proposing to or rather imposing upon the Nation What is it they would be at And what are the Ends they are driving on Are they just and good Are they generous and honorable Or are they not rather such as would undermine the Government both in Church and State and reduce us to a state of Nature wherein the People are at Liberty to agree upon any Government or none at all Plainly they would reduce us to the Dutch or some other foreign Measures which how well soever they may agree with that Country where they are setled and confirmed partly by Custom and partly by the peculiar Necessity of their Affairs can never be well received in England till an Act be passed to abolish Monarchy Episcopacy and all the Fundamental Laws establish'd by Magna Charta and all succeeding Parliaments ever since The Enquixy into the Measures of Submission to the Supreme Authority is a Treatise calculated for the times but surely it is not written according to the Principles and Practice of the Church of England in the time of the renowned Queen Elizabeth I am apt to think that some regard was then had to the Passages which we find in the Scriptures especially the Old Testament relating to the Measures of Submission But these Examples weigh nothing with our Author because they are not for his purpose pag. 5 6. I am also apt to suspect that Queen Elizabeth would not have thanked any Politician for vending this as a certain and fundamental Principle That in all Disputes between Power and Liberty Power must always be proved but Liberty proves it self the one being founded only upon a positive Law and the other upon the Law of Nature pag. 4. She I perswade my self on the contrary would have challenged any such States-man to have prov'd his Liberty as for her Power she would have answered it was ready to prove it self against all who should presume to question it But what 's the meaning of Power being founded only on a positive Law and Liberty upon the Law of Nature Is not a Father's Power founded as he grants upon the Law of Nature and is not all Power even of the greatest Princes as far as it is just and honest and for the Benefit of the Subject derived from this Paternal Authority of the Father over his Son Besides doth not the Law of Nature prescribe the Necessity of putting Power into the Hands of one or more for the Benefit of the whole which otherwise would be in danger of destroying it self by intestine Divisions In short If Liberty be founded upon the Law of Nature so is all just and lawful Power since the end of it is only to regulate our Liberty and in truth to make us more free Liberty in general is a right to use our Faculties according to right Reason and the Law in particular tells us which are those Rules of right Reason by which we must govern our selves And what is Law but the Commands of the Supreme Power where-ever it is lodg'd in the hands of the Prince the Senate or the People or of all of them together ordering what we are to do or avoid under the Sanction of particular Penalties I beg the Learned Author's Pardon for questioning his Measures in my Judgment they are not taken from the English Standard and therefore I hope I may without Offence use my Liberty in refusing them a Right which proves it self till he can prove his Power to impose them The Enquiry into the present State of Affairs is a Discourse which seems by its bold strokes to resemble the former I will say no more of it but this If what he there lays down for a certain Truth be really so then all that follows must be granted as reasonable Deductions from this fundamental Principle but if this be false all that he hath said falls to the Ground for want of a firm and solid Foundation to support it Now the Position which like a first Principle in Mathematicks he takes for granted is this It is certain says he pag. 1. that the reciprocal Duties in Civil Societies are Protection and Allegiance and wheresoever the one fails wholly the other falls with it This is his Doctrine which I have mentioned before but shall now consider a little more particularly 'T is indeed most fit and reasonable that Protection and Allegiance should always go together and accompany one another but that they do not do so is but too plain in the present case of England but doth it follow that because the King is not in a Capacity to protect his Subjects therefore he is no longer to be look'd upon as a King And if he be a King doth not this suppose that he hath some Subjects And if so I would gladly know what kind of Subjects they are who owe no Allegiance But let this Question be rul'd by his own Instance The Duty betwixt Father and Son. Suppose my Father to be so destitute that he cannot and so perverse that he will not protect and sustain me suppose him as churlish as Cain and as poor as Iob yet still he is my Father and I am his Son that is he still retains all that Power which by the Law of Nature a Father ought to have over his Child still the Relation holds betwixt us and whilst it doth so the Father's Faults or Necessities cannot evacuate the Duty of a Son which is founded not in the Fathers good Will or Abilities to defend him though it must be confess'd they are chiefly consider'd but in that fix'd and immutable Relation which God and Nature have establish'd betwixt them not to be dissolv'd but by Death So that if this learned Author will yield as he seems to do that Kingly Power is nothing else but the Paternal consign'd by the common consent of the Fathers of Families to one Person upon such and such Conditions specified in the Contract I cannot see how this Relation betwixt King and Subject can any more be utterly dissolved than that betwixt a Father and his Son. I shall say no more to this Discourse and if what I have already said do offend either against the Principles of Reason or the Law of England I am willing to be corrected and acknowledg my Error There is another little Paper which yet gives such a great stroke to the Government that it ought not to be pass'd over without some Animadversion The Sheet which I mean is that which is call'd Advice before it be too late or A Breviate for the Convention This Paper bespeaks its Author to be of the same Complexion and Principles with him who writ the Word to the Wise and the four Questions debated They do all of them suppose that the Government is fallen to its Centre or Root from whence it sprang that is to the People as the Word to the Wise expresses our present case I know not what can be a more effectual Answer to these Pamphlets and take
by my Lord of Canterbury intimate their Thoughts about that Affair and their readiness to the King who was pleased not only to permit them to give him the best and most particular Advices but to encourage them to do it with all the freedom that was necessary for the present Occasion Upon this Royal Invitation their Lordships assembled together the next day at my Lord of Canterbury's Palace and prepared upon the most mature deliberation such Matters as they judged necessary for hiâ— Majesty's Knowledg and Consideration And on the Wednesday after waited on the King in a Body when his Grace in his own and in the name of the rest of the Bishops then present did in a most excellent Speech represent to his Majesty such things as were thought by them absolutely necessary to the Settlement of the Nation amidst the present Distractions and to the publick Interest of Church and State. I am assured that his Grace delivered himself upon this Critical Occasion as with all dutifulness to his Majesty so with all the readiness and the courage that did become such an Apostolical Arch-Bishop as God hath blest our Church of England with at this Time. You must not expect here his excellent Words but an Abridgment of them according to my Talent in a meaner Stile I. First the Bishops thought fit to represent in general to his Majesty That it was necessary for Him to restore all things to the state in which He found them when He came to the Crown by committing all Offices and Places of Trust in the Government to such of the Nobility and Gentry as were qualified for them according to the Laws of this Kingdom and by Redressing and Removing such Grievances as were generally complain'd of II. Particularly That his Majesty would Dissolve the Ecclesiastical Commission and promise to His People never to Erect any such Court for the future III. That He would not only put an effectual stop to the issuing forth of any Dispensations but would Call in and Cancel all those which had since his coming to the Crown been obtained from Him. IV. That he would Restore the Vniversities to their Legal State and to their Statutes and Customs and would particularly Restore the Master of Magdalen Colledge in Cambridge to the Profits of his Mastership which he had been so long Deprived of by an Illegal Suspension and the Ejected President and Fellows of Magdalen Colledge in Oxford to their Properties in that Colledge And that He would not permit any Persons to enjoy any of the Preferments in either Vniversity but such as are qualified by the Statutes of the Vniversities the particular Statutes of their several Foundations and the Laws of the Land. V. That He would suppress the Iesuits Schools opened in this City or elsewhere and grant no more Licenses for such Schools as are apparently against the Laws of this Nation and His Majesty's True Interest VI. That He would send Inhibitions after those Four Romish Bishops who under the Title of Apostolick Vicars did presume to Exercise within this Kingdom such Iurisdictions as are by the Laws of the Land Invested in the Bishops of the Church of England and ought not to be Violated or Attempted by them VII That He would suffer no more Quo Warranto's to be issued out against any Corporations but would restore to those Corporations which had been already disturbed their ancient Charters Priviledges Grants and Immunities and Condemn all those late Illegal Regulations of Corporations by putting them into their late Flourishing Condition and Legal Establishment VIII That He would fill up all the Vacant Bishopricks in England and Ireland with Persons duly qualified according to the Laws and would especially take into His Consideration the See of York whose want of an Archbishop is very prejudicial to that whole Province IX That He would Act no more upon a Dispensing Power nor insist upon it but permit that Affair at the first Session of a Parliament to be fairly Stated and Debated and Settled by Act of Parliament X. That upon the Restoration of Corporations to their Ancient Charters and Burroughs to their Prescriptive Rights He would Order Writs to be issued out for a fair and free Parliament and suffer it to Sit to Redress all Grievances to Settle Matters in Church and State upon just and solid Foundations and to Establish a due Liberty of Conscience XI Lastly and above all That His Majesty would permit some of His Bishops to lay such Motives