a supreame law there But at that time the supreamest humane law which according to these gentlemens opinions was ever made in England or Scotland or perhaps in all the world was made without the King in those Kingdomes and against his dissent For which reason the Covenant engages not so positively for King or Kingly Government as for the Vnion of the Covenanters in any forme and against any opposition Whereupon the Presbyterians when it was as most conceiv'd in their power to restablish King or Kingly Goveâ—nment they omitted both for many dayes of their lives without question because they conceiv'd it not a Government absolutely necessary by Covenant When D. Hamilton entred England so hostilely for that end and as he thought by vertue of Covenant yet he was excommunicated for it by the Oracles of the Covenant Lastly The reigne of the Covenant since the first day of its birth and obligation was never yet a Râ—gall reigne no not for one day anywhere so that the change which is is not determinatly contrary to that principle out of which according to the circumstances of security any Government may be moulded for any place For which reason if I should grant you that the Covenant were not expir'd and had not beene so palpably broken as it was betwixt the Nations yet Scotland if they had pleas'd might have beene Govern'd by a King and England by a free State yet both consonantly enough to Covenant and without any contrariety because the circumstances of securitie in one might have been different from the circumstances of security in the other which though different might as well have been mutually maintained as their discipline differing from ours might have beene preserv'd by us From all which it appears that that Oath is Cloudy in the positive or set Government which we ought to have and so cannot be justly called it's owne interpreter besides a reformation according to the word of God and the example of the best reformed Churches supposes such a latitude of Logick as would if all sides should be heard give us as much exercise as all our waâ—res have And certainly the Covenant is alike undefin'd in Religion and in civill Government For we swore to bring the Church Discipline in the three Kingdoms to as neer a similitude as the constitution of the places would bear not into the very same and as for the civill Government it was to receive its forme in the security of that just as water doth receive not onely the figure of the Pot or Glasse into which it is put but its conservation from being totally lost and spilt But how then will you free your selfe from this contradiction in asserting that the civill State is unalterable by Covenant when that of the Church which formes the other is so much alterable and seeing that of the State receives from this not only its form and being but what ever else you alone please to attribute to your security in it From whence I conclude again that a change of Government is consistent with Covenant that a submission to it in lawful things is much more and consequently it ingages not to any one determinate Government and so is not against this of ours I beleeve it hath been a frequent observation of many who have calmely converst with our Divines and others zealous for Presbytery That they have found them little satisfied with that sort of Presbytery which our Parliament modelled for us of this Nation as having little affinity with the Couenant My beliefe is that they in that discernd not the consequence of their own dissatisfaction For if their consciences regulated by Covenant can admit no civill Government but the Kingly which they so much argue for here and if the Covenant and a Scotch Presbytery whose right they hold to be Divine be essentially linkt together Then we and they may all of us learne not onely from direct inferences but from the declar'd experience of the Sonne the Father the Grandfather and great GrandMother that is of the three last Scotch Kings and one Queene That if the Scotch Presbitery come out of the Covenant then Kingly government cannot derive from it because they are jurisdictions incompatible and inconsistant in the same place and if one can conserve it then may we say as much of the other How much Mary Queene of Scotland experienced of this let the world judge by that which she wrote both with inke in her Letters and with her blood on the Scaffold For how came she to be Beheaded in England but by Mr. Knox and the Kirkes having done little better than put her into the hands of those who could not keepe her long alive with security to themselves King Iames hath writ and argued largely concerning his dangers sufferings under it it is yet remembred in what Dialect they of the Presbytery were wont to Preach and Pray against him to his face and he not know how to remedy it or by what right to top theirs When he came into England he profest his deliverance from that subjection not of small satisfaction to his minde and therefore at this diâ—tance he contrived how to extinguish or check that â—ate there after some progresse in that worke he himselfe dyed peaceably in a milder Country But K. Charles with that Crown inherited the consequences of that undertaking for his first troubles began in the controversie of that Presbytery and what a preservation he thought the Covenant from which it seemes their Presbytery is so inseparable might be to him and what his fate was and who helpt it on nay who diverted him from agreement here all the world knowes and in his writings likewise he hath showne to the