are more civill more religious more happy then those which are not These things are beyond all doubt and debate The question then is only whether absolute Princes that is such as have no persons to share in power with them nor no lawes to circumscribe their power for them be not as meer servants to the State and as much obliged in point of duty to pursue its publick interest as they are Lords over private persons and predominant over particular interests Many of the authorities before cited make good the affirmative and many more may be alleaged to the same purpose and the rule of finall causes makes it beyond all contradiction that there is a certain service annexed to the office of the most independent Potentate Nefas est sayes Alexander Severus à publico dispensatore prodigi quae Provinciales dederant He contents himselfe with the name of a publick Steward or Treasurer and confesses that hee cannot mispend the common stock intrusted with him without great sinne and injustice Maximus also as was before recited challenged no more in the Empire then a kind of Commission to dispense and administer they are his owne very words the affaires of the Empire with the State And therefore Seneca gives this admonition that the Emperour should make his account non suam esse Rempub. sed se Reipub. And this was that service the very word it selfe is servitus which Tiberius complained to be layed on his shoulders so miserable and burthenous as Sueton. writes in the life of Tiberius It was recorded in commendation also of Nasica that hee preferred his countrey before his owne family and did account no private thing his owne or worthy of his thoughts in comparison of those things which were publickly advantageous ut enim tutela sic procuratio Reipub. ad utilitatem eorum quibus commissi sunt non ad eorum quibus commissa est gerenda est here the office of a Magistrate is a procuration he is taken as a Guardian in Socage and the end of his office is the utility of those which are committed to his trust not his owne To conclude the lawes of the Empire were very full and cleer in this and many more histories might bee brought forth to give more light and strength in the case but there is no need of any If any honest Patriot neverthelesse think fitter to use the name of father then servant I shall not wholly gainsay therein My wish is that subjects may alwayes understand their right but not too rigorously insist upon it neither would I have them in private matters look too much upon their publick capacity Princes also may without indignity to themselves at some times condescend to such acknowledgements of the peoples due as is not so fit to be heard from any mouth but their owne Happy is that King which anticipates his subjects in submitting his own titles and happy are those subjects which anticipate their King in submitting their owne rights and happy are both when both thus comply at the same time Neverthelesse if it may be ever seasonable to urge a verity with strictnesse Princes are not to be called Fathers of their Subjects except taken divisim but are meer servants to the people taken collectim How erronious then are they and how opposite to the end of government which are so far from making Kings servants to the people that they make the people servants to Kings whereas the Lord doth not rule for the profit of his servant but by the profit of his servant compasses his own Servile power is tolerated because it tends to the safety and good of him that is subject to it but as Aristotle holds 3. Pol. c. 4. the master in protecting his servant does not look upon his servants ends herein but his own because the losse of his servant would be a losse to his family Therefore this kind of Authority is not to be indured in a State because it is incompetent with liberty provided onely for slaves and such as have no true direct interest in the State whereas finis justi imperii as Ammianus writes and as has been confirm'd by many other proofs Vtilitas obedientium aestimatur salus But you will say It is more reasonable that Subjects should remain under the condition of servants then he which has authority over those Subjects and is in place far above them I answer That end to which Princes are destin'd viz. the Common good or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as one cals or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as another cals it or cura salutis aliena as another cals it is so excellent and noble that without the inconvenience of servility they may be servile to it The truth is all things that are in the nature of means and instruments are then most perfect and intire when they are most fit and conducible to accomplish the end for which they are prepared So Aristot. delivers in the 5. Metaphys. and so Averroes and Thomas thereupon T is to quarrell against God and Nature to except against that true and proper end which God and Nature hath design'd to any person or thing The Greeks called excellence {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} from {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and the Romanes called it perfectio because that is perfect or consummate which approaches nearest to its end T is not onely therefore to be said that that is a perfect or intire State wherein the Governor executes all things in order to the Common good but he also is a perfect and intire Governor which bends all his actions to that purpose For if we look up to Almighty God we must needs acknowledge that he is most truly represented and personated by such a Deputy as refers all things to publick Good For God is goodnesse it self and there is nothing more essential to goodnesse then to be diffusive and God has no end of addition or profit to himself in making Heaven or Earth Angels or men Next if we look upon Nations they ever retribute most honour and repay most dutie love and gratitude to such Princes as are most free from particular aymes That Reigne which supports it self by terror is accompanied with hatred and danger but that which found it self upon love is truly majesticall safe and durable For in part the Princes happinesse is involved in his Subjects and he does more partake in their flourishing condition then they in his private advantages If Cicero can say Nistrum dicamus esse quicquid bono principi nascatur the Prince may say as truly Principis est quicquid est omnium Therefore does Aristot. 8. Ethic. c. 10. maintain that Kings do not regard their own particulars but the community of their Subjects because there is a self-sufficiencie and perfection in good Kings whilest they cannot be said to want that which their Subjects have Queen Elizab. by her publick actions doubted not to win