and Arguments before him as might by the Blessing of GOD bring back His Majesty unto the Communion of Our Holy Church of England into whose Catholick Faith He had been Baptized in which He had been Educated and to which it was their earnest and daily Prayer to Almighty GOD that His Majesty might be Reunited All these Counsels were concluded with a Prayer to GOD in whose Hands the Hearts of Kings are for a good Effect upon them especially the last about bringing the King back to the Protestant Religion And now Sir I cannot but ask you What grounds there are for any Mens Jealousies of the Bishops Proceedings Pray shew this Letter to all your Friends that some may lay down their Fears and others may have this Antidote against taking any up I do assure you and I am certain I have the best grounds in the World for my assurance That the Bishops will never stir one Jot from their PETITION but that they will whenever that happy Opportunity shall offer itself let the Protestant Dissenters find that they will be better than their Word given in their Famous PETITION In the mean time let You and I Commend the Prudence of these Excellent Bishops Admire their Courage and Celebrate their just Praises and never forget to offer up most fervent Thanks to GOD for his Adorning the Church of England at this Juncture with such Eminent Apostolical Bishops I am with all Respect Yours N. N. The PETITION of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal for the Calling of a Free Parliament Together with his Majesty's Gracious Answer to their Lordships To the KING 's most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal Whose Names are Subscribed May it please your Majesty WE your Majesty's most Loyal Subjects in a deep Sense of the Miseries of a War now breaking forth in the Bowels of this your Kingdom and of the Danger to which your Majesty's Sacred Person is thereby like to be Exposed and also of the Distractions of your People by reason of their present Grievances do think our selves bound in Conscience of the Duty we owe to God and our Holy Religion to your Majesty and our Country most humbly to offer to your Majesty That in our Opinion the only visible Way to preserve your Majesty and this your Kingdom would be the Calling of a Parliament Regular and Free in all its Circumstances And Your Petitioners shall ever pray c. W. Cant. Grafton Ormond Dorset Clare Clarendon
Administration of Justice so that it is really a Dissolution of the Government since all Trials Sentences and the Executions of them are become so many unlawful Acts that are null and void of themselves The next Thing in our Constitution which secures to us our Laws and Liberties is a Free and Lawful Parliament Now not to mention the breach of the Law of Triennial Parliaments it being above three Years since we had a Session that enacted any Law Methods have been taken and are daily a taking that render this impossible Parliaments ought to be chosen with an entire Liberty and without either Force or Preingagements whereas if all Men are required before-hand to enter into Engagements how they will vote if they are chosen themselves or how they will give their Voices in the Electing of others This is plainly such a preparation to a Parliament as would indeed make it no Parliament but a Cabal if one were chosen after all that Corruption of Persons who had preingaged themselves and after the Threating and Turning out of all Persons out of Imploiments who had refused to do it And if there are such daily Regulations made in the Towns that it is plain those who manage them intend at last to put such a number of Men in the Corporations as will certainly chuse the Persons who are recommended to them But above all if there are such a number of Sheriffs and Mayors made over England by whom the Elections must be conducted and returned who are now under an Incapacity by Law and so are no legal Officers and by consâ—quence those Elections that pass under their Authority are null and void If I say it is clear that things are brought to this then the Government is dissolved because it is impossible to have a Free and Legal Parliament in this state of things If then both the Authority of the Law and the Constitution of the Parliament are struck at and dissolved here is a plain Subversion of the whole Government But if we enter next into the particular Branches of the Government we will find the like Disorder among them all The Protestant Religion and the Church of England make a great Article of our Government the latter being secured not only of old by Magna Charta but by many special Laws made of late and there are particuâ—ar Laws made in K. Charles the First and the late King's Time securing them from all Commissions that the King can raise for â—udging or Censuring them If then in opposition to this a Court so condemned is ercted which proceeds to Judg and Censure the Clergy and even to disseise them of their Free-holds without so much as the form of a Trial though this is the most indispensable Law of all those that secures the Property of England and if the King pretends that he can require the Clergy to publish all his Arbitrary Declarations and in particular one that strikes at their whole Settlement and has ordered Process to be begun against all that disobey'd this illegal Warrant and has treated so great a number of the Bishops as Criminals only for representing to him the Reasons of their not obeying him If likewise the King is not satisfied to profess his own Religion openly though even that is contrary to Law but has sent Ambassadors to Rome and received Nuncio's from thence which is plainly Treason by Law If likewise many Popish Churches and Chappels have been publickly opened if several Colledges of Iesuits have been set up in divers parts of the Nation and one of the Order has been made a Privy Counsellor and a principal Minister of State And if Papists and even those who turn to that Religion though declared Traitors by Law are brought into all the chief Imploiments both Military and Civil then it is plain That all the Rights of the Church of England and the whole Establishment of the Protestant Religion are struck at and design'd to be overturned since all these Things as they are notoriously illegal so they evidently demonstrate That the great Design of them all is the rooting out of this Pestilent Heresy in their stile I mean the Protestant Religion In the next place If in the whole course of Justice it is visible that there is a constant practising upon the Judges that they are tâ—rned out upon their varying from the Intentions of the Court and if Men of no Reputation nor Abilities are â—ut in their places If an Army is kept up in time of Peace â—â—d Men who withdraw from that illegal Service are hanged up as Criminals without any colour of Law which by consequence are so many Murders and if the Souldiery are connived at and encouraged in the most enormous Crimes that so they may be thereby prepared to commit greater ones and from single Rapes and Murders proceed to a Rape upon all our Liberties and a Destruction of the Nation If I say all these things are true in Fact then it is plain that there is such a Dissolution of the Government made that there is not any one part of it left sound and entire And if all these things are done now it is easie to imagine what may be expected when Arbitrary Power that spares no Man and Popery that spares no Heretick are finally established Then we may look for nothing but Gabelles Tailles Impositions Benevolences and all sorts of Illegal Taxes as from the other we may expect Burnings Massacres and Inquisitions In what is doing in Scotland we may gather what is to be expected in England where if the King has over and over again declared that he is vested with an Absolute Power to which all are bound to obey without reserve and has upon that annulled almost all the Acts of Paâ—liament that passed in K. Iames I. Minority though they were ratified by himself when he came to be of Age and were confirmed by all the subsequent Kings not excepting the present We must then conclude from thence what is resolved on here in England and what will be put in Execution as soon as it is thought that the Times can bear it When likewise the whole Settlement of Ireland is shaken and the Army that was raised and is maintained by Taxes that were given for an Army of English Protestants to secure them from a new Massacre by the Irish Papists is now all filled with Irish Papists as well as almost all the other Imployments it is plain that not only all the British Protestants inhabiting that Island are in daily danger of being butchered a second time but that the Crown of England is in danger of losing that Island it being now put wholly into the Hands and Power of the Native Irish who as they formerly offered themselves up sometimes to the Crown of Spain sometimes to the Pope and once to the Duke of Lorrain so are they perhaps at this present treating with another Court for the Sale and Surrender of the Island and for the
have heard forfeit all Right either to chuse or be chosen in any Publick Councils And then all Laws which have been made for the Protestants and against the Popish Religion will be null and void as being enacted by an incompetent Authority as being the Acts of Hereticks Kings Lords and Commons who had forfeited all their Rights and Priviledges But Thirdly suppose our Laws were valid as enacted by competent Authority and such good and wholsome Provisions as were those Statutes made by our Popish Ancestors in those Statutes of Provisoes in Edward the I. Edward the III. Time and that of Praemunire in Richard the II. and Henry the IV. for Relief against Papal Incroachments and Oppressions Yet being against the Laws and Canons of Holy Church the Sovereign Authority they will be all superseded For so they determine That when the Canon and the Civil Laws clash one requiring what the other allows not the Church-Law must have the observance and that of the State neglected And Constitutions they say made against the Canons and Decrees of the Roman Biâ—hops are of no moment Their best Authors are positive of it And our own Experience and Histories testify the Truth thereof For how were those good Laws before-mention'd defeated by the Pope's Authority so that there was no effectual Execution thereof till Henry the 8 th's Time as Dr. Burnet tells us And how have the good Laws to suppress and prevent Popery been very much obstructed in their Execution by Popish Influence An Answer to a late Pamphlet Intituled A Short Scheme of the Usurpations of the Crown of England c. THE World may very justly wonder at several Passages in this ill-designed and as ill-writ Pamphlet which the Author has taken the pains to collect from some petty Grubstreet Chronicle Henry II. is call'd an Usurper pag. 4. because he accepted of the Crown of England in his Mothers Life-time tho' by her not opposing