of the King the Fountain in opposition to the King it is but an opacous Body the light withdrawn from it Grotius states the case Grotius de jure Villi 54. inventi sunt nostro seculo whether Subordinates may act against the Supream Power that is whether any sort of Magistracy under a King have any quality or consideration in them as dividing from the King and he resolves it in the Negative He reasons it thus that these publick Persons are but private in respect of the chief and all the faculty of governing in them is so subjected to the chief Power as whatsoever they act against the Will of that is defective of the faculty and is but of the Nature of a private Act. I shall give it off here because hereafter I shall demonstrate the impossibility of two Soveraignties or Supremacies in one Government and reduce Parliamentary Rights to their due Qualification Now then take away this the other falls this the Theatre Mr. Baxter erects for judging the King and Scaffold for beheading him The truth is the Laws are all silent about this Question Whether a Parliament may commit Tteason so as if we shall not take them in their general understanding we have no law in this Case It is a thing not to be doubted that the Law never had it in imagination that there was any exception to the committing of Treason so as no such thing mentioned in Laws nor ever entred into the mind of any Commentator who write at large and many times their own conceipts yet it never came into the conceipt of any Person to except a Parliament for committing Treason It is many times in Nature the strongest Law that which is not mentioned because the case never imagined to be and therefore not provided for So as if Mr. Baxter will not take all the Laws that are generall without exception to include all Persons then is the King without Law as against a Parliament All the sense of the Laws respect the King without any consideration of Persons no sense or intendment of that but only the end to which it is directed and therefore it is called Crimen laesae Majestatis which shews where the end is in the King's Preservation but the means never differenced in respect of any It were in vain to enumerate the Laws and to aggravate them all dread and all saving being to the life of the Government the King This differencing is out of all Laws never thought of it had its Law and Execution at once as Treasons are never owned till they are acted But let the Reader consider upon the Statute 25 Edw. 3. which is the Declarative of Treasons whether there is discernable any differencing in it or exceptions of Persons or Callings or of qualities or any imagination of this Proposition till now that wickedness strives to defend it self I shall take occasion here to speak to former actings of Parliaments upon Kings deposing them and consequently killing them because the Nature of man is to think any thing that hath bin done may be done and so never finds end of wickedness but to make it infinite Any extraordinary or transcendent acting upon Government though never so unlawful and violent yet if it become powerful it commonly creates something to others to derive from it as those Persons whom Mr. Baxter would vindicate long before they divided declared That in case they should act to the highest Presidents they should not fail in duty or trust having their eye and aim upon the deposing of Kings Ed. 2. Rich. 2. And the last Actors that compleated the Tragedy conclude power of Parliaments from former destroying Kings and setting up others I shall produce it only into some considerations by Epitome only leaving the large Subject of it to the Histories how those Princes came to be declined and lose their Power The first Edw. 2. his condition was to be Prisoner to his own Queen and his Son a Prince of fourteen years of Age and the implacable hatred of the Queen and her party was such as the King must be destroyed no competition being to them both The whole Power was with them they call a Parliament which acted meerly as they prescribed The King deposed by Act of Parliament submitted and resigned in hope of life which he could not have The other as unhappy Richard II. Prisoner to the Usurper Henry of Lancaster his Cousin-Germane The Fate of subdued Kings by Traytors is ever to run into the same Center Traytors leave nothing undone of the last Act of destroying Now the actings being thus what are the considerations upon it First these Persons and the Parliament were the first that ever acted so in England and so must derive the Justice and Authority of it out of themselvs and nothing from whatsoever had been done before Next there was no such thing as King or Parliament in the Nature of it As well Jack Cade or Wat Tyler if they had compleated their Rebellion might have convened any party out of the People calling it a Parliament set himself up King for one Subject hath as much Right to be King as any other Next such a Parliament as it was it was the Subject of an Army the Army of the Usurper by which he had got Possession and destroyed the King's Power so as in effect condemning deposing was the Act of the Army absolutely for so it must be done by such a party called a Parliament and for the purpose and so are all our Mock-shews to set up any wickedness own Authority but act servilly and are meer imposture Next the Act horrid Treason as was