that seek our subversion as being the greater and nobler part of the Empire and better devoted to your person and Crowne then they are Neither is it distrust in our owne numbers forces or advantages that drawes these lowly loyall expressions from us nor is it any doubt in our cause for Christianity dies as much lift up the heart in a just war as it dies weaken the hands in unjust enterprises and the world shall see it is as far from transforming us into ashes as into woolves Prefer your sacred eares therefore we pray you from the suggesâ—ions of our enemies and the abusers who may render us in your thoughts either absolutely disloyall or hestially servile and doe usually traduce our Religion as being utterly inconsistent either with duty or magnanimity Let it bee a confutation to them at this present that we doe neither derogate in this case from your Majesties prerogative nor utterly renounce our owne interests and yet that we doe rather fore-judge our selves inasmuch as though we doe not disclaim yet we forbeare to claime a right of establishing true Religion and abolishing idolatry as also of bringing your seducers to condigne punishment And thus far wee condiscend in all humility for our blessed Religions sake that thâ—t may be liable to no aspersions as if it had any causality in this war and that you may receive in the better apprehension and relish of the profession from the humble comportment of the professors It is not in us to set an end to these broyles because we have no prevalence with you to gaine just satisfaction from you but it is in you without all impediment to quiet our party in regard that we fight not now for a well being but a meer being not that Paganisme may be subverted but that Christianity may subsist all our conditions are intirely in your owne hands and they speake no more but this let us have hopes to remaine safe and you shall have assurances to remain Caesar If his Grace of Armagh like not this Remonstrance let him frame an answer to it in so doing he shall appear a profounder Scholer a more judicious Statesman a more peaceable Patriot a more godly Preacher then his last Sermon upon the 13. Rom. did shew him I am sure there is no man that lives in these dayes can say I have fained an impossible case especially when He sees two Parliaments of two Protestant Kingdomes driven to petition for their lives to a Prince that does acknowledge the truth of the Protestant Religion and the priviledges of both Parliaments and the liberties of both Kingdomes and yet brings a third Popish Kingdome against them though traiterously besmear'd in the blood of thousands of Protestants and proclaimed against by the King himselfe as the most execrable monsters of men But perhaps our Primate will say that the Roman law of royalty did extend farther and that the people thereby did conferre to and upon the Emperour omne suum imperium potestatem and thereupon it was said Omnia poterat imperator and Quicquid Principi placebat Legis habebat vigorem I take these to be no parts of the royall Law but only severall glosses and interpretations of Jurists thereupon yet all these extend no farther then to a perpetuall dictature For the people could conferre no more on the Emperour then what it had in it selfe and no man will say that the people had any power to destroy it selfe and what end could the people have if that Law might bee said to bee the peoples act in inslaving themselves or giving away the propriety of themselves where the Princes pleasure is entertained for Law it is intended that that pleasure of the Prince shall bee naturall and prudentiall and that it shall be first regulated by Law if not in its formalities yet in its essentials Grotius tells us of the Campanians how they did resigne themselves and all that they possest in ditionem Romanorum and hee conceives that by this resignation they did make the Romans their proprietaries By the favour of Grotius I think there is stronger reason that no Nation yet ever did voluntarily or compulsorily embrace servitude or intend submission to it it is more agreeable to nature and sense to expound this word ditio in a mild sense and to suppose that the Campanians did intend to incorporate themselves with the Romans and to live under the same government or dition and no other and not only reason but the true story makes this good and evidence of fact the strongest of proofes puts it out of doubt that the Campanians were not at all differenced in freedome from the Citizens of Rome themselves In briefe we may rely upon these assertions First there is no certainty of any Nations that ever they so formally did resigne themselves in Terms as the Romans and Campanians did here scarce any story can parallell such particular grants of Soveraignty Secondly if these be expounded mildly and in favour of publick liberty as they ought they can create no prejudice at all to those Nations which enacted them or any other Thirdly if they be expounded in a tortious unnaturall sense they are to be damned and rejected by all people and they remain no way vigorous or obligatory in any country whatsoever If the Primate have now recourse to the practise of the Christians in the first ages and urge that because they used no arms but tears and prayers when they were oppressed wee ought to doe the like we answer First The Christians till Constantines time in probability were not equall in numbers and forces with the Pagans whatsoever Tertullian might conceive Secondly if they were they wanted other advantages of arms commands and other opportunities to free themselves Aug. Caesar by fourty Legions and the strength of Cittadels and