his Claim it may very reasonably be concluded that she freely consented to his Promotion as the most effectual means to secure the Crown to her Posterity But we are told That a Crown is no Estate to be made over in Trust If our Author's meaning is that a Crown is an Estate which the Possessor cannot divest himself of by a voluntary Resignation both Reason and a multitulde of Examples in several Ages and â—ations prove that the Principle our Author has laid down is founded on a gross Mistake Therefore if our Author designs to publish any more Schemes of Usurpation let him first inform us what it is and how far it extends lest the World should accuse him of having as notoriously usurped to himself the Title of a Writer as any of our Princes ever did the Crown of England He would perswade his Readers to believe that God punish'd King Edward III. and King Henry V. for their Usurpations with frequent and unexpected Victories in the acquisition of which tho' there was some English Blood shed as it was impossible it should be otherwise yet the Enemies paid an excessive Price for it after the defeat of their great Armies and the Imprisonment of their King they being forced to buy their Peace upon such Terms as our conquering Usurpers pleased to impose Nor did ever any well-wisher to the English Nation deny that these Two Princes were the Glory of their Age and of our British History If I should reckon up all the evident Mistakes and false Inferences in this Libel it would be too tedious since a careless Eye cannot easily overlook them If the Pamphlet finds so undeserved a Reception in the World as to need a Second Impression the Author is desired to add to it this Postscript which being founded on the Principles asserted by him will shew the World that he hath wilfully and perhaps partially forborn to speak of as notorious an Usurper as any that are mentioned in his Scheme Queen Mary the Off-spring of an Incestuous Marriage had no other unquestionable Divine Right to the Crown of England than what was given her by an Act of Parliament made in her Father's Reign and the common Consent of the Nobility and People after the Death of her Brother King Edward VI. whose disposal of the Crown by Letters Patents under the Great Seal being directly contrary to the former Entail of it limited by a higher Authority His Sister the Lady Mary was acknowledged Queen Therefore according to our Author 's abstruse Notions She as well as her Grand-father Henry VII must be reckoned among the Usurpers of the Crown of England Let us now see what success attended her and whether the Nation was happy under her Government As soon as She saw her self fixed in the Throne She imprisoned and deprived several of the Protestant Bishopâ— contrary to the then Establish'd Laws of the Realm She intruded Popish Bishops into the Sees thus declared vacant the small remainder of the Protestant Bishops who had beâ—n called to Parliament by Writ were nevertheless violently thrust out of the Parliament-House for refusing to worship the Mass. The Members of the House of Commons in her First Parliament were chosen by force and threats the Free-holders were hindred by violence from exercising their Right of chusing Representatives false Returns were made and those who were for the Reformed Religion tho' duly elected were by force expelled the House So that we cannot wonder at the Statues made in this pretended Free Parliament which was in every Thing influenced by the Court-Party Shortly after her Marriage with the haughty jealous Spaniard of which She her self felt the ill Consequences was justly disliked by the Nobility and Commonalty Her base Design of setting up a Supposititious Child for Heir to the Crown was not only happily defeated but deservedly exposed to the Censure of the Nation Her Design to erect the Spanish Inquisition in England was disappointed Calais after having belonged to the Crown of Englâ—nd about two hundred and eleven Years and which was gained with great difficulty after eleven Months Siege was in the depth of Winter lost in a Weeks time And quickly after all the English Territories were with small difficulty recovered by the French. We must not forget how exactly She put in practice the base treacherous and destructive Principles of the pretended Catholick Religion in these remarkable Particulars She barbarously used her only Sister the Lady Elizabeth and designed to have taken away her Life for no other Cause but her firm adherence to the Protestant Religion She imprisoned and burnt Arch-Bishop Cranmer who had formerly sheltered her from her Father's Fury She deprived and imprisoned Judg Hales who alone resolutely opposed King Edward the Sixth's Will and preferred Judg Bromley to be Lord Chief Justice though he had without any reluctancy prepared the Letters-Patents for her Exclusion The Inhabitants of Norfolk and Suffolk who were the first that took up Arms for her upon her Promise to permit them the Exercise of their Religion
Obligation whereby one Man is bound to yield Obedience to another but what is founded in Paternal or Patriarchal Authority II. All the Subjects of a Patriarchal Monarch are Princes of the Blood. III. All the People of England are not Princes of the Blood. IV. No Man who is naturally free can be bound but by his own Act and Deed. V. Publick Laws are made by Publick Consent and they therefore bind every Man because every Man's Consent is involved in them VI. Nothing but the same Authority and Consent which made the Laws can repeal alter or explain them VII To judg and determine Causes against Law without Law or where the Law is obscure and uncertain is to assume Legislative Power VIII Power assumed without a Man's Consent cannot bind him as his own Act and Deed. IX The Law of the Land is all of a piece and the same Authority which made one Law made all the rest and intended to have them all impartially executed X. Law on one side is the Back-Sword of Justice XI The best things when corrupted are the worst and the wild Justice of a State of Nature is much more desirable than Law perverted and over-ruled into Hemlock and Oppression This Discourse of Magistracy c. and the former Reasons were written by the foresaid Mr. S. Iohnson The Definition of a TYRANT by the Learned and Loyal Abraham Cowley published by the present Lord Bishop of Rochester in his Discourse concerning the Government of Oliver Cromwel I Call him a Tyrant who either intrudes himself forcibly into the Government of his Fellow-Citizens without any Legal Authority over them or who having a just Title to the Government of a People abuses it to the destruction or tormenting of them So that all Tyrants are at the same time Usurpers either of the whole or at least of a part of that Power which they assume to themselves and no less are they to be accounted Rebels since no Man can usurp Authority over others but by rebelling against them who had it before or at least against those Laws which were his Superiours Several Queries proposed to the Sages of the Law who have studied to Advance the Publick equally with if not more than their own private Interest Q. I. WHether the Legislative Power be in the King only as in his Politick Capacity or in the King Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled If in the latter then Q. II. If the King grants a Charter and thereby great Franchises and Priviledges and afterwards the Grantees obtain an Act of Parliament for the Confirmation hereof is this the Grant of the King or of the Parliament If the latter as it seems to be because it is done by the whole and every part of the Legislative Power then Q. III. To whom can these Grantees forfeit this Charter And who shall take Advantage of the Forfeiture If the King then an Act of Parliament may be destroyed without an Act of Parliament If the Parliament only can call them to an Account then Q. IV. Of what Validity is a Iudgment pronounced under a colour of Law in B. R. against a Charter granted by Parliament If it be of any force then the King's Bench is Superior to the Legislative Power of the Kingdom If not then Q. V. What Reason can be assigned why it is not as safe to Act pursuant to an Act of Parliament notwithstanding a Iudgment entred in the King's Bench as it was to Act against an Act of Parliament before the Iudgment was entred And then Q. VI. Whether they that did the latter were not downright Knaves and whether they that refuse to do the former be not more nice than wise A LETTER TO THE KING When DUKE of YORK Perswading him to return to the Protestant Religion wherein the chief Errors of the Papists are exposed and the Tendency of their Doctrines to promote Arbitrary Government proved By an Old Cavalier and Faithful Son of the Church of England as Establish'd by Law. Illustrious Sir WHEN I look up to the Greatness of your Quality and down on my own meanness I cannot but tremble to make this Address so liable to be censur'd as presumptuous and obnoxious to variety of Misconstruction But since my Pen is guided by an Heart fill'd with profound Loyalty and Veneration towards all the Royal Family and a sincere respect and most passionate desires for the particular Prosperity Temporal and Eternal of your Royal Highness I cannot refrain discharging what I apprehended my Duty and therefore with good Esther finding not only my Country but your Highness also in such apparent I wish it may not prove inevitable hazard of Ruin am resolved to adventure forth and cast my poor weak Sentiments at your feet and If they perish they perish 'T is generally reported That you are long since turn'd Papist and so far believ'd That every day many hundred thousand Protestants are melted into Tears and Horror meerly on that Consideration and lament the same as one of the greatest Calamities that has happened in our Age. I must do my self so much Justice as to declaâ—e That I am none of those fanatical Spirits that either raise or lightly credit Rumours to the prejudice of my Superiors But besides what has been sworn by Persons whose Evidence none have hitherto been able to invalidate by any substantial Reasons or Incoherence in their Depositions your Highnesses Conduct and Deportment for many years past your absenting from the publick Worship of our Church Refusing legal Oaths and Tests your countenancing retaining an inâ—imate Correspondency with Roman Catholicks and many other Reasons not fit at least unnecessary here to be mention'd do all loudly speak it And for those who would go about to deny it as some wretched Pamphlet-scriblers and unthinking Health-drinkers have done besides the folly of the attempt they unwarily cast a greater load of Ignominy and Dishonour on your Highness whilst they pretend to vindicate you For is it imaginable That a Prince of your Generosity and Prudence would so far suffer the Affairs of your Royal Brother to be imbroil'd His Councils discompos'd all the Protestants in the World swallowed up with Astonishment and almost despair your own Honour fullied your Interest impaired and these Three Kingdoms put into a deplorable Distraction meerly upon a false supposition without rectifying in all this time their mistake by some real Demonstrations to the contrary If such a Capricio should sway with your Highness what were it but to render you the worst Subject the most unkind Brother the most Impolitick Prince and the maddest or most monstrous Man in the World I shall therefore take it for granted and consequently must tho' with all Humility and a Sorrow inexpressible direct my Discourse to your Highness as an Apostate from the Protestant Faith and if I am mistaken 't is your Highness has led not only me but almost all the World into that Error I am not insensible of my own weakness and
