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A25429
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A letter of remarks upon Jovian by a person of quality.
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Anglesey, Arthur Annesley, Earl of, 1614-1686.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing A3174; ESTC R16260
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6,612
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15
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Rights of Soveraignty do inseperably belong VIZ. As he had before enumerated them 1. To be accountable to none but God 2. To have the sole Power and Disposal of the Sword 3. To be free from all Coercive and Indicative Power P. 202. 4. To have the Legislative Power or the Power that makes any Form of Words a Law Now he chooses rather to prove that our King is an Absolute Soveraign and therefore has these Incidents than that he hath all these in an Absolute Manner and therefore is an Absolute Soveraign But it falls out unluckily that when in some Cases the very Enacting Parts of Statutes shall signifie nothing to Him yet the most tolerable Proof that he brings to shew that all the Civil Rights of the Nation are in the Kings Hands to do as he pleases with any particular Person especially THOUGH THE PERSONAL ORDERS BY WHICH HE TOUCHES THIS OR THAT OR THESE OR THOSE MEN ARE NOT DRAWN INTO PRESIDENT AND EFFECT NOT OTHERS p. 193. The best Proof of this I say is drawn from the Preambles of Acts of Parliament about Ecclesiastical Affairs most of them against the Usurpation of the Roman See upon this Imperial and Independent Crown and the strongest of them very unfairly cited Intending here but a tast of his Dis-ingenuity I shall give but two Examples and that in 24. H. 8. c. 12. and 25. H. 8. c. 21. He tells us P. 108. By the whole Parliament 24. H. 8. c. 12. it was Resolved and so declared that by sundry Authentick Histories and Chronicles it is manifestly Declared and Expressed that this Realm of England is an Empire and so hath been accepted in the World Governed by one Supream Head and King having Dignity and Royal Estate of the Imperial Crown of the same P. 213. After the words before cited it follows says he unto whom a Body Politick been bounden and owen to bear next unto God a natural and humble Obedience he being instituted and furnished with plenary whole and Entire Power Preheminence Authority c. Thus far he But methinks if he had intended fairness he would at least have Answered the Objection from the following words which some may take as Restrictive Viz. Prerogative and Jurisdiction to RENDER and YIELD Justice and Final Determination to all manner of Folk Resiants or Subjects within this his Realm in all Causes Matters Debates and Contentions hapning to incur insurg or begin within the Limits thereof without Restraint or Provocation to any Forreign Princes or Potentates of the World Then the Statute 25. H. 8. c. 21. has no more Plous Treatment than the former The words he has occasion for are these P. 212. That this your Graces Realm Recognizing no Superiour under God but only your Grace has been and is free from Subjection Now me-thinks this is a strange kind of Breach to say that this Realm is under God and the King and yet free from Subjection sounds a little odly wherefore we must look further for their meaning The Act goes on thus TO ANY MANS LAWS but only such as have been Devised Made and Ordained within this Realm for the Wealth of the same or to such other as by Sufferance of your Grace and your Progenitors THE PEOPLE OF THIS YOUR REALM HAVE TAKEN AT THEIR FREE LIBERTY BY THEIR OWN CONSENT to be used amongst them and have bound themselves by long Use and Custome to the observance of the same NOT AS TO THE LAWS OF ANY FORREIGN PRINCE POTENTATE OR PRELATE but as to the Customed and Antient Laws of this Realm by the said Sufferance Consent and Custome and NONE OTHERWISE It standeth therefore WITH NATURAL EQUITY AND GOOD REASON that in all and every such Laws humane made within this Realm by the said Sufferance Consents and Custome your Royal Majesty and your Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons REPRESENTING THE WHOLE STATE OF YOUR REALM IN THIS YOUR MOST HIGH COURT OF PARLIAMENT have full Power and Authority not only to dispence but also to authorise some Select Persons to dispence with Those and all other Humane Laws of your Realm and with every one of them as the Quality of the Persons and Matter shall require and also the said Laws and every of them to ABROGATE ADNUL AMPLIFIE OR DIMINISH as it shall seem good to your Majesty and the Nobles and Commons of your Realm as by divers good and wholesome Acts of Parliaments Made Established as well in your Time as in the Time of your most Noble Progenitors it may plainly and evidently appear Now who can help it if some unlucky Fellow observing these gross Omissions should retort that Saying of the Worthy Prelate That if he might use the Scriptures as this Author hath used the Statutes Jov. p. 184. he could prove there was no God for leave out The Fool hath said in his Heart and then it follows There is no God 4thly HE IS CONTRADICTORY in his Principal and Fundamental Points or at least yields enough to destroy them which are these three 1. To shew that the Parallel between Julians Succession and the Doctor 's here will not hold 2. That the Succession is Sacred and Unalterable by Humane Law 3. That the Author of the Life of Julian is out in his Notion of Passive Obedience and that 'T is as much a Duty when ever the King exerts his Prerogative or Imperial Law as when he has declared any Law in Parliament according to the Politick Constitution of the Nation For the 1. He tells us that 't is absurd in J. to suppose that the Empire was Hereditary in Julian's