imaginable or possible to be in Nature Now the Question comes to be Whether doing wickedly can create a lawfulness If so all sins and villanies by the perpetrating them lose their Natures to be evils and become lawful A conceipt nothing that comes into imagination can be more monstrous There must be a first lawfulness in every Act else the doing it is a Wickedness and still that wickedness perpetuated and multiplied in the after-acting it Next this condemned by the first Parliament that was upon the change of the Power for so long as the Power continued it stood for good as all Wickedness does But the Parliament under the rightful King damns it as traiterous detestable to be driven out of the World never to rise up again pulling down God's Judgments upon the Land Civil War and all the Plagues of it I shall conclude this that Wickedness can be no President Now having gone along with him upon his particulars which he only asserts not proves my next is to take notice and mind him that he is very near losing his cause which I fear he will do anon for he is arguing to a lawfulness in their putting the King to death and it is his business to keep himself out of it and likewise the Parliament's Cause and War and the Religion Protestant and Presbyterian
the nature of Jurors so that it is the King's Commission that authorizeth and distinguisheth them When a Writ of Error issueth out of the Chancery to the House of Peerâ— they derive their Authority meerly from that Writ For the three Reasons aforesaid the House of Peers is no Court of Judicature at all without the King 's special Authority granted to them either by his Writ or his Commission As for the House of Commons they never pretended to any Power of Judicature and have not so much Authority as to administer an Oath Thus far his But the Argument is not at all pertinent as to the House of Lords whom they have expelled and all Form of Parliament or Callings but in the People their ground is onely upon a House of Commons as the People's Representatives Nevertheless we take the whole and give truly the Nature of a Parliament for the perfectest way of rejecting Falshood is by delineating the true Form It is not imaginable for a King to govern without the assistance and assent of the Peers for Government cannot stand alone for as they are ever a party where any King is the Question is only of the Commons Prin's plea for Lords pag. 182. which is an Adjunct and therefore the Searchers into Antiquity take upon them to antedate them and derive them but as an Accident to the Government in England But to take it in the whole it being a truly poised Government and mixed Interest hath left so great a share in the People as servs to treat their King 's with and be at all times able to gain conditions And God forbid any Power should deny to the People's good it can be no end of Government and therefore he is not single or alone but hath common consent in the great Interests of the Nation changing or making Laws or making impositions He must have common consent to this and this draws all the rest to it since hardly any thing can move but by these two Interests and this is the ballance of the Government to make it hang equal betwixt Prince and People And the evils and mischief that sometimes redounds is from the abuse of it not from the Nature of it being the best composition of Government in the World and the People freer under it than in any Common-wealth Government which they call free Government the Reason is a Secret till looked into Physically that is this best of all to be seen in our late long odious Parliament there all the People's Liberties were swallowed up the People uncreatured as it were no defensive all in the Parliament when as in the King and Parliament the People have a direct party and a defensive as there shall be cause against any deprivation of their Rights There are some Signals of Kingly absolute Right which need but naming as the King 's Adviseray to Bills which he will not pass which was ever effectual as to a total condemnation So as here was no Power out of the King all reduced to him in his last Power of denying and likewise of pardoning And this needs not plead any right for it but right of Nature in reason of Government else without such a Power the King might be reduced to nothing And a King never falls or loseth his Power but he is lost in himself too He does not retain Kingly Government but on condition to perish with it And therefore all Laws are styled of Grace and petitioned for because the People till they are passed the Royal assent have but a Right in Reason to them not in Law only from the Supream Law of Salus Populi which is the comprehensive of all Laws The common mistake is because the King cannot do such and such things without the Parliament Ergo The Parliament governs the King Now as to this Many may be said to govern me so as to restrain me that I cannot go beyond my own Power and yet this no active governing Power over another this is the easiest thing to conception that can come into imagination Is there not where any Right is which we call property a power of denying And this is all the absolute Parliamentary power considered dividedly from the King and this vast inconsequence containing all the means almost to be King unless the King would break throw it which is the hardest task any King can