and Setled in the Kingdom by the General Election of the People and in his Life-time the Nation was Sworn to the Succession of Edward the First before he went to the Holy Land. Edward the First being out of England by the Consent of Lords and Commons was declared King. Edward the Second being misled and relying too much upon his Favourites was Deposed and his Son was declared King in his Life-time Richard the Second for his evil Government had the Fate of the Second Edward Henry the Fourth came in by Election of the People to whom Succeeded Henry the Fifth and Henry the Sixth in whose time Richard Duke of York claimed the Crown and an Act of Parliament was made that Henry the Sixth should enjoy the Crown for his Life and the said Duke after him after which King Henry raises an Army by Assistance of the Queen and Prince and at Wakefield in Battel kills the Duke for which 1 Ed. 4. they were all by Act of Parliament Attainted of Treason and one principal Reason thereof was for that the Duke being declared Heir to the Crown after Henry by Act of Parliament they had killed him Edward the Fourth enters the Stage and leaves Ed. 5. to Succeed to whom Succeeds Richard the Third Confirmed King by Act of Parliament upon Two Reasons First That by reason of a Precontract of Edward the Fourth Edward the Fifth his Eldest Son and all his other Children were Bastards Secondly For that the Son of the Duke of Clarence second Brother to Edward the Fourth had no Right because the Duke was Attainted of Treason by a Parliament of Ed. the 4 th Henry the Seventh comes in but had no Title First Because Edward the Fourth's Daughter was then living Secondly His own Mother the Countess of Richmond was then living After him Henry the Eighth wore the Crown who could have no Title by the Father in his time the Succession of the Crown was Limitted several times and the whole Nation Sworn to the Observance Sir Thomas Moor declared That the Parliament had a Power to bind the Succession which was declared to be Law by 13 Eliz. cap. 1. and made a Praemunire to hold the contrary Edward the Sixth succeeded but his Mother was married to King Henry while Ann of Cleve his Wife was living Queen Mary was declared a Bastard and by Vertue of an Act of Parliament of Henry the Eighth she Succeeded which Act being Repealed in the First of her Reign and the Crown being Limitted otherwise by Parliament all the Limitations of the Crown in King Henry the Eighth's Reign were avoided so that Queen Elizabeth who was declared a Bastard by Act of Parliament in Henry the Eighth's time and limitted to Succeed in another Act in his time and that Act repealed by Queen Mary became Queen in the force of her own Act of Parliament which declares her Lawful Queen The Crown was Entail'd in Richard the Second's time again in the time of Henry the Fourth again in the time of Henry the Sixth again in the time of Edward the Fourth again in the time of Richard the Third again in the time of Henry the Seventh Thrice in the time of Henry the Eighth And upon the Marriage of Queen Mary to King Philip of Spain both the Crowns of England and Spain were Entailed whereby it was provided that of the several Children to be Begotten upon the Queen one was to have the Crown of England another Spain another the Low-Countries the Articles of Marriage to this purpose were Confirmed by Act of Parliament and the Pope's Bull. So that it was agreed by the States of both Kingdoms and the Low-Countries and therefore probably the Universal Opinion of the Great Men of that Age That Kings and Sovereign Princes with the Consent of their States had a Power to Alter and Bind the Succession of the Crown and never denied to be Law till the Reign of King Charles the Second True it is that this Doctrine doth not go down well with those that do pretend to Prerogative added as they say by the Act of Recognition made to King Iames and the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance which do make so much talk conceâ—ning Inheritance and Heirs But let these Gentlemen consider that the Act of Recognition made no Law for the future nor doth the same cross the Statute of 13 Eliz. nor doth it take away the power of the Parliament from over-ruling the Course of the Common-Law for after-Ages Nor do the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy hold forth any such Obligation unto Heiâ—s otherwise than as supposing them to be Successors and in that Relation only And therefore was no such Allegiance due to Edward the Sixth Queen Mary or Queen Elizabeth until they were actually possest of the Crown as may appear by the Oath forced by the Statute of H. 8. touching their Succession Nor did the Law suppose any Treason could be acted against the Heirs of Ed. 6. Queen Mary or Queen Eliz. until these Heirs were actually possest of the Crown and so were Kings and Queens as by the express words in the several Statutes do appear Nor did the Recognition by the Parliament made to Queen Elizabeth declare any engagement to the People to assist and defend Her and the Heirs of Her Body otherwise than with this Limitation being Kings and Queens of this Realm as by the Statute in that behalf made doth appear Moreover had these Oaths been otherwise understood the Crown had by virtue of them been preingaged so as it could never have Descended to Queen Mary Queen Elizabeth or King Iames but must have remained to the Heirs of Edward the Sixth for ever A Narrative of the Miseries of New-England by reason of an Arbitrary Government Erected there THat a Colony so considerable as New-England is should be discouraged is not for the Honour and Interest of the English Nation in as much as the People there are generally Sober Industrious Well-Disciplin'd and apt for Martial Affairs so that he that is Sovereign of New-England may by means thereof when he pleaseth be Emperor of America Nevertheless the whole English Interest in that Territory has been of late in apparent danger of being lost and ruined and the Miseries of that People by an Arbitrary Government erected amongst them have been beyond Expression great The original of all which has been the Quo Warranto's issued out against their Charâ—ers by means whereof they have been deprived of their ancient Rights and Priviledges As for the Massachusets Colony whose Patent beareth date from the Year 1628. There was in the Year 1683 a Quo Warranto and after that in the Year 1684 a Writ of Scire Facias against them and they were required to make their appearance at Westminster in October which they knew nothing of till the month before so that it was impossible for them to answer at the time appointed yet Judgment was entred against them Plimouth Colony
proved that it is utterly impossible for a Popish Prince who has none but these Three Kingdoms to set up Popery in this Nation and that all he can gain by the Attempt will be the Ruine of himself And certainly they could not but apprehend this might possibly if not probably be the Event yet after all King and Kingdom was at last to be sacrificed to the holy See of Rome and on they went when they had proved it impossible to succeed I need be the less exact in setting down what they have done it being within the space of four Years last past that they have had the management of Affairs and so all things are as fresh in all Mens Memories as if they had been acted but yesterday I think then that I may from these Premises safely conclude that a more daring restless and implacable Faction never appeared under the Sun than this is And that it is the Interest of every true English Protestant of what Perswasion soever he be to do his utmost to free this miserable Nation from the Danger and Fear too if it be possible of ever feeling again the dire Effects of Popish Zeal or rather Fury Our wise Ancestors for above these three hundred Years have been labouring to restrain this Demonâ—ick by Laws Oaths and Tests and when all the Methods of Severity fail'd we have tried the Charms of Kindness Trust Friendship and Reliance We set up a Prince of their Communion and opposed all those that would have Excluded him with a Zeal which made us look a little too much in love with one who seem'd designed to be our Scourge by Heaven it self When he had declared his Religion and some of his Party amongst whom Nevel Paine was one had given us clear Indications of their Rage against us yet we in Parliament not only attainted and thereby ruin'd the late Duke of Monmouth and his Party but when some Gentlemen propos'd to have the Security of the Protestant Religion taken into Consideration the House declared they would intirely rely upon his Majesty's Promise for the Security of their Religion which they valued more than their Lives And before this when Charles the Second the 30 th of April 1679 to avoid the Exclusion-Bill propos'd very advantageous Restrictions of the Authority of a Roman Catholick Prince the Church-of-England-men rejected them for fear they should too much weaken and expose the Regal Authority not to mention the Favours shewn to all the whole Roman Catholick Party during the fierce Prosecution of the Popish Plot in that Prince's Reign Well what could have been done more than was to oblige Men or Christians to treat us like Friends when they had an opportunity to express their Gratitude No stay you there Gentlemen we Roman Catholicks have but one Friend in this World and if you are not for him too stand off expect nothing from us but Ruin and Desolation Will you Repeal the Penal Laws and the Tests Why I cannot betray my Religion Then make room for one that will Turn out Ite Procul Ite Profani And we all know what follow'd and I suppose no body in this Generation will have so little wit as to pretend any more to oblige a Roman Catholick by any of these things Well will Oaths bind them No they have a Pope and a Maxim that will frustrate that Ligament when ever it is for their convenience to be free And of this we have seen and felt too much already Will Laws If you catch and hang the Priest the Traitor the Cut-throat he is made a Martyr his Crime 's deny'd palliated excus'd or it may be justified and defended