater State He declared his Kingdom was not of this World and therefore could not design to alter the grounds of Government and Obedience which are one and the same in all Countries whether Christian or Pagan founded upon self-interest and preservation and continued by mutual Relation of Love and Duty Protection and Obedience things that truly considered can never be altered by the super-induction or change of any new or old Religion If then Christianity make no alteration 't is impossible the sub-divisions or particular Sects should So that whatever Opinion either King or Subject be in point of Religion Popish or Protestant Lutheran or Calvinist Presbyterian or Episcopal the ends of Government peace and quiet Liberty and Property may be secured and enjoy'd and the end of Religion too eternal Salvation this depending on moral Duties and Conformity to the Laws of the Land our Saviour having threatned Damnation to those who resist the higher Powers the greatest of punishments being appointed both by the Jewish and Christian Law to Rebellion called by the first the Sin of Witchraft and in the last a fighting against God himself Now all Laws that concern our temporal estate being made in the times of Popery I cannot find why they should be changed by a Popish Monarch nor how without a change or violation the Subjects can suffer As for the Laws that established the Protestant and abolished the Popish Religion they cannot be otherwise altered but by an equal power with that from whence they had their Being King and Parliament who agreeing can by a change no more prejudice the publick in order to Heaven than they did before that being only accidental and extrinsecal to the Substance of Religion by which alone and not by Forms or Ceremonies Men are to be saved every Country making differences in such things according to the several interest of States or humours of the people as in England the Common-wealth is tempered by the King 's holding the Ballance between the power of Lords and Commons and that upon the taking away of either the Government must be destroyed so the Religion of England or indeed of any Kingdom where there are several Sects seem only to be preserved by fixing a Ballance which taken away must be the ruine of the whole and therefore undeniable policy will tell us that the Episcopal legal Government is no otherwise to be preserved but by equally indulging the Non-Conformists and the Papists for to suppress both is now impracticable and to suppresse one alone will be found impolitick A Truth grounded upon the present State of Europe where while England kept the Ballance between France and Spain the universal Monarchy was a Dream or groundlesse Fancie but that being removed 't is impossible if two or three Martial and prudent Princes happen successively to govern France but that before imaginary Empire will really fall to the Lot of that Nation unlesse all the other States joyn against it and give our Country the power it enjoyed when Spain was an equal Match in the Contention For my own part I see nothing to be dreaded in case of a Popish Successor because he alone cannot alter the Laws nor the Religion nor can he the execution since that is out of his and in the hands of such as are not only sworn to it but upon failure lyable to great Penalties and Forfeiture not only to the Prince who possibly might but to the Informer who cannot be supposed to remit his proportion And considering that the Laws in being have entrusted the executive power of the Militia by Sea and Land and of distributive Justice in Courts and all Offices of Trust as well in the Country as about the Princes Person and the power of making and altering Laws in the Hands of Men of Anti-popish Principles I cannot apprehend why we should conceive any danger from a Princes enjoying to himself any Heterodox Opinion whatever For to think he would impose them upon his Subjects is to conclude him not only imprudent but distracted since it would be to create himself disturbance without the least prospect of advantage for what does he get or loose by their being of this or that Perswasion His Good his Wealth his Glory his Honour and Security consists in their conformity to the established Government and for their future Happinesse he cannot as a Prince be solitcious 't is out of his Province and now out of Fashion for Kings to be Priests and