world that he himselfe was not ignorant of it This only is the wonder that in the midst of this their specious zeale for Kingly Government the Covenant should be so silent concerning Royall Posterity or for their succession in case the Scots or English Souldiers had kill'd the King casually before he had given them the satisfaction which they required the consideration of all this with some other lately offer'd to the young Prince at the Hague by the Scotch Commissioners and the satisfaction which they in their late Declaration require from him as they did from his Father have questionlesse made him scruple so long at his adventure into that Country though so much invited For they told him p. 14.15 That for longer then these eight yeares yea ever since that Queene Mary their fundamentall priviledge hath beene to assemble in Parliament and to conclude there of themselves either without King or Kings Commissioners and that if his Majesty refuse those their reasonable desires they shall be constrained in so great an extremity to doe what is incumbent on them to preserve Religion and the Kingdom from ruine Here they plainly acknowledge and assume that supreame power and right
by the way of war a circumstance no more necessary betwixt them then that in the marriage of two persons a Lawyer should come after the Minister hath conjoyn'd them and tell them in what cases they may again proceed to Divorce and after their Divorce what kinde of marriages they should make next Even so war is suppos'd in that case as well as Divorce in this But because War begins there where Law ends and reciprocally and hath nothing but necessity for its equity and that all the degrees of necessity cannot at first be foreseen nor where security may at the end of all be presum'd off therefore there neither is nor ever was any fixt rule in any Countrey what people should be bound to do at the end of a a VVar. I hope the Presbyterians neither of England nor Scotland intend to deny what all the world knowes that they concluded the King under the necessity of VVar as well as others who conjoyned with them and having stated his case there they of the Kirke long agoe frankly declared that he not satisfying for the blood of three Kingdoms was not to touch the Scepter any more but as Mr. Hinderson applyed in his Newcastle Conference the 4th of Hester 14. That if his Majesty reforme not according to their way he and no lesse then his Fathes House were to perish by which what could hee and they understand lesse then change of Government a thing why now so horrid for the other party to think on seeing they gave first intimation of it They joyntly declared that the King was not to judge any thing for himselfe nor upon what tearms his readmittance to simple liberty could stand with their security for his VVar when it ended as they said who imprisoned him continued the same necessity upon them which made them take Armes at the beginning Therefore they themselves concluded that nothing could be changed in the Kings concernment according to the old forme and constitution of the Kingdom which relates to a time of Peace and not to a time of War But the Nobility whom he here stiles illustrior pars populi concurred not to this change therefore it is formally and fundamentally unlawfull In the first place I understand not and I beleeve the Lords doe as little what he meanes by putting them into such improper Latine For they alwaies understand themselves to be rather of the two Comites Regis then partem populi and therefore as if they were an integrant part of the Kingdome form'd to themselves a separated House a Jurisdiction over the people lay as a Barre betwixt the King and them whether that power of their's had any congruity with the other supreame and Legislative rights of the people or no is not now the question but rather this Whether according to their mutuall engagements their rights of a separated house were rightly lost to the House of Commons or no This is by them affirmed and the state of Venice as profound Platonists deny the other for otherwise Noble men would be as difficulty reformed as Kings and therefore they rarely conferre illustrious Titles of Nobility on any but those who are in illustrious Offices things separable from persons by which meanes all Offices with them are questionable But to return that which according to themselves thus excluded the King by the same Logicke excluded the Lords and if they either directly or indirectly concurred to the ruine of the rest of the Kingdome then the argument runs strong that the House of Commons were bound to preserve it and that the rest rightly owe their whole protection under God to them But because I will suppose nothing here the argument of matter of fact must judge one as well as the other Wherefore if any will aske whether there was not a Warre undertaken last yeare very eminently dangerous to the whole Parliament and their Party the Army and Country Committees and that by the contrivance of the Royall Party here the Scots Nation in the North Ormond in Ireland it will be past denying Likewise whether the House of Lords in that extremity declared with the Commons that the Scots were Enemies to the Kingdome or upon the first or second request gave their Concurrence for Counties to arme themselves for their defence The â—oyce of all parties must needs say no So that that House undertook to act a part as dangerous to the rest of the Parliament as they did who were actually in Armes against their party every where And how then should they