as occasion serves and yet after all they shall have the Satisfaction of clamouring against you for a persecuting Church and a bloody Nation Well what is to be done Why for my part I can see but one possible Method to quiet the Nation and that is once for all to clear it of these Monsters and force them to transplant themselves not out of the English Dominions but out of this Island As long as they continue amongst us they neither can nor will be quiet Priests they must and will have and that Ferment will suffer nothing near it to be at rest The remembrance of what is past will irritate the Minds of Men and make them jealous of future Evils so that no care of the wisest and best Governours can long keep the Nation in Tranquillity and Peace if these Men-catchers are suffered to nestle amongst us But then I would have this extended only to England and Scotland because Ireland would be laid desolate by such an Expedient and if the English Nation which has not above 40000 Roman Catholicks were once cleared it would very easily suppress and revenge any Attempt could be made in that Kingdom Besides this all Feme Coverts all Persons above sixty or fifty years of Age all Day-labourers and Handy-crafts-men might be excepted these can maintain no Priests nor much imbroil the Peace of the Nation or at least for no long time but then all the Nobility Gentry Merchants and rich Tradesmen of that Religion I think ought to be sent packing and for the future a Law be made to disfranchise them and make them incapable of possessing purchasing inheriting or transmitting any Lands Tenements or Hereditaments to the value of forty Shillings per Annum or upwards To make this the more easy yet it were fitting that every individual Person should be asked whether he had rather leave Country or his Religion and all that would promise the latter upon Oath to be excused but so as to forfeit their Estates if they relapsed after the Oath so taken or brought up their Children in that Religion Secondly To allow all that would transplant themselves the full value of their Estates both Real and Personal their Debts being first paid and deducted This would enable them to live in as great or a greater Equipage and Grandeur in our Plantations as they ever had here in England and if they removed into Germany or France Italy or Spain their Estates would make their Lives easy and their Banishment honourable The World is wide and if I were one of them I should never stay for an Act of Parliament but would certainly sell what I had and be gone that I might enjoy my Religion and my Estate in a warmer Climate But alas they love their Country too dearly to leave it what is it in England they love The Civil Liberties they had brought to the utmost limits of Destruction The Religion of England they hate above all other the Earth is not more Fruitful and the Air is much colder than that of other Countries and I am confident the English Humour is so far exasperated against Popery that half a hundred Years will not allay the Fever the last four Years have raised in the English Blood against Popery so that they have nothing to attach them to England but the sullen
sometimes even very anciently when upon extraordinary Occasions they met out of Course a Precept an Edict or Sanction is mentioned to have issued from the King But the times and the very place of their ordinary Meeting having been certain and determined in the very first and eldest times that we meet with any mention of such Assemblies which times are as ancient as any Memory of the Nation it self hence I infer that no Summons from the King can be thought to have been necessary in those Days because it was altogether needless Secondly The Succession to the Crown did not in those Days nor till of late Years run in a course of lineal Succession by right of Inheritance But upon the Death of a Prince those Persons of the Realm that composed the then Parliament assembled in order to the choosing of another That the Kingdom was then Elective though one or other of the Royal Blood was always chosen but the next in lineal Succession very seldom is evident from the Genealogies of the Saxon Kings from an old Law made at Calchuyth appointing how and by whom Kings shall be chosen and from many express and particular Accounts given by our old Historians of such Assemblies held for electing of Kings Now such Assemblies could not be summon'd by any King and yet in Conjunction with the King that themselves set up they made Laws binding the King and all the Realm Thirdly After the Death of King William Rufus Robert his elder Brother being then in the Holy Land Henry the youngest Son of King William the first procur'd an Assembly of the Clergy and People of England to whom he made large Promises of his good Government in case they would accept of him for their King and they agreeing that if he would restore to them the Laws of King Edward the Confessor then they would consent to make him their King He swore that he would do so and also free them from some Oppressions which the Nation had groan'd under in his Brothers and his Fathers time Hereupon they chose him King and the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of York set the Crown upon his Head which being done a Confirmation of the English Liberties pass'd the Royal Assent in that Assembly the same in Substance though not so large as King Iohn's and King Henry the thirds Magna Charta's afterwards were Fourthly After that King's Death in such another Parliament King Stephen was elected and Mawd the Express put by though not without some Stain of Perfidiousness upon all those and Stephen himself especially who had sworn in her Father's Life-time to acknowledg her for their Sovereign after his Decease Fifthly In King Richard the firsts time the King being absent in the Holy Land and the Bishop of Ely then his Chancellor being Regent of the Kingdom in his Absence whose Government was intolerable to the People for his Insolence and manifold Oppressions a Parliament was convened at London at the Instance of Earl Iohn the King's Brother to treat of the great and weighty Affairs of the King and Kingdom in which Parliament this same Regent was depos'd from his Government and another set up viz. the Arch-Bishop of Roan in his stead This Assembly was not conven'd by the King who was then in Palestine nor by any Authority deriv'd from him for then the Regent and Chancellor must have call'd them together but they met as the Historian says expresly at the Instance of Earl Iohn And yet in the Kings Absence they took upon them to settle the publick Affairs of the Nation without him Sixthly When King Henry the 3 d. died his eldest Son Prince Edward was then in the Holy Land and came not home till within the third Year of his Reign yet immediately upon the Father's Death all the Prelates and Nobles and four Knights for every Shire and four Burgesses for every Borough assembled together in a great Council and setled the Government till the King should return made a new Seal and a Chancellor c. I infer from what has been said that Writs of Summons are not so essential to the being of Parliaments but that the People of England especially at a time when they cannot be had may by Law and according to our old Constitution assemble together in a Parliamentary way without them to treat of and settle the publick Affairs of the Nation And that if such Assemblies so conven'd find the Throne vacant they may proceed not only to set up a Prince but with the Assent and Concurrence of such Prince to transact all publick Business whatsoever without a new Election they having as great Authority as the People of England can delegate to their Representative II. The Acts of Parliaments not formal nor legal in all their Circumstances are yet binding to the Nation so long as they continue in force and not liable to be questioned as to the Validity of them but in subsequent Parliaments First The two Spencers Temp. Edvardi Secundi were banished by Act of Parliament and that Act of Parliament repealed by Dures Force yet was the Act of Repeal a good Law till it was annull'd 1 Ed. 3. Secondly Some Statutes of 11 Rich. 2. and Attainders thereupon were repealed in a Parliament held Anno 21. of that King which Parliament was procur'd by forc'd Elections and yet the Repeal stood good till such time as in 1 Henry 4. the Statutes of 11 Rich. 2. were revived and appointed to be firmly held and kept Thirdly The Parliament of 1 Hen. 4. consisted of the same Knights Citizens and Burgesses that had served in the then last dissolved Parliament and those Persons were by the King's Writs to the Sheriffs commanded to be returned and yet they passed Acts and their Acts tho never confirmed continue to be Laws at this Day Fourthly Queen Mary's Parliament that restored the Pope's Supremacy was notoriously known to be pack'd insomuch that it was debated in Queen Elizabeth's time whether or no to declare all their Acts void by Act of Parliament That course was then upon some prudential Considerations declined and therefore the Acts of that Parliament not since repealed continue binding Laws to this Day The Reason of all this is Because no inferior Courts have Authority to judg of the Validity or Invalidity of the Acts of such Assemblies as have but so much as a Colour of Parliamentary Authority The Acts of such Assemblies being entred upon the Parliament-Roll and certified before the Judges of Westminster-Hall as Acts of Parliament are conclusive and binding to them because Parliaments are the only Judges of the Imperfections Invalidities Illeâ—â—lities c. of one another The Parliament that call'd in King Charles the second was not assembled by the King 's Writ and yet they made Acts and the Royal Assent was had to them many of which indeed were afterwards confirmed but not all and those that had no Confirmation are undoubted Acts of Parliament without it and have ever