other places of strength yoked and inthralled fourty times as many in number as those Legions and so did but purchase fear for fear making himself as formidable to the people as the people was to him Thirdly if they wanted no power nor advantage they might want policie to infranchise Religion perhaps they might be tainted with Tertullians opinion who thought it not onely unlawfull to resist tyranny but also to flie from it Fourthly History is clear that in Constantines dayes they did adhere to him being a Christian and fight against Licinius being a Pagan and their Enemie And in the reigne of Theodosius such Christians as lived in Persia and were there tyrannically and cruelly treated did incite the Romane Emperour to undertake their defence against their own naturall Lord Let this be sufficient for the Romane storie and for the phanning out of our way such advantages as the Primate and his fellow Royalists may seem there to lay hold of in expounding this text of the 13. of Rom. to our prejudice our method now hands us to our own Laws and Chronicles let us follow our Preacher thither If St. Paul teach us that the supreame power is not to be resisted by any persons meerly inferior and subordinate but leaves us no certain rule whereby to discern what that supreme power is in all Countreys our Preacher should do well to let us know what he utters out of his meer Text and what he utters out of his own imagination Barclay Grotius Arnisseus all our Royalists besides are so ingenious as to acknowledge that a Prince in an Aristocracy or compounded Democracie is not so irresistible as an absolute Monarch nay in Monarchy they do acknowledge degrees also What shall we think then of this Prelate who without proving Caesar an absolute Monarch or reducing England to the pattern of Rome or stepping at all out of his Text where neither Rome nor England is mentioned yet will out of his Text condemne both Rome and England and by consequence all other States to the remedilesse servitude of non-resistance The Emperour of Germany is now Caesars successor and not denyed to be the supreme Magistrate in that country in diverse respects yet the Electors and other Princes are in some respect supreame also in their severall territories and may use resistance against the Emperour in some cases Now if our Preacher may except Germany out of his Text why not England unlesse He will appeale to something beyond his Text and if England why not others and if hee except nor Germany nor England nor any nor will refer himselfe to any other authority but his Text which mentions no particulars let Him inlarge his Sermon and be a little more ingenious and vouchsafe us some account why He is induced thus to confound all formes of government and to recede from the judgement of all Polititians But soft what have we to doe with a meer Divine let the Monarchy of England speak for it selfe let Divinity and Law and Policy be admitted into this Junto for that which is to be the subject of this consultation is to be reckoned inter agenda and not inter credenda FINIS Eerata Pag. 3. l. 4. r. desire them p. 21. l. 30. r. Dramoctidas p. 37. l. 7. dele the p. 38. l. 3. r. commune jus vetet p. 42. l. 1. for death r. slavery
consent but professed openly Eam pecuniam caeteraque omnia esse Senatus Populisque Rom. nos enim usque adeo nihil habemus proprium ut etiam vestras habitemus aedes How diametrically opposite is this to that which our State-Theologues doe now buzze into the Kings eares They instead of giving the subjects a just and compleat propriety in the King resigne the subject and all that he possesses to the meer discretion of the King instead of restraining Princes where the lawes let them loose they let loose Princes where the law restraines them But our Royalists will say this is to make the condition of a King miserable and more abject then a private mans condition For answer to this I must a little anatomize the State of a Prince For a Prince is either wise and truly understands the end of his promotion or not if he be not wise then he is like a sottish prisoner loaden and bound with golden fetters and yet is not so much perplexed with the weight as inammor'd with the price of them Then does he enter upon Empire as if he went only ad auâ—eam messem as Stratocles and Dramoclidas had use to make their boasting in merriment but these vain thoughts serve onely to expose him to the traines of Flatterers and Court-Harpyes till having impoverisht thousands to inrich some few and gained the disaffection of good men to be abused by villaines he never reads his errour till it comes presented to his eye in the black characters of ruine The same wholesome advertisement commonly which first encounters him as that hand-writing did which appear'd to Belshazzar in his drunken revells lets him understand withall that all repentance will be too late If the Prince be wise then does he sit amongst all his sumptuous dishes like Damocles owing his life perpetually to the strength of one horse haire and knowing that nothing else saves his head from the swords point then must his Diadem seem to him as contemptible or combersome as Seleucus his did who confidently affirmed that no man would stoop to take it from the ground to whom it was so perfectly knowne as it was to him And it was no wild but a very considerate interpellation of some other sad Prince who being to put on the Crowne upon his owne head amongst all the triumphant attendants of that solemnity could not but break out into this passion O thou deceitfull ornament farre more honourable then happy what man would stretch forth his hand to take thee out of the dust if he did first look into the hollow of thy circle and seriously behold the throngs of dangers and miseries that are there lodged Secondly A Prince is either good and applies himselfe to compasse the end of his inauguration or not if hee bee not good then does he under the Majesticall robes of a God act the execrable part of a Devill then does he imploy all those meanes and helps which were committed to him for saving purposes to the destruction of Gods people and to the heaping up of such vengeance to himselfe as scarce any private