expect to bestill necessary to them and to their securities who had put them into such apparent extremity and necessities As for the exclusion of some Members of the house of Commons I hope the sincere Presbyterians wonder not at that act because the Kirk and State of Scotland was preserved by such an act last year and by the concourrence of the same meanes which did this here Yea though they who from thence invaded our Nation declared as much for the Covenant and Presbytery as the Kirke it selfe save only that the Kirke had the good luck to speake the last word They who sit at top in the State are tanquam in nubibus to the eyes of us of the People Wee know not how they manage their Counsels nor contrive their tranâ—actions that is best determined by and amongst themselves It is enough for us if they be of a number competent to act and be persons who enter by vertue of free Election and sâ—t in the legall place For in a case where five are chosen to a businesses and that any three of them are to be of the Quâ—rum though two of them be never so accidentally or violently detained yet what the other three doe is to all intents and purposes valid which is the present case By this Gentlemans favour we have an Axiome of Law which saith that in Partner-ship or Society as the Civill Law calls it when matter of extreme prejudice is agitated betwixt those who are of equall contribution either of Art or Mony then Potior est conditio negantis nothing ought in this case to be concluded against the negatives though fewer in number which was the Parliaments case when after the equall provocations of a Prince by Warre and imprisonment some of the same House thought he might have been securely readmitted into the Government again and others thought it evidently dangerous In this case the difference was as it were legall betwixt the Members but not to be decided any way but by force there being no other Tribunall to judge them and their house might not judge of it because there they were parties and judges a thing allowed no where and if otherwise then the major part might legally vote the other out of the house at pleasure But what was at last determined by any number above forty with the speaker in the legal place seemes not out of form to us of the people
to have in him a supreame power such as the Apostle Ro. 13. in his sence understands necessary for the Kingdome of England But in our sence of plenary possession which was the case of the Apostles time we can easily see first how our present power is the higher the whole Kingdome now receiving all law protection and subordinate Magistracy from them and how they may be in lawfull things obeyed according to the same Apostle and to the duty of our Creation and being in this world The case of conscience p. 3. acknowledgeth that a Government may be altered but it must be done still by the higher powers whom we ought equally to obey in submitting to an altered as to a continued for me But it is a sinne if a party forcibly lay the higher powers low and exact obedience as to the legall authority I thought that he who in his sence understood the Covenant in terminis Eternall would not have allowed a change of Government here no more then he might allow the Scots though upon never so much reason to themselves to change their Doctrine or discipline because we swore during all our lives to preserve that which was established among them at the time of our swearing But I now see we may well distinguish betwixt the Covenant it selfe and some Covenanters the Covenant being as open for one change as for the other Secondly If a Government though never so reasonably reformed or altered be never in any lawfull things to be obeyed termes which he did ill to leave out of his Argument unlesse by the concurrence of all the higher powers then farewell all the old consequences of Solis populi suprema lex and the Presbyterians formâ— Armes are unjustifiable How corrupt and Tyrannicall are most of the Governments of the world and yet how many of those supreame powers hath he observed to reforme themselves or diminish any thing in themselves to alter for the better although the taking away of something in a Government may be as necessary as continuing any old or new thing in it Certainly these Authors have read but few of Ionases who voluntarily renounce themselves to settle a Tempest Thirdly Our Alteration was made by the present supreame power of the people and the reason wherefore both Houses laid the exercise of Regall power aside for some yeares made the Commons as they have agrued it lay it aside for altogether viz. Salus populi suprema lex The laying of it aside for some yeares is argument enough to us of the people that it might be laid aside for more yeares and that one King might be laid aside as well as another For to us it seemes effectually all one Non esse non operari for a thing not to be at all and in this world to doe nothing at all If they sinned who did this is that any thing to any but themselves It is an Axiome of good Law Noxa sequitur caput Thus whilst his Argument should have been against our lawfull obedience it is against their exacting it as to the legall authority which yet is grosly false for they exact it not as to the old legall authority but as to the present supreame power of the people Non nomine Regis sed nominepopuli And yet in one good sence it may be still called the same legall Authority because we have still under it the same lawes for our properties as before and continued in life by them as our