Time Pref. Because limited Inheritances came not in till after with the Feudal Law and not with us till the Normans and yet he cites Dio who says that the Empire was decreed BY THE SENATE UNTO JVLIVS AND THE SONS OF HIS BODY Pag. 9. Nay he tells us Pag. 78. that this is an Intail'd Kingdom by the Original Constitution of the Government that is it was Intail'd before there was any such thing as a Limited Fee But it seems with him nothing is an Inheritance but what is claim'd by an antient Intail thence he supposes that the Empire was not Hereditary because the Emperours sometimes gave it to Adopted Sons and disposed of it as an Inheritance of their own Purchase or Acquisition Pag. 65. he further will have it that 't is the nature of an Intail'd Estate that it can by no means be dock't and the Limitations defeated which no man can suppose that the Author of the Life of Julian ought to prove against himself 2dly He is to prove that it is not in the Power of an Act of Parliament to defeat the Right of him who in ordinary Course should succeed to the Crown of England the force of all his Arguments for this is that it is the nature of Birthright and Inheritance Jov. p. 78. which is not founded upon the Statutes but upon the Original
Custome and Constitution of the English Government and the Laws of the Government being Established by the Laws of the Gospel P. 203. Pref. Thence God alone is the Author of this Hereditary Succession to the Crown Whence some will argue that if according to the Laws of the Government the King may Adopt another in Parliament God himself would be the Author of this Adoption But the main Question is how this London Minister shews this to have been the Original Custome and Constitution of the Government Is it because this Custome hath been derived down without Interruption That he doth not go about to prove or doth he shew how it comes to pass that Interruptions in the Succession to the Empire are an Argument that that was not Hereditary and yet are no Obstacles here Nay doth he not own that this was not the Original Custome and Constitution in saying that it first came in with the Normans Pref. 3. He undertakes to shew that the Author of the Life of Julian is out in his Notion of Passive Obedience and that it is as much a Duty when ever the King exerts his Prerogative or Imperial Law as when he has declared any Law in Parliament according to the Politick Constitution of the Nation or to use this London Minister's own Words That Passive-Obedience is due by the Gospel to the Soveraign Power P. 164. when the Soveraign Persecutes contrary to Law It is observable that his Antagonist never speaks of the least resistance to be made to the Sacred Person of the King but to Ministers or Officers acting without or contrary to the Authority of his Laws by which he speaks to his Subjects in a way not to be questioned much less control'd and truly I am much deceived if this Man says less in his Lucid Intervals after some vain Ravings he hath these words If by an inevitable necessity of defending themselves P. 279. P. 280. he understands sudden and private Defence against an Assassin sent by the Kings Order as his Malice seems to suggest then it is nothing to his purpose because the Kings Law which is his most Authoritative Command allows us as I suppose that benefit and if it do it doth not in the least contradict the Doctrine of Passive Obedience which allows a Man to resist or use the Sword to defend his Life when the Laws from which I except all Laws destructive of the Kings Crown and Regality Authorise him so to do This sort of Resistance you see is not here excepted as Destructive of the Regality but here he yields 1. That the King in his Parliament speaks to us with greater Authority than out of it or that the Political Law is above the Imperial Law for by the Imperial Law Subjects must be so far Slaves P. 242. they must trust their Lives and Liberties with their Soveraign Yet this it seems is wholly frustrated by the Kings Laws for their Preservation which may Authorise the using one that acts under or by vertue of the Imperial Law as an Assassin 2. By just consequence from what is here granted it follows that if one acting barely under that Authority has no legal or sufficient Warrant then he is guilty of a Breach of the Kings Peace and a Constable who by his Office is to keep the Peace may assist the Party that is set upon and require Numbers to joyn with him and so they may go from Parish to Parish in fresh Pursuit 3. This doth not in the least contradict the Doctrine of Passive Obedience 4. To the three foregoing Heads you may add a fourth from another place of his P. 192. Even where an Emperour has Absolute Power over his Subjects Lives and Estates as to do what he pleases with particular Persons he has not thereby right to enslave the whole People by altering the Constitution of the Government from a Civil into a Tyrannical Dominion or from a Government wherein the People had Liberty and Property into such a Government as the Persian was and the Turkish now is where the Subjects are the Princes Family and all that they have is his by Law To tell you plainly I am almost as sorry as the Authors own Friends can be that he should raise all mens Expectations to so little purpose as any one may observe by this Just though General Censure 'T is a hard case that a man should run the hazard of a Judicial and more Authoritative Censure and yet do no Service to any Interest or to his own Reputation But thus it often happens when Clergy-men will be hooking in Civil Rights in ordine ad Spiritualia and if they meet with the Fates of their Predecessors Sybthorp and Manwaring they can be but pityed at the most by SIR Your Humble Servant ERRATA Page 6. l. 14. r. Despicable ib. l. 29. r. Tractats p. 8. l. 12. r. Vindicative