man hath ability to merit How happy had it bin for Tiberius for Nero and for a hundred more if they had wanted the fatall baites of royalty to deprave them or the great advantages of power to satisfie them in deeds of lust and cruelty Neroes beginning his quinquenium shewes us what his disposition was as a meer man but the latter part of his tragicall raign shewes us what the common frailty of man is being overcharged with unbounded seigniory Amongst other things which made Caius appeare a monster and not a man Suetonius in the first place reckons up his ayry titles of pious most great and most good c. his impiety made him so audacious as to prophane these sacred stiles and these sacred stiles made his impiety the more black and detestable If the Prince be good then as Sencca saies Omnium domos unius Principis vigilia desendit omnium otium illius labor omnium delitias illius industria omnium vacationem illius occupatio And in the same Chapter hee further addes Ex quo se Caesar orbiterrarum dedicavit sibi eripuit siderum modo quae irrequieta semper cursus suos explicant nunquam illi licet nec subsistere nec quicquam suum facere 'T is true of private men as Cicero rightly observes ut quisque maximè ad suum commodum refert quecunque agit ita minimè est vir bonus But this is much more true of publick persons whom God and man have by more speciall obligations confined to publick affaires only and for that purpose raised above their own former narrow orbe O that our Courtiers at Oxford would admit of such politicks and blush to publish any directly contrary then would these raging storms be soon allayed But alas amongst us when the great Counsell desires that the Kings children may not be disposed of in marriage without publick privity and consent all our peace and religion being nearly concerned therein it is answered with confidence that private men are more free then so So when the election or nomination of Judges Commanders and Counsellors of State is requested 't is answered that this is to mancipate the Crowne and to subject the King to more exactnesse in high important affaires then common persons are in their lower interests Till Machiavells dayes such answers never durst approach the light but now Princes have learnt a new lesson now they are not to look upon the people as Gods inheritance or as the efficient and finall causes of Empire but as wretches created for servility as mutinous vassalls whose safety liberty and prosperity is by all meanes to be opposed and abhorred as that which of all things in the world is the most irreconcileably adverse to Monarchy Salust a heathen complaines of his times that instead of the ancient Roman vertues they did entertain luxury and covetousnesse publice egestatem privatim opulentiam That which he complained of as the symptome of a declining State we Christians cry up as a rare arcanum imperii to make the Court rich and keep the countrey poor as in France is held the most subtile art of establishing a Prince Trajan a Pagan was an enemy to his owne safety further then it could stand with the safety of the State as Pliny writes and would not indure that any thing should be wisht for to befall him but what might bee expedient for the publick Nay hee appeal'd to the Gods to change their favour towards him if ever hee changed his affection to the Common-wealth Yet Clergy men now in holy orders advise Princes not only to preferre themselves before the people but even to propose the peoples poverty as the best mean to their wealth and the peoples imbroyling the nearest passage to their safety Cicero out of Plato gives Princes these precepts so to provide for the peoples commodity as in all their actions to
oppressed Captives The law Aquilia and Petronia were passed in favour of slaves and to restraine all crueltie beyond scourging And Augustus as also many Emperors after him when Civilitie began to be illightned by Christianitie began to break the arbitrarie power of Lords and to set bounds to it as a thing fit to be antiquated for many equitable reasons As soon as Christianitie was established by Law provision was presently made to free all Christians from slaverie And 't is now 400 yeares and more since all slaverie amongst Christians hath been wholly expulsed so that there is scarce any name or memory thereof remaining And this cannot but be attributed partly to piety partly to equity and partly to naturall respects Fifthly If we have respect to Law either we must acknowledge that the Commonwealth hath an interest in slaves or not If it hath not what a maime what a losse is this If it hath how can such mis-improvement thereof be answered to God or justified in Policie If it be said that slaverie may be inflicted as a due punishment not unsutable to naturall reason or exchanged for death I answer My scope is not to prove that Arbitrarie servilitie is at some times and to some spirits worse than death Nor doe I wholly bend my selfe against it as it is inflicted upon any that really deserved death I shall only thus argue Either condemnation and sentence of slavery passed upon the guilty doth really put the Delinquent into a worse condition than death or not If it doth then it is unjust and excessive If not then it reserves something to the delinquent wherein neither the right of the Delinquent nor the right of the State is wholly lost and relinquished And if the Delinquent be dead to himselfe and yet not to others then not to the State more than to the Lord for how can the State which hath an interest in the Lord chuse but have an interest in that which is the interest of the Lord So much of this kind of Power Now we orderly arrive at that Power which is the only intended subject of our discourse and that we shall properly call Jurisdiction We have already searched the Schooles for the causes of Power both finall and efficient We have also ransacked the bosome of Nature for all other species of Power and yet we can find no grounds for absolute Rule We shall now therefore make enquiry for precedents or patternes such as all ages may furnish us withall And who now hath any competent share of reason can suppose that if God and Nature have been so