Right Line and in the Legal Steps and Degrees And this being done I am persuaded nothing can divide the English Nation or lessen their Zeal and Affection to the Prince of Orange who has deserved the Crown if it were ours to give him The Postscript which is an Huy and Cry after the French League to cut our Throats I leave to the Convention And if I durst be so bold as to ask a Favour of them it should be to enquire what the Ro. Catholick meant by that Threat of theirs so frequently printed and spoken by them If fair means would not obtain the Repeal of our Penal Laws and Tests foul should Now for a Conclusion I would desire you Sir to propose your method of Restoring the King and Securing our Laws and Religion and it shall go hard but I will shew you it is impracticable or impossible that it will never be granted or if it be never observed And if you please to bless the World with a Receipt of an Obligation that will bind the Conscience of any other Roman Catholick so fast that neither Iesuit and Pope can break or untie it I assure you I will joyn with you in a Petition to the Convention for a Treaty forthwith without any other Terms to be proposed than the giving us that Security whatever it is And in the Interim I am SIR YOURS Ian. 24. 1688 9. FINIS The EIGHT Collection of Papers Relating to the Present Juncture of Affairs in England VIZ. I. Proposals to the present Convention for Setling the Government II. Several Queries relating to the present Proceedings in Parliament III. A Protestant Precedent offer'd for the Exclusion of King Iames the Second IV. Reasons offer'd for placing the Prince of Orange singly in the Throne during his Life V. A Breviate for the Convention represented to the Lords and Commons of England VI. King Iames the First his Opinion of a King and of a Tyrant and of the English Laws Rights and Priviledges VII Proposals to the present Convention for perpetual Security of the Protestant Religion and Liberty of the Subjects of England London printed and are to be sold by Rich. Ianeway in Queen's-head Court in Pater-Noster Row 1689. PROPOSALS Humbly offered To the Lords and Commons in the present CONVENTION for Settling of the Government c. My Lords and Gentlemen YOV are Assembled upon Matters of the highest Importance to England and all Christendom and the result of your Thoughts in this Convention will make a numerous Posterity Happy or Miserable If therefore I have met with any Thing that I think worthy of your Consideration I should think my self wanting in that Duty which I owe to my Country and Mankind if I should not lay it before You. If there be as some say certain Lineaments in the Face of Truth with which one cannot be deceiv'd because they are not to be counterfeited I hope the Considerations which I presume to offer You will meet with your Approbation That bringing back our Constitâ—tion to its first and purest Original refining it from some gross Abuses and supplying its Defects You may be the Ioy of the present Age and the Glory of Posterity FIrst 'T is necessary to distinguish between Power it self the Designation of the Persons Governing and the Form of Government For 1. All Power is from God as the Fountain and Original 2. The Designation of the Persons and the Form of Government is eirther First immediately from God as in the Case of Saul and David and the Government of the Ievs or Secondly from the Community chusing some Form of Government and subjecting themselves to it But it must be noted that though Saul and David had a Divine Designation yet the People assembled and in a General Assembly by their Votes freely chose them Which proves that there can be no orderly or lasting Government without Consent of the People Tacit or Express'd and God himself would not put Men under a Governor without their Consent And in case of a Conquest the People may be called Prisoners or Salves which is a State contrary to the Nature of Man but they cannot be properly Subjects till their Wills be brought to submit to the Government So that Conquest may make Way for a Government but it cannot constitute it Secondly There is a Supreme Power in every Community essential to it and inseparable from it by which if it be not limited immediately by God it can form it self into any kind of Government And in some extraordinary Occasions when the Safety and Peace of the Publick necessarily require it can supply the Defects reform the Abuses and re-establish the true Fundamentals of the Government by Purging Refining and bringing Things back to their first Original Which Power may be called The Supreme Power Real Thirdly When the Community has made choice of some Form of Government and subjected themselves to it having invested some Person or Persons with the Supreme Power The Power in those Persons may be called The Supreme Power Personal Fourthly If this Form be a mix'd Government of Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy and for the easy Execution of the Laws the Executive Power be lodg'd in a single Person He has A Supreme Power Personal quoad hoc Fifthly The Supreme Power Personal of England is in Kings Lords and Commons and so it was in Effect agreed to by King Charles the First in his Answer to the nineteen Propositions and resolved by the Convention of Lords and Commons in the Year 1660. And note That the Acts of that Convention tho never confirmed by Parliament have been taken for Law and particularly by the Lord Chief Justice Hales Sixthly The Supreme Power Personal of England fails three Ways 1. 'T is Dissolved For two Essential Parts fail 1. A King. 2. A House of Commons which cannot be called according to the Constitution the King being gone and the Freedom of Election being destroyed by the King's Incroachments 2. The King has forfeited his Power several Ways Subjection to the Bishop of Rome is the Subjection against which our Laws cry loudest And even Barclay that Monarchical Politician acknowledges That if a King alienate his Kingdom or subject it to another he forfeits it And Grotius asserts That if a King really attempt to deliver up or subject his Kingdom he may be therein resisted And that if the King have part of the Supreme Power and the People or Senate the other part the King invading that part which is not his a just Force may be opposed and he may lose his Part of the Empire Grotius de Bello c. Cap. 72. But that the King has subjected the Kingdom to the Pope needs no Proof That the has usurp'd an absolute Power superior to all Laws made the Peoples Share in the Legislative Power impertinent and useless and thereby invaded their just Rights none can deny 'T were in vain to multiply Instances of his Forfeitures And if we consider the Power exercis'd
matter of Fact doth not back and maintain them And this is an Advantage which I would not have us give our Adversaries in these things no more than we have done in the matters of Dispute betwixt them and us Here we have proved all our Charges against their Religion let us therefore prove or else not so eagerly insist upon these Accusations brought against their Persons I shall add nothing further but my real Wishes That I could tho with the loss of all that 's dear to me in this World contribute to the utter Exclusion of Popery by all lawful means and I do and shall always pray for a Blessing upon their Designs who sincerely endeavour to procure a Settlement of the Religion Liberties and Properties of the Subjects upon so sure a foundation that there may be no danger of the Nations relapsing into the like miseries at any time hereafter Some short Notes on a Pamphlet entitled Reflections upon our late and present Proceedings in England A Man must read much of this Author 's profound Work before he can fathom the Depths of it and find what his Design is or whether indeed he has any Design at all unless it be that of making a Book He tells us at length after much Strugling and a tedious Repetition of what every body knows perhaps better than himself That all Orders of Men Ecclesiastick Civil and Military did put the Regal Administration into the Prince of Orange's Hands and that the Intent of our Proceedings will at least excuse if not justify us I would have this knowing Gentleman inform the World into what Hands the Regal Administration could be better put And if the Nation could not do better whether this their Action does not justify it self But says he a little above How did we all generally concur and unanimously agree to forget our Obligations to our Soveraign And in Page 4 he tells us That the Prince of Orange hath done a great thing for us and wrought such Deliverance for the Nation as ought never to be forgotten and can never be sufficiently requited I do not at all doubt but this Gentleman can more easily write half a dozen such Books as this is than reconcile these notable Passages He acknowledges we have been rescued out of the Hands of him that hated us and would have destroyed us without a cause and yet reproaches us with forgetting our Obligations to our Soveraign In Page 5. he has this sharp Question Let every Man ask himself for what reason he became a party in this general Defection Was it to divest the King of all Power to protect his Subjects c. To repeat these Absurdities is a sufficient Answer to them And then again in the next Page That whatever some obnoxious and ambitious Men might aim at all good Christians had other Intentions They were sensibly concerned for the Preservation of their Holy Religion in the first place Their Lives their Laws their Liberties in the next And after the way which some call Heresy so were they desirous still to worship the God of their Fathers and after that manner which some might say was Rebellion so they thought themselves oblig'd to stand up for the Laws and Liberties of their Forefathers What measures of Obedience this Man is for and what he would have us to do or not to do I am not able to divine from his Book for he seems to dislike in one place what he approves in another But he tells us in Page 6 7 of his Fears of the Government being undermined both in Church and State and that he shall be reduced to the Dutch or some other foreign measures which can never be well received in England till an Act be past to abolish Monarchy Episcopacy c. If this Gentleman's Distractions be not so great as to hinder him the use of his two chief Senses he may now perceive that his Fears are as vain as others perceive his Reasoning to be But in Page 8. he states a notable Question for he supposes his Father to be as churlish as Cain and as poor as Job and yet maintains he is his Father O admirably put But what 's this to a King 's apparent Design of ruining and enslaving a People who have the same both Natural and Civil Right to their Lives and Liberties as he has to his But shall we run says he into Popery and perhaps Slavery too and is not the Deposing a Popish Doctrine p. 11. and as for Slavery Must not a standing Army be necessarily kept up to maintain a Title founded only on the consent of the fickle and uncertain People If the Lords and Commons of England are this fickle and uncertain People I know not where our Author will find more substantial Folks unless he fancies they are to be met with amongst the Mobile And as to the Popish Deposing Doctrine I have already shewed our case comes in no sort near it for the late King's Religion did not hinder his possessing himself of the Throne neither was that the Cause of his leaving it for he might have enjoyed it and made the best of it as to himself in all Freedom but he thought it beneath him to stop here and not impose his false Worship on all his Subjects trampling all the Laws of the Kingdom under his Feet and thereby claiming not only an absolute Empire over the Bodies but the Minds of his Subjects Our Author likewise shews himself a notable Well-wisher to our Religion and Liberties when he represents a standing Army page 11. in the present Exigency of Affairs to be such a Grievance and that too under a Prince who has not been only born and educated in the greatest Aversion to Popery and the only Prince uncorrupted by the French King but whose Genius and Interests do every ways so answer the Necessity of our Nation that we have no other cause of Fear or Trouble but at the sense of our own Unworthiness of so great a Blessing He seems in p. 12 and 13 to be in great Labour left the Prince of Orange should make himself a King contrary to the express Terms of his Declaration and Pretences of coming over here To which may be answered that he has in no sort violated that Declaration for he did not thrust himself into the Throne and as to his being so now both de jure and de facto this being a matter decided by the Justice Wisdom and Supream Authority of the Nation it 's foolish Presumption and no less conceited Ignorance for any private Person to argue it Our wise Author seems to be moreover concerned and greatly troubled at the Effects produced by the third Declaration for he says It did more harm to the King's Affairs than all the other Papers publisht at that time whence he concludes its plain that Sophistry and Tricks are made use of if they will but do the Business What would this Man have would he have both to