lives themselves are Case of Cons. p. 3. it is objected that this principle of obeying those onely who are in plenary possession of all supreame power is fit onely to destroy States for then should none Governe any longer then their swords and strengths could beare them up I conceive according to what is already proved that nothing can befound either more consonant to Christian charity or to the preservation of States then this our principle of obedience besides he knowes no Kingdome in the world where people doe not obey upon this same plenary possession Allegiance alwayes relating to protection And if according to his consequence we should suspend all obedience till we have infallibly found out that Perâ—on who derives a knowne and an undubitable right from him who was the first in compact because according to these Authors intermediate intrusions are violations of rights and may not be obeyed even in things lawfull then I pray you of what can we resolve lesse then certainly to extirpate one another which will come to passe ere we finde what we search for in such a blind scuffle and for feare of doing a lawfull thing under the inspection of one who is suppos'd to have done another thing unlawfully must we resolve of doing all unlawfull things by warre our selves and desert unnecessarily the cares of Wife and Children of Church and Neighbour For non-obedience in a State is but a Chimaera neutrality a State without relation there is no subsistence for it in any State and unlesse you will allow me to concurre with others and under others in lawfull things I must leave the world my subsistence being onely in a conjunction with others here in this jurisdiction The two Demurrers p. 3. p. 7. Except against this our present obedience beeause the present powers is yet new neither is there a totall cessation of all hopes of recovery Philosophers hold that the Definition of a man belongs to an infant as well as to one of many yeares Because after the Organization of the parts he is informed with the same principle of life and reason as a growne man is and having the same forme is the same thing Even so the present power hath possest all the parts of this Kingdome gives them life in the administration of publique justice and protection which are the soule of a State and the power which preceded this what did it infuse more vitall then this And now that that is taken away if this other did not presently enter into its place the Common-wealth were dead and each man were left in his naturals to subsist of himselfe and to cast how hee could in such a state of warre defend himselfe from all the rest of the world every man in this State having an equall right to every thing Wherefore let every man especially they who would informe consciences take heed of affecting popular revenge vvhich must also reach themselves at last for vvhen they have once frighted people from lawfull actions vvhat can they thâ—n commit but the un'avvfull Into what an unhappy transport are we fallen that such a principle should be derived from our Church the very Papists being ever ready to obey in things lawfull though the State seemed to them unlawfull These will judge better of the State now then of the Church the one inviting and incouraging us to lawfull things the other deterring us from them But to return to the Argument I
supreame Command we of the People may not obey any but the Husband or the King why then did the Presbyterian party for so many years oppose and not totally submit to their now supposed Husband Why did they Commissionate so many thousand Men who by accidents of Warre had the power though not the chance to kill him Nay in the Parliaments case it was alwaies conjoyntly argued by them that it was he the Husband that would have killed them the supposed Wife for which reason the Kirke of Scotland long ago sent him a bill of Divorce unlesse he satisfied for the blood of three Kingdoms Which of the two parties it was that at last killed him belongs not much to the satisfaction of us the people though here questioned because those parties as tot hat act differ'd no more if he will further argue it then dim nâ—tio and obtruncatio capitis doe for they who after a long Warre and by long imprisonment dispoyl'd him of that regall power here so much argued for did according to the terme of the civill Law diminuere caput Regis and they who in consequence of his civill Death tooke away his naturall life did obtrune are Caput Regis If he had been kill'd in an action of Warre before should the Souldier or he who gave the Souldier commission have answered for his life As for the submission of a Wife to a stranger as to her Husband which is indeed a sin I earnestly pray the Author seriously to consider whether he can excuse us and all our forefathers from sin ever since this Kingdome long agoe fell under the power of an usurping king if this his way of arguing be true As for the second Demurrer I consider he hath given account to another very worthy Pen which hath left little for my gleaning in such a field however I shall see what hath escaped his hand that the world may witnesse at last that truth hath lovers as well as errour and passion have Cham ions This Author and the grand case of Conscience begin with St. Paul Ro. 13. That wee must submit to higher powers not that wee may lawfully submit and that not for wrath onely but for Conscience sake which is of things necessary not of things lawfull Wherefore say they it is ill said that we may lawfully submit in lawfull things obedience