carefull to provide for libertie in Families and in particulars that Man would introduce or ought to indure slaverie when it is introduced upon whole States and Generalities Every thing intends its own good and preservation and therefore when Communities fancied to themselves the formes of Jurisdiction we must beleeve that they did not wholly depart from the originals of God and Nature but rather copy out of those formes whatsoever was best and most soveraigne in each Howsoever 't is granted on all sides that Princes and supreme Commanders in all Ages and Countries have differed in the latitude of Jurisdiction some have been more absolute others lesse Now since this did proceed from divers reasons and hath produced divers effects let this be the subject of our discussion The nature of Man-being depraved by the fall of Adam miseries of all sorts broke in upon us in throngs together with sin insomuch that no creature is now so uncivill and untame or so unfit either to live with or without societie as Man Wolves and Beares can better live without Wolves and Beares then Man can without Man yet neither are Wolves nor Beares so fell so hostile and so destructive to their own kinde as Man is to his In some respects Man is more estranged from Politicall union than Devils are for by reason of naturall disparitie the reprobate Angels continue without dissolution of order and shun that confusion amongst themselves which they endeavour to promote amongst Men But amongst Men nothing but cursed enmitie is to be seen When Aristotle sayes that Men doe associate by instict of Nature for ends of honestie as they are communicative creatures as well as necessitie and safetie He rather intimates what we should be than what we are and tells us what we were created rather than what we are being now lapsed We must insist upon Necessitie therefore as the main ground and end of Policie And besides Order and the Lawes of God and Nature we must finde out some more particular constitutions to cement us and to hold us fast bound together Though the times of Adam were not uncouth as ours now are yet even then the common consent of Mankinde that which we now call Jus Gentium was too slack iand loose a bond to keep the World from dissipation Whilst the Universe was but one intire House united under one common Father in whom all tyrannous thoughts were contrary to the worst suggestions of Nature whilst the neare relation of blood was fresh and unobliterated whilst the spacious surface of the Earth not yet thronged with plantations afforded few baites of avarice or objects of ambition or grounds of difference betwixt brother and brother whilst so many umpites of equall distance in blood were at hand to interpose in case any difference did unhappily arise The raines of Government might hang more loose and easie upon the necks of Men Yet even the infancie of the World we see required something more than the rod to over-awe it and some other severer hand than a Fathers to shake that rod Nay if Abel fall by the bloody hand of a Murtherer who hath no other provocation given him but the pietie and devotion of his nearest allie little expiation or justice is to be expected from the common assembly of the whole body How long it was before Families did incorporate and grow up into Cities and Cities into States and how long it was before Cities and States did frame Laws and settle Magistrates to enforce those Laws is dimly and obscurely set forth either in the Book of God or other Authors but we may very well guesse by the many small petty Principalities that we read of in all ancient Chronicles either divine or profane That Regiment in the first ages of the world was rather too milde and finewlesse than too violent and rigorous Where the Territories are narrower the managery of affairs is the easier and where the Scepter is more easie to be swayed by the Prince it is more gentle to be born by the people Were it not for fear of forreign infestations smaller Seigniories were best constituted and disposed for peace and duration And because they require no large Prerogatives but rest satisfied with little more then Paternall power the people are lesse jealous of their lord and they consequently have the lesse occasion to be harsh to the people Nimrod is
registred with the title of a great Hunter but whether he had that addition given him for enlarging the confines of his Dominion or for acquiring a more unbounded Prerogative or for exercising his power more insolently is not declared Besides it is left utterly uncertain whether Nimrod laid his foundation upon force or consent whether he did by his tongue or his sword drive and hunt men out of Woods and wilde Recesses into Towns and Cities for that force by which he did prevail can hardly be supposed to be it self wholly forced It is left also as dubious to conjecture how far consent was left by Nature for if order and right of succession did give the rule according to primogeniture then all mankinde must have been subjected to one Crown whereas if Primogeniture were wholly neglected and every father or brother left independent in his own family to associate or not at his pleasure then Rule would have been crumbled into Atomes To avoid therefore surmises and the dark Labyrinths of our primative-Records before the Flood and immediately following let us fall lower upon the Story of Abraham Moses David and such as succeeded them The people of God at severall times were under either several forms or several degrees of power and jurisdiction That Soveraignty which Abraham and the Patriarchs had was not the same as that which Moses and the Judges had neither had Moses and the Judges the same as Saul and the Kings nor yet had Saul and the Kings the same as Cyrus and the Persian Emperours It is disputed much by some Whether the Patriarchs and Judges before Sauls days had Regal-power or no Some say Their power was Regal others say It was but Aristocraticall and others more judiciously in my opinion say It was mixt of both One says That after the Flood till Nimrods usurpation men lived under the Empire of single Commanders who neverthelesse did not govern as Kings but as Fathers Now since this