go about yet nothing of the Nature of governing power no agency or efficiency in it by it self but only a meer Negative Because I am engaged in this consideration I will resort back to the state of the Question of a Parliament to be the highest Judge of the safety or danger of the Republick The Answer is direct that the King is the sole Judge of the safety or danger of the Re-publick as King he is only trusted and there cannot be two such judging powers for then there can be no determination when they stand in competition Therefore all the Powers in the Kingdom act subordinately to the King and not against or athwart the King's Power for that were for a Being to destroy it self The distinction lies in this that they have nothing to do with the King's Power but the People's Rights which they dispose of by the King's consent and not absolutely at all out of themselvs In this they may oppose the King's desire that is they have a Negative Power not to be compelled or the People to be put out of possession without them But where the disagreement is they are to acquiesce and so nothing comes of it and the King fails of his end this is the height of their power Their Bills which they are free to make contain in them Grievances to be reformed which implies complaint and consent whatsoever the King cannot do by his quality singly as King he doth by consent of the People and that is the Character of a Parliament the People for it directly represents the Universality the People and hath directly and truly no power but what is nationally and naturally the People's so as look upon that you find this and no difference at all in it hence consenting and denying giving aiding being natural properties of Rights are left to them as the People in them And this though great as to all the means of governing it doth not come near it so vast a difference is betwixt being free in mine own and having Power over anothers as no reason needs to be given of it Nevertheless the King as the common Interest is not to be supposed deficient of the Publick means that were unnatural therefore as to Government it self all means are lawful nor any thing so concerning to the People as to keep the temperament for when they destroy that they lose the means to their own good I might leave it here in its causes but I shall say something by way of President Queen Elizabeth the greatest Courter of her People and yet the best Governour would lose nothing of her
Powers of the Common-Wealth not above them for so presently they should perish having no power absolute to defend them so as we see directly it must be one or other either Subordination or Supremacy entire That must needs be a strange Government where the Soveraignty is divided and lying in divers Powers when they differ the people distracted in their obedience not knowing where to obey to but made to follow the lusts appetites and injustice of either party as it gains power and not certain to retain it Therefore there is a Law amongst our Statute Laws of England H. 7.11 y. C. 1. That the subject shall be secured to fight for the King in being This meerly from this reason of avoiding the mischief the Subject is put to by a divided commanding Power this Law though a gross one and against truth many times because Usurpers did possess the Throne yet for this reason preferred and not yet destroyed though the Sword was too hard for it as for all things else It is to be observed that there is no Government without a mixture which makes Rights in the People God himself doth not govern the World otherwise so but that he gives the People Laws both for their direction and conviction for it is in some sense that the Law makes the offence and besides otherwise all must flow from the King as Water continually renewed out of its Fountain and the People not know whom to obey nor subordinates how to act so as mixture in the Government makes no Argument it being of necessity to all Governments And as for taking up Arms and fighting for their Rights Right and right of defending holds not against Government absolutely His next Object If a Prince engage either hired Strangers or Fugitives or home-bred Delinquents or others to rise up against the Senate or People either it is lawful to defend themselvs by Arms or not if not especially if they have a share in the Soveraignty then is his Power absolute and unlimited and neither Laws or any thing below are any security against his Will to the common safety Answ The Ages that follow shall be very little beholden to Mr. Baxter to let them know the true state of a business of the highest and most horrid importance that ever befell England far excelling in accursedness the intestine War betwixt the two Houses of York and Lancaster because it hath destroyed our Form of Government and all Title to Govern which is an unhappiness upon a People above all evill whatsoever Usurpation being a continued source of evil I admire he can be so little serious in it This of his seems no more then that the King raiseth wicked Forces to destroy the Parliament and a Question meerly Whether or no they should defend themselvs There is a great Narrative and Historical part belongs to this to set it forth But it was not my end but only so far as to answer his and no farther In the first place the Parliament made alliance with the Scots disbanded the English