as a matter of Conscience being a thing necessary I grant it either in lawfull or necessary things when obedience is required from those who actually have the whole Sepremacy of power in themselves If I hold this lawfull and he hold it necessary we are not contrary He onely makes what I allow more allowable But the reason wherefore the Apostle requires obedience to such Not onely for wrath which is onely in regard of the power which they who are supreà me have to destroy us but for Conscience sake is least by our resisting them we unnecessarily disturbe and draw calamity on others and likewise in regard of their Authority from God Tyrants even in title not arriving to the great Dominions of the Earth without Gods secret order God having clearly stated the Government of the world for ever in himselfe as his cheife Prerogative he not being known or feared any way so much as by Dominio n which made St. Augus in C. Dei rightly say Potestates omnes sunt a Deo non omnes voluntates so that the reason wherefore God permits sometimes such Princes to attaine to these powers is the same wherefore he permits Devils in his Government of the world a Nimrod or a Pharaoh a Caesar or a Herod an Antichrist or a Turke who as bad and as usurping as they are and seeme to us in exercising so severe though so secret a part of Gods Justice yet fulfill severall prophecies which shewes they come not to what they are meerely by humane contrivance by chance or accident The grand case of Conscience P. 3. distinguisheth betwixt Authority or Power and Rulers deputed to the exercise of that Authority The first is by Gods positive Ordinance the other buâ— by his permission Here he grants enough as to our case which is of obedience for if he can assure me that it is consonant to Gods permissive will that such persons be my Magistrates I am well satisfied then that Gods will is I must be their Subject Gods free admission of one being the necessary exclusion of all the rest so that subjection is not a thing now of my choice but of my necessity But the Demurrer P. 3 would know what difference there is in popular obedience to lawfull powers and unlawfull powers if obedience be necessary to both I answer If the powers here supposed by him agree equally in their supremacy and absolutenesse and differ onely as one is got lawfully the other unlawfully then the difference of our obedience to either is onely in the difference of things commanded as they are either lawfull or unlawfull neither can the Author now arguing so much for a lawfull power conscienciously tell us that the lawfulnesse of the civill power commanding can make our obedience necessary to an unlawfull thing commanded but rather that it makes that power then become to us in some manner unlawfull and worse to us of the People then if we were under the absolute command of an unlawfull power which exacts nothing but lawfull things The knot of this point lies here Whither a civill circumstance such as is the Magistrate either lawfull or unlawfull can vitiate an Act of morall duty I believe his distinction P. 2 of a Government constituted or constituting serves nothing for the discovery of a supreame lawfull power in it selfe For I hold that whatever was once a sin may alwaies be called a sin though with rooting or without rooting Not but that God and we may make good use of other mens bad actions if they be such for which reason poore beggers may in their extremities receive necessary Almes from those who came to their estates by wrong and oppression the receipt whereof they do not justify the Title of such Estates much lesse doe wee justifie the unlawfull Title of a supreame Magistrate from whose care we receive necessary protection I say much lesse because cases of Estates are juris privati and have Courts to judge of them but the other is so much juris publici that there is no mortall Court to judge of it for which reason how will these Authors what Governours soever they desire evidently prove that they originally had lawfull Titles or that they at first did not forcibly take the people to themselves but that the people voluntarily resigned themselves to them which was not in Nimrods Case From whence this may be inferd to the satisfaction of the grand case of Conscience p. 3. That if he had that desired Governour yet according to himselfe he would not owne him long because he were not sure
so union to union and certainly that Union of the Parliaments of both Kingdoms was at an end ever since the Scotch Army here received their money and returned home leaving the Delinquents of both Nations dis-united and clearly reduced to receive condigne punishment as the Covenant calls it at the respective judicatories of both Kingdoms and if it ended not then yet it could not bee consistent with their Declaration and divisions presently after and if not then yet I am sure it could not be consistent with their Nationall invasion and tampering to divide all in England and Ireland the effect whereof hath been a change of Government here and hath made them totally distinct forrainers to us The Demurrers premisses in this Argument by a new logick relate onely to a State of publique Vnion and his conclusion relates only to a State of publique dis-union of the consequences whereof the Covenant saith nothing at all in any Article It enjoynâ—s the bringing of Delinquents to condigne punishment and those private persons likewise among our selves who should helpe on either divisions amongst us or the invasion of either Nation first But whether