is but the patern which all Kings ought to follow therefore what other meaning can this bear but that Governours in those days having small Territories did claim but moderate Prerogatives though they were as solely supreme in the State as Fathers are in the Families As for Moses and the Judges also it is truely said They were no other then Gods Vice-Roys in regard they did go forth to Battel by immediate Commission and transact many other great affairs by direction from Gods own mouth Neverthelesse this alters the case little or nothing as to the latitude of their Prerogatives this rather added than took honour grandour or jurisdiction from them this left them as sole a Sovereignty and as unbounded over the people as other Princes have who are Gods ordinary Vice-gerents It must needs be therefore That that case and freedom which the people then found under Gods immediate Substitutes was not procured by any further Right or law or from any other indifferent composition of Government which they had belowe from other Monarchies but from a Regulation above because it was impossible for their chief lord to oppresse or do injustice or to direct his thought to particular ends contrary to theirs This shews how impious and stupid a Frenzie that was in the Israelites which made them weary of Gods Headship for indeed they did not so properly create to themselves a new Government as a new Governour We cannot think that Saul being invested with Style and State of an ordinary King and discharged of such an immediate extraordinary dependence upon God as Samuel acknowledged had thereby any new Right granted him to do wrong or be oppressive to his Subjects his Diadem did not absolve him from the true end of Diadems nor did his meer Instalment so much against Gods will and advertisement cancell the Law of God which forbids Kings to amasse treasure into their private Coffers or to encrease their Cavalries or to provide extraordinary Magazines of Arms and Munition or to lift up their hearts above their brethren much more to employ their Treasure Horses or Arms against their Subjects Barclay and our Royallists offer apparant violence to Scripture when they will make God to call the usuall rapine and insolence of Kings Jus Regis whereas indeed the word in the Original signifieth nothing but Mos Regis as is plain to all that will look into the same Howsoever let the Prerogative of the Jewish Kings be taken in its utmost extent and take the restraint of Gods Morall Law not to be of any Politicall efficacie yet we shall still perceive that the very composition of that Monarchy was not without qualifications of mixture and other Limitations The Crown it was setled upon Judah and more particularly upon the House of David yet the Peoples election was not thereby wholly drowned for still before every Coronation they might assemble to give their Votes and were not necessitated to choose any individuall person in the House of David It appears also by the Story of Rehoboam that the people might capitulate for just Munities and require some Obligation for assurance of the same and in case that was not granted it was esteemed and properly it might bâ— said That the King did reject the people and deny protection not that the People did reject the King and deny subjection Next there was a great Colledge and Councell of Elders called The Sanhedrin consisting of 71 Princes who had the hearing and determining of all weighty and intricate Suits unto whom the last appeal lay from inferiour Courts and the King without tyranny could not interrupt or impeach the proceedings of this Sanhedrin If Saul will charge David with Treason and without all legall Processe take Arms against him untried and uncondemned David may leavie Forces of Voluntiers against the followers of Saul and stand upon his justification cum moderamine inculpatae tutelae Wicked Ahab stood in so much awe of such kinde of trialls in the corrupted State of Israel that when he coveted Naboths Vineyard he durst not attempt to wrest it away by force nor did he obtrude upon the Court what Sentence he pleased he was driven to hire perjured villains and so by fraud to procure an erroneous judgement It is worthy of notice also that these 71 Elders or Princes of the Tribes who had the supremacie of judgement were not eligible by the King and so the more obnoxious to his Commands but did inherite this dignity and for that cause were extirpated by Herod as the main obstacle to his Tyrannie Besides though the children of Israel had abandoned God for their chief Ruler yet God out of his unspeakable grace did not utterly cast them out of his protection but oftentimes did extraordinarily interpose by his Prophets as he had done by Princes before for relief of his Inheritance In behalf of Vriah Nathan was sent with a vindicative-Message to bridle Davids cruelty In behalf of the whole Nation groning under Solomons ponderous hand another menacing Prophet was
Monarchy can the Senate it self therefore having been accessory in subverting Monarchy had implicitly pronounced the same judgment against Aristocracy The truth is both Monarchy and Aristocracy are derivative formes and owe a dependance upon Democracy which though it be not the best and most exact forme for all nations and Empires at all times yet it is ever the most naturall and primarily authenticall and forsome times and places the most beneficiall Howsoever the Romans never knew the benefit of Democracy so wisely and exactly regulated as it ought to bee for their Tributa Comitia were too adverse to the Patritian Order and very ill composed in themselves for order and decency The whole State had not any just influence of consent in them by right of election or representation nor was that body of Plebeians themselves which did therein concurre to the nomination of Magistrates and sanction of Lawes any thing else commonly but a vast rude confused indigested heap of the vulgar This the Senators might at first have amended and better disposed had they undertaken the same whilest they had superioritie or equality of power in the State but in policie t is as in Logick Vno dato absurdo sequuntur mille Little neglects in fundamentall