the Act and Oath of Council that such Confession should not militate yet they have brought it in as Evidence and given it upon Oath when their former Act and Oath was produced in open Court in Demonstration of their Perjury They used frequently to pack Juries picking out such as they thought any thing tender and not bloody enough and sometimes listed some who they concluded would not concur that thereupon they might get occasion to exact their Fines Sometimes when the Jury hath brought in their Verdict in Favour of the Pannal they have made them return and resume the Cognition of the Process again and threatned them with an Assize of Error if they did not bring him in Guilty yea frequently the Advocate theatned them under most peremptory Certifications if they found not the Impannalled Guilty so that their using Juries was but for the Fashion They have sentenced innocent Persons twice once to have their Ears cut off and banished and after the lopping of their Ears they have re-examined them and sentenced them to Death They used to stage several together of whom they knew some would comply to tantalize others with the sight of their Liberty thereby tempting them to bite more eagerly at their snaring Baits to wound the Conscience They have not only Murdered many innocent Christians in taking their Lives but also endevouâ—ed to Murder their Reputation and the Cause they owned loading it with most reproachful Epithets which was their peculiar Policy to bring the Heads of Suffering to Points most obnoxious to common Censer and most Extrinsick to Religion cutting off the Faithful Professors of Religion and true Lovers of Liberty under the odium of Enemies to Government Some they arraigned whom they could neither reach by adducing many Witnesses against in Tryal nor by their Examination with their cruel Torture of the Boots yet hath had their whole Estate seized and also been sent to Pâ—ison in a Rock within the Sea without being convicted of any Crime They finding their means and motions under Colour of Law and Trials were too slow and troublesome to acquire their designed Cruelties and that the publick Executions tended more to confirm and multiply the Lovers of Religion and Liberty than to diminish and deter took a more compendious way of sending out thâ—ir Souldiers impowered to challenge and examine whom they pleased and to tender Oaths required by no Law and to punish such by present Death who refused to swear or scrupled to answer their ensnaring Qâ—estion which bloody Commissions were so faithfully Executed that within few Weeks above fifty innocent Persons were cruelly murdered in cold Blood without either Tâ—yal or Convâ—â—â—â—on or respeâ—t to Age or Sex. Although the Multitudes of Familâ—es ruined by Exorbitant Finingâ— Forfeitures Banishments Imprisonments Free quaâ—terings and Plunderings of Souldierâ— and Barbarities of their Highland Host the many cruel Edicts and Proclamations they have published the unlawful Bonds and wicked self-contradicting Oaths imposed and pressed the many Exactions whereby they have impoverished the Country the many open Oppressions horrid Tortures and Cruelties practised upon Innocents the multitudes of Persons Male and Female whom they have Murdered Persecuted Oppressed and Destroyed are so many and various that they cannot be collected Yet some have been at no small pains to gether as much of these as when published in a Martyrology of these times which is purposed to be done with all convenient speed will give the World to know as well the Faithfulness Patience Courage and Constancy of these who suffered together with the Equity of their Cause as the Inhumanity Illegality and Severity of their Cruel and Bloody Persecutors The Late Honourable CONVENTION proved a Legal PARLIAMENT I. THE necessity of a Parliament agreed by the Lords and Commons Voting that the Throne is Vacant for there being a Vacancy there follows an immediate necessity of settling the Government especially the Writs being destroyed and the Great Seal carryed away put a period to all publick Justice and then there must be a supply by such means as the necessity requires or a failure of Government II. Consider the Antecedents to the calling the Convention that is about three hundred of the Commons which is a majority of the fullest House that can be made above sixty Lords being a greater number than any part divided amounted to at this great Meeting the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Common Council of the City of London by application to His then Highness the Prince of Orange desired him to accept of the Administration of Pâ—blick Affairs Military and Civil which he was pleased to do to the great satisfaction of all good People and after that His Highness was desired to Issue forth His Circular Letters to the Lords and the like to the Coroners and in their absence to the Clerks of the Peace to Elect Knights Citizens and Burgesses this was more than was done in Fifty nine for the calling a Parliament in April 1660. for there the Summons was not real but fictitious i. e. in the names of the Keepers of the Liberties of England a meer Notion set up as a Form there being no such Persons but a meer Ens rationis impossible really to exist so that here was much more done than in 1659 and all really done which was possible to be invented as the Affairs then stood Besides King Ch. the 2d had not abdicated the Kingdom but was willing to return and was at Breda whither they might have sent for Writs and in the mean time have kept their form of Keepers of the Liberties c. But in the present case there was no King in being nor any style or form of Government neither real or notional left so that in all these respects more was done before and at the calling of this Great Convention than for calling that Parliament for so I must call it yet that Parliament made several Acts in all thirty seven as appears by Keebles Statutes and several of them not confirmed I shall instance but in one but it is one which there was occasion to use in every County of England I mean the Act for Confirming and Restoring Ministers being the 17 th of that Sessions all the Judges allowed of this as an Act of Parliament tho' never confirmed which is a stronger case than that in question for there was only fictitious Summons here a real one III. That without the Consent of any Body of the People this at the Request of a Majority of the Lords more than halâ— the number of the Commons duly chosen in King Ch. the 2 d's time besides the great Body of the City of London being at least esteem'd a 5 th part of the Kingdom yet after the King's Return he was so well satisfied with the calling of that Parliament that it was Enacted by the King Lords and Commons Asâ—embled in Parliament that the Lords and Common then Sitting at Westminster in the present Parliament were thâ— two Houses of Parliament
is in the Church as National must heal our Breaches The Catholicks are for one Universal Organical Church throughout the World whereof the Pope is Head according to some and the Bishops Convened in a General Council according to others That there is a Catholick Church Visible on earth as well as invisible whereof CHRIST is Head who was on Earth and is now Visible in Heaven is past doubt also with Protestants But that this Church is Organical and under the Government of a Monarchy by the Pope or of an Aristocracy by a General Council it seems a thing not possible in nature because neither can any Oeâ—umenical Council ever be Called or any One Man he sufficient to take on him the Concernmenâ—s of the whole World. A Political Church is a Community of Chrisâ—â—ans brought into an Orber of Superiority and Inferiority by an Head and Members organized for the Exercise of that Government which is proper to it but the whole Earth is not capable of any such Order And Councils therefore which are gather'd out of several Countries or of Bishops belonging to more Dominions than of one Supreme Power may behad for mutual Advice and Concord but not for Government A Nation Empire or Kingdom which consists of one Supreme Magistrate and People who are generally Christians are capable of such an Ecclesiastical Polity and a National Church Political in England is to be asserted and maintained The Church of England then is a Political Society of all the Christians in the Land united in the King as Head and organized by the Bishops for the executing those Laws or Government which he chooses for their spiritual Good and the publick Peace There is this difference between a Church National the Church Catholick and Particular Churches The two latter-are of Divine Right and Essential Consideration but the former is and can be only of Humane Institution for it is manifestly Accidental to the Church of Christ that the chief Magistrate and the whole People should be Christian. Distinguish we here of the Government of the Church as Internal belonging to the Spirit and External which belongs to Men And of the External Regiment thereof which is either Formal belonging to the Ministers or Officers of Christ or Objective belonging to the Magistrate the one being only by the Keyes the other by the Sword. Whether the Community now of Christians in England may be accounted a National Church in respect to any Formal Government of it we leave for dispute to others let them judg according to the foregoing Definition of a Political Church But that the main Body of the Nation are or may be constituted a proper Political Church National in respect to that External Objective Regiment which is or should be exercised by the Bishops as the proper Organs thereof under the King is what we hold