should they be brought to punishment The Covenant answers Either before the respective judicatories of each Kingdome who onely have power to judge of what is Condigne or before no body It speakes likewise how we should unitedly venture our lives against the Enemy which then was it doth not or at least ought not to sweare us to get the better of them for ever nor that we should in a rout or dis-union end our lives against all opposition and without quarter If the termes of our utmost endeavours and all the dayes of our lives are to be understood litterally and that we must not survive any violation of the Covenant then why do these Gentlemen who conclude themselves in the State of the Covenant thus understood thinke of living till to morow The termes of forever or for all the dayes of our lives are not in our contracts to be understood naturally but morally For we finde it plainly in the Judicial law that after a Jew had taken a servant and bor'd a hole through his eare he was as the Text saith to serve him for ever although one of them might possâ—bly have dyed the next day and both of them after a while might have beene made captives to others The law calls the league of Marriage individua vitae consueâ—udo a câ—habitaâ—ion for all the dayes of our lives For so it should be ex voto contrahentiâ—m in the sincere desires of the contractors Yet we know one ordinarily dyes before the other and that many conditions may happen to legitimate their divorce afterwards though the contract was never so religiously made in the presence of almighty God at first The Scots in their late proceedings with their King at the Hague pag. the 6. interpret the words of utmost endeavour as morally as we doe here For the Commissioners of the Kirk said they us'd their utmost endeavours to save the Kings life according to Covenant but how They answer that it was in Papers messages Declarations Testimonies and Protestations onely they name not warre or bloodshed for they protested against that way last yeare as contrary to Covenant when the Parliament of Scotland invaded us and I hope for the reputation of the religion they professe they have not altered their publique commentary of that sacred Text contradictorily so soone To conclude Either wee are still in the Vnion of the end of the Covenant or we are not If we be in it then these breake the Covenant by seeking to dis-unite us If we be not in it where then is the Article for our private forming a warre upon it and under whom if not under our English supreame iudicatory and if they call us not out to revenge that which was more then a bare falling off from the Covenant last yeare amongst ourselves when the Scots exercis'd such high hostilities and were the first shatterers of all our frame which otherwise might by Gods blessing have cemented againe how durst these private trumpets sound the alarum and open the wounds of the Nations once more Though the respective iudicatory of that Kingdome now cannot make that which was once done undone Yet by the present punishment of the Kirke it is acknowledged that they hold the Covenant to have been more then nationally broken in regard of the harme and damage which was done to us after it was broken For there is a great deale of difference betwixt ceasing to helpe according to a league and acting hostily contrary to it especially when no such penalty is in such a league exprest betwixt the parties But you will object that if the Covenant were so broken in one or two points by them yet it doth not follow that the whole Covenant is broken thereby and dead in every part I have answered before that we are no longer obliged to any thing in it by the way of League and Covenant The reason here is because here in leagues everything is to be observed conâ—unctively otherwise all is broken which is so true and cleare that if we looke upon Gods league and Covenant with Israel we shall finde the same thing pronounc't there God said If yee keepe my Commandements I will be your God and will maintaine you in your plenty and in your Land Yet he said that if they broke any one Commandement in their part of Covenant they were guilty of all and that all should be at an end betwixt them just as St. Iohn in the conclusion of his Revelation saith Who ever shall diminish but one word of that Booke defaceth the whole and looseth the whole benefit which he might expect thereby in the holy City by vertue of the second Covenant It is asserted that there is no clause in any Oath or Covenant which in a common sence forbids obedience to a present Government To this the grand case of Conscience answers That the Covenant engages to another Government therefore it forbids obedience to this and Oathes ought to bee their owne interpreters Here he at first begs the question whether the Covenant can now engage us or no seeing it hath beene proved that that which is now nothing cannot now engage us to any thing and conseqently our submitting to and acting under the present Government cannot be contrary to Covenant because things which are contrary one to the other must have actuall being together at the same time But the very being of this Government supposes the nullity of the Covenant whose death as it was other where contrived before gave life to that mutation here afterwards Secondly Though the Covenant were still valid and in force yet when we were sworne to it first it found us actually out of that Government here pointed at viz. Of King Lords and Commons For that is the supreame Government of a Country which makes