Institutions may draw on great mischiefs in the consequence This time made evident amongst the Romanes for after many and very bloody disputes betwixt the Optimacy and populacy for sundrie ages at length the bulke of the Empire growing too spacious for the rule of the multitude especially so tumultuously and disorderly assembled a contrary change begins to be better relished Sylla now observing such a conjuncture of affaires takes courage to reform this seditious turbulent Ochlocraty notwithstanding that many gallant spirited men had perisht before in the enterprise and though he pretend for Aristocracy yet his thoughts towre as high as Monarchy Florus saies true of him Susceptâ dictaturà rebus novis Reipub. statum confirmavit Tribunorumque plebis potestatem minuit omne jus legum ferendarum ademit Neverthelesse neither was Sylla nor his Favorite Pompey so certain and true to his own lordly principles as he ought to have been for though they were both more daring then private men yet they were not so confident as the Lords of Rome should be and therefore t is hard to say whether they did oppresse liberty or not settle the Principality with the greater expence of blood Well might Caesar deride Sylla as a man not skild in letters nor able to dictate when he would make no other use of the Dictature but onely to inure Rome to the snaflle and break the Senate to the musle that an other might the readilier mount into the sadle The body of Rome was now grown too grosse for a popular form and the populacy also of Rome had such errors and defects in the composition of it that according to the judgement of Tacitus Non aliud discor dantis patriae remedium fuit quam ut ab uno regeretur T is strange that Augustus should so solemnly take advise of Maecenas and Agrippa about the quitting of the Empire after that he had expos'd himself to farre more danger in the winning of it then possibly could attend the holding of it For without the advertisement of Maecenas his own easie accesse to the Imperiall Chaire by the sword might have sufficiently informed him Quod multorum imperium magnitudo rerum ferre non poterat It had been farre more seasonable in my opinion if Augustus had entred into debate about the manner of government and had proposed rather whether a regall prerogative or something more or some thing lesse had been fit for that adjustment of time and other circumstances The Romans had been sworn by Brutus upon the ejection of Tarquin never to suffer any man to reigne or to admit of regall power at Rome and perhaps a vain superstition might so farre prevail as to make the word reigne and yet not the thing detestable What then is to be done is all supremacy of one man abjured or onely such a supremacy as Tarquin chalenged And if the intent of Brutus be dubious who shall determine that but such as have the same authority now as Brutus then had and may bind now where he did loose or loose now where he did then bind But soft three things especially touching the Imperiall Prerogative at Rome are now proper for our inquiry First what power did the Caesars use and assume de facto Bodin gives just satisfaction to this For Augustus sayes he though he did craftily dissemble and seem to settle a colour and shew of a Princely and not Kingly regiment by pretending onely to be Captain Generall of the Military Forces and Tribune for the Comminalties safetie yet having disposed of fourty Legions all over the Provinces and reserved three Legions about his own person for his own guard and having placed garrisons in all Forts and places of importance he did exercise Kingly authority though without a Scepter or Diadem His successors also addicted themselves to most cruell tyranny every one transcending his predecessor in acts of inhumanity except onely some few of them 2 The next quaere then is about the right of this absolute jurisdiction and upon what Law or Commission it was grounded The Lex Regia or the Law of Majesty as Cremutius cals it did absolve the Emperors ab omni legum coactione as Dion expresses it the principall vigor of it did consist in this that it did transferre Dictatorian power without limits of time upon them and the Dictature we know was Legum nexu exoluta Now this is the occasion of some dispute amongst Civilians for they all grant That no Law or Commission could discharge the Caesars from the bonds which God and Nature had imposed nor from that main dutie which Government it self inforces them to No priviledge can free any Magistrate from the obligation of rendring to every one that which is his due nor can those primitive rules be annulled which proportion to every one his due especially those which proportion to States more then to particulars and attribute to ends more then to Meanes It seems therefore to some Lawyers That the force of this Royall Law is to be restrained onely to forms and solemnities of such humane constitutions as might perhaps interpose and impede the Caesars in the execution of their main charge And though other Lawyers do not allow this restriction yet I conceive it very rational for even the Dictators themselves when they were acquitted of all Laws yet had this Law affixed to that very Commission which did therefore acquit them that they should take more care and might be the better inabled to provide Ne quid detrimenti capeat Respub. All things which stood in direct order to that end for which they had Dictatorian power put into their hands viz. the suppressing of such a sedition at home or the finishing of such a