reasonable and would lay as the Foundation-Stone of Peace in the matter of Religion between all Persons in the Kingdom Let the Parliament therefore we have be heartily for the Publick Good and thriving of England which must and can be only by an entire Liberty of Conscience in opposition to the narrow Spirit of any single Party or Faction and when such a Parliament as this shall set themselves about the Business of Union to purpose a Bill should be brought in Entituled An Act for declaring the Constitution of our Church of England A Parliament is the Representative of the whole Nation and no doubt but by Consent and Agreement they might upon the account mentioned Make a new Constitution and much more may they Declare the Constitution of it It should be declared then in such a Bill or Act that the Church of England consists of the King as the Head or pars Imperans who is to give Laws thereto and all the several Assemblies of Christians which he shall tolerate as the pars subdita or Body Some Discrimination between the Tolerable and Intolerable is indeed never to be gainsaid by any wise and good Man unto whom there is no Liberty can be desirable which is not consistent at least with these three things the Articles of our Creed a Good Life and the Fundamental Government of the Kingdom It is not for any private persons but a Parliament to prescribe the Terms of National Communion But we would have all our Assemblies that are Tolerable to be made Legal by such an Act and thereby parts of the National Church as well as the Parochial Congregations The Church here therefore must come under a double consideration as the Church of Christ and as the Church of England Take the Church as the Church of Christ and there must be as we have said at first endless Controversy about this point who are the true Members of it but take it under the consideration as National and there will be none at all for those must be Membâ—rs whom the Head by a Law does allow to be parts of the Body and the King under this notion only is made Head of the Church by the Stature that is as it is called Ecclesia Aâ—glicana The Protestant Dissenterâ— of all sorts as well as the Conformists will acknowledg the King to be Supreme Coercive Governour over all Persons and in all Causes Ecclesiastical and Civil throughout his Dominions And will not those who are Roman Catholicks do the like Did they not do so in Henry the Eight's time when they were generally such Again the Dissenters of all sorts even the Congregationalists of every Sect are ready to submit to any power legally derived from the King and upon such an account will admit of a superintendency of the Bishops as Ecclesiastical Magistrates under him when they cannot own any Authority that they have over other Ministers from Iesus Christ and will not Papists also be subject to all Authority that is exercised legally in his Name howsoever they may question the Spiritual Title of the English Clergy and their succession We would have the Bishops then qua Bishops as distinct in Office from Priests declared no other than the King's Officers whose power is but Objectively Ecclesiastical and to act Circa Sacra only by Vertue of his Authority and Commission As Iehoshaphat did comit the Charge incumbent upon him as Supreme Magistrate in regard to all Matters of the Lord unto the care of Amariah being Chief Priest and in regard to the King's Matters unto Zebadiah being as the Chief Iustice of the Realm so should the Diocesian Bishop be in our Ecclesiastical as the Judges are in Civil Matters the Substitutes altogether of His Majesty and execute his Jurisdiction This is indeed at State point which was throughly canvased by Henry the Eight whose Divines did agree on two Orders alone Priest and Deacon to be of Divine Appointment and that the Superiority of a Bishop over a Presbyter or of one Bishop over another was but by the Positive Laws of Men only as appears in that Authentick Book then put out entituled
manner following April 11 1689. THeir Majesties being come from Whitehal to Westminster and the Nobility c. being put in Order by the Heralds They came down in State into Westminster-hall where the Swords and Spurs were presented to them After which the Dean and Prebendaries of Westminster having brought the Crowns and other Regalia presented them severally to their Majesties which with the Swords and Spurs were thereupon delivered to the Lords appointed to carry them Then the Procession began in this manner Drums and Trumpets Six Clerks in Chancery two abreast as all the rest of the Proceeding went Chaplains having Dignities Aldermen of London Masters in Chancery Solicitor and Attorney General Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber Judges Children of Westminster and of the King's Chappel Choir of Westminster and Gentlemen of the Chappel Prebends of Westminster Master of the Jewel-house Privy Councellors not Peers Two Pursuivants Baronesses Barons Bishops A Pursuivant a Vicountess Vicounts Two Heralds Countesses Earls A Herald a Marchioness Two Heralds Dutchesses Dukes Two Kings of Arms The Lord Privy Seal Lord President of the Council Archbishop of York His Royal Highness Prince George of Denmark Two Persons representing the Dukes of Aquitain and Normandy Next the Lords who bore their Majesties Regalia viz. The Earl of Manchester St. Edward's Staff and the Lord Grey of Ruthin the Spurs The Earl of Clare the Queens Scepter with the Cross and the Earl of Northampton the King's The Earls of Shrewsbury Derby and Pembroke the 3 Swords Next Garter King of Arms between the Usher of the Black Rod and the Lord Mayor of London The Lord Great Chamberlain Single The Earl of Oxford with the Sword of State between the Duke of Norfolk Earl Marshall and the Duke of Ormond Lord High-Constable for that Day then the Earl of Bedford with the Queens Sceptre of the Dove and the Earl of Rutland with the King 's the Duke of Bolton with the Queen's Orb and the Duke of Grafton with the King 's the Duke of Somerset with the Queen's Crown and the Earl of Devonshire Lord Steward of his Majesties Houshold who was made Lord. High Steward of England for that Day with the King 's The Bishop of London with the Bible between the Bishop of St. Asaph with the Paten and the Bishop of Rochester with the Chalice Then the King supported by the Bishop of Winchester and the Queen by the Bishop of Bristol under a Canopy born by Sixteen Barons of the Cinque Ports His Majesties Train born by the Master of the Robes assisted by the Lord Eland Lord Willoughby Lord Landsdowne and the Lord Dunblaine and Her Majesties Train by the Dutchess of Somerset assisted by the Lady Elizabeth Pawlett Lady Diana Vere Lady Elizabeth Cavendish and the Lady Henrietta Hyde After the King a Gentleman of the Bed-Chamber and two Grooms of the Bed-Chamber and after the Queen a Lady of the Bed-Chamber and two of Her Majesties Women Lastly the Captain of His Majesties Guard between the Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard and the Captain of the Band of Pensioners followed by the Officers and Band of Yeomen of the Guard. The Sergeants at Arms going on each side of the Regalia and the Gentlemen Pensioners on each side of the Canopy Thus Their Majesties in Their Robes of Crimson Velvet the King with a Cap and the Queen a Circlet on her Head All the Nobility in Crimson Velvet Robes with their Coronets in their Hands and the rest of the Proceeding in their proper Habits marched on foot upon Blew Cloth to Westminster-Abby all the Way and Houses on each side being Crouded with vast Number of Spectators expressing their great Joy and Satisfaction by loud repeated Acclamations Being Entred the Church and all duly seated the Bishop of London who performed this great Solemnity began with the Recognition which ended with a mighty Shout Then Their Majesties Offered and the Lords who bore the Regalia presented them at the Altar The Litany was sung by two Bishops and after the Epistle Gospel and Nicene Creed the Bishop of Salisbury Preach'd on this Text 2 Sam. 23. 3 4. After Sermon Their Majesties took the Oath and being Conducted to their Regal Chairs placed on the Theater that they might be more Conspicuous to the Members of the House of Commons who were seated in the North Cross were Anointed and presented with the Spurs and Sword and Invested with the Palls and Orbs and then with the Rings and Scepters and at Four of the Clock the Crowns were put on their Heads At sight whereof the People shouted the Drums and Trumpets sounded the great Guns were discharged and the Peers and Peeresses put on their Coronets Then the Bible was presented to Them and after the Benediction They vouchsafed to Kiss the Bishops Being Inthroned first the Bishops and then the Temporal Lords did their Homage and Kissed their Majesties left Cheeks while the Treasurer of the Houshold threw about the Coronation Medals Next followed the Communion And Their Majesties having made their second Oblation received the Holy Sacrament Then the Bishop Read the final Prayers and Their Majesties retiring into St. Edward's Chappel and being new Arrayed in Purple Velvet returned to Westminster-Hall wearing Their Rich Crowns of State and the Nobility their Coronets The Nobility c. being seated at their respective Tables which were all ready furnished before their coming in The first Course for Their Majesties Table was served up with the proper Ceremony being preceded by the great Officers and the High-Constable High-Steward and Earl-Marshall And before the second Course Charles Dymoke Esq Their Majesties Champion between the High-Constable and the Earl-Marshall performed the Challenge After which the Heralds proclaimed Their Majesties Styles Dinner being ended and the whole Solemnity performed with great Splendor and Magnificence About Eight in the Evening Their Majesties returned to White-hall A Proclamation declaring WILLIAM and MARY King and Queen of England to be King and Queen of Scotland Edinburgh April 11. 1689. WHereas the Estates of this Kingdom of Scotland by their Act of the Date of these Presents have Resolved That William and Mary King and Queen of England France and Ireland Be and Be declared King and Queen of Scotland to hold the Crown and Royal Dignity of the said Kingdom of Scotland to them the said King and Queen during their Lives and the longest Liver of Them and that the Sole and Full Exercise of the Regal Power be only in and Exercised by the said King in the Names of the said King and Queen during their joynt Lives As also the Estates having Resolved and Enacted and Instrument of Government or Claim of Right to be presented with the Offer of the Crown to the said King and Queen They do Statute and Ordain that William and Mary King and Queen of England France and Ireland be accordingly forthwith Proclaimed King and Queen of Scotland at the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh by the Lyon King at Arms