warre abroad or some other designe might lawfully be done any opposition of particular Laws or formalities notwithstanding But if the Dictator himself did walk excentrically or contrary to this end he was not exempted from resistance during his terme of command nor from giving an account after the expiration of the same The last thing inquirable into is the date or commencement of this Royall Law and this also is not agreed upon of all sides Arnissaeus will needs referre the time of this Law to Augustus his reigne but his reason is exceeding weak Aliàs enim saies he injusti possessores fuissent tam Augustus quam Tiberius caeteri regnatricis domus sucsessores nec leges ferre novas jure potuissent I shall not stand to answer this I shall rather herein follow Bodin for that he was not onely a grave Statesman but a learned Lawyer also Now in his judgement and if we may credit his reading this royall Law was first passed in Vespasians dayes and he gives some proofs and quotes Authorities for confirmation of the same Besides others he cites Suetonius censuring thus of Caligula Paerum abfuit quin diadema sumeret aec speciem Prinoipatus in regnum converteret Also of Tiberius he censures thus Faedissima servitute Remp. oppressit He cals his reigne meer tyranny and oppression Bodin therefore having defined Princely government to be either a State of Optimacy or Populacy wherein some one has preeminence above all other particular persons and is called Princeps that is Primus He concludes that the Common-wealth of Rome from Augustus and his immediate successors Vsque ad Flavium Vespasianum Principatus dicebatur and he closes all with this that from the battell of Actium the State of Rome was neither popular nor Aristocraticall nor regall but mixt of all By all this we see that our great Irish Prelate when he sends us for St. Pauls meaning to the Romane Empire before Vespasians dayes there to find out what soveraigne power is irresistible He sends us not to regall power more then to Aristocraticall or Democraticall I will therefore put the case stronger against my self and make it my quaere what irresistibility is due to Domitian after his Fathers and Brothers death And here first I may except against the Royall Law it self passed in Vespasians time as not being the compleat voluntary lawfull act both of Patritians and Plebeians For besides that the Senate had been now long over-awed and corrupted many wayes by the acts of the Court we know the Tributa Comitia are also totally depraved and evirtuated by being called out of the field into the palace insomuch that all liberty of choice and suffrage is lost to that great convention and it is now turned into a ridiculous solemnity Wherefore when Nero was to be deposed and all his barbarous acts of inhumanity to be accounted for no plebiscitum could bee obtained an act of the Senate only was past to declare him an enemy of mankind But I shall not insist upon this I shall grant the royall law to be a good law and enacted in a full assembly of both the States yet still I shall maintaine that the law-makers did not passe any thing to Vespatian or his successors but only in order to the publick good and safety nor did they grant away their owne original right and power in themselves by granting a fiduciary use and administration of that right and power to the Emperors The whole body of the law will furnish testimonies to this purpose that the Emperour is not proprietary of his subjects or hath any interest at all in them to his own use meerely Give me leave to frame a case upon supposition Conceive that the major part of the Patritiaens and Plebeians all over the Roman Empire are converted to the faith of Christ conceive that Domitian whose claime is by the law past to his Father hates Christianity and being incited by his South-saying Priests his Concubines and parasiticall Libertines to eradicate true Religion and inrich himselfe by the great spoyle of the professors thereof sets up such an idol and makes such an edict for the generall adoration thereof as the Persian Monarch once did Conceive that the Christians both Senators and Plebeians petition for their lives but are rejected and seeing a number of Assasins armed ready to rush upon them betake themselves to their defence and rely upon forcible resistance Conceive further that they first acquaint Domitian with their resolutions and thus publish the justice thereof May it please your sacred imperiall Majesty the peaceable and gentle principles of our pure Religion teach us rather to suffer moderate wrongs from private hands then to offer the least injurious violence to Princes Neverthelesse since after all our vain supplications wee see our selves remorsely designed to a generall massacre for not obeying you against God and since you expect that we should tamely surrender not only out estates and such other rights as are in our arbitrary disposition but our lives also and the Gospell it selfe of neither whereof wee are masters at discretion for asmuch also as we being the major part of the State and virtually that whole Community from which you derive your Commission and for whose behoefe alone you are bound to pursue that Commission and not to decline from the maine intendment of it and whereas further wee have not so totally devested our selves by intrusting you with power but that we are to give some account to God and the law if wee oppose not generall subversion wher wee may especially we being now farther intituled to defence by the extraordinary law of generall necessity of the benefit of which iron law particular men are not wholly abridged we are compelled hereby to protest and remonstrate to all the world that we take now up these one just arms only for defence to secure our Lives Liberties and Religion against the bloody emissaries which indeed from your undue warrant can derive no authority and not to bridle any just authority of yours or to attempt any thing against that idolatrous devotion which hath been hitherto established by law And because we impute it to the wretched falsities and artifices of calumniators that your Majesty is incensed against us and our Religion and misinformed of our intentions wee crave leave farther to declare that we though we are free-men and not slaves and have some share in Empire it selfe and are not meer subjects will yet continue in the same obedience as our Ancestors payd you for peace sake if we may not be driven to extreamities And as for our Religion it is no other then a holy blessed law revealed from heaven prescribed for the good of all immortall rationall creatures more beneficiall to Princes then Paeganisme and such as without diminution of power you may submit to and cast down your Crowne before In the like manner also it will concern your imperiall office rather to protect us then those