Army to work their end upon the King The King was taken in a Toyl of his own making calling a Parliament the Scottish Army being in England and now both Interests clasped him that he had no means left him to get out of it but to break thorow it by force which he despaired of They draw up a Remonstrance to the three Nations to shame the King to the People and make him odious not the accidents of Government but are put upon the King's score as if any Government could be without faults and as if we should have been so much happier under them under whom we have found the little finger heavier than the Loyns of Kings and their whippings Scorpions to the other's Rods an Instance taken from Scripture and often applyed but never truer than in this of our condition and suffering under them The Parliament once in ruine was inevitable upon the King never after was any wisdom or means useful to him preservation is not always in our own Power we have but the offer of it which neglected or omitted commonly the means turns to another Interest and cannot be regained The King did now too late strive by all manner of concessions and compliance yet nothing would divert destructin that did fix upon him like the poysoned Shirt prepared by Dejanira for Hercules which once on though he did strive to tear it from him yet to no purpose the venom and poyson and fiery quality of it did penetrate into great Hercules and consume him The truth is the King was dispossessed before he durst appear in opposition all his Forces by Sea and Land City of London Hull and Port-Towns engaged against him his own Ordnance and Arms to fight against him He had nothing but the Interest of a King and the pity of those few that did compassionate him the People generally poysoned to raise up any party for him and fighting was but his meer necessity for as he said himself he was sure to be the loser because he had nothing but his own to oppose to in his own Kingdom and his own People his Enemies Yet further no Concessions would serve and Concessions were his fault and misfortune too it comes to be the case of the King not to be trusted and so the dispute grew upon the Militia a word introduced commonly treated as if an ordinary thing no less in it self than the being of a King who should have the Power I may very well give it off here because the case came to be Whether King or no King This being somewhat of the active part I shall speak now to the speculative part of his Objection That if a Prince engage either hired Strangers or Fugitives or home-bred Delinquents or others to rise up against the Senate or People either it is lawful to defend themselves by Arms or not if not especially if they have a share in the Soveraignty then saith he is the King's Power absolute and unlimited and neither Laws or any thing below are any security against his Will to the common safety Now in Answer to this first it supposeth a Case that never can be as a King to raise Forces to destroy his People or any party of them it can never be the case that is for a King to War upon his People in condition of Subjection therefore it is ever the People's War resisting the King in his governing Power It may be a case that the Parliament will not dissolve but defend themselvs by force and this is a making War upon the King Now this being directly the Nature of a War betwixt King and Subjects all the pretences to a defence are taken off and the Question comes simply to be Whether for other respects about the Government any party out of the King may raise War This must of necessity be resolved in the Negative because it is not possible to fancy governing power with a power in the
of the King but instantly by the descent of the Crown to the right Heir he is King This his and more there exprest And indeed no worldly Power can dispose alien or transfer the right of the Crown King Edward the sixth before his death would have setled the Crown upon his nearest Kinswoman the Lady Jane Gray Wife to the Lord Dudly his Sister Mary being of the Roman Church and the Council and Peers swore to this in his presence and he dyed Now what the effect Only to make them all Traytors and no other right in it Parliaments have declared for Titles but never can make any nor deprive Right It is true divers Usurpers have had Parliament Test for their Warrant for those have most need of it but still it was acted under power enforcing and so it was nothing but mearly so long as the Power lasted Usurpation doth not come into possession without power and it draggs Parliaments after it and deprives all reality but meer Hypocrisy in all that is acted or pretended to by Parliament or People I have no more now to consider of than of the Right of Kings having spoken of their Original Cause Power c. Now this first is generally from the great end of it that is Government which as Government is ever good good as Government though it may be an evil Government nor can any failings in the particularities so over-rule the common good of it but still it hath good of Government in it But this comes not to the Question of Right in the person which we are to inquire Certainly it cannot be Conquest which is only a great Riot and multiplying of Rapines and Man-slaughters it is all Wickedness which is only distinguished from common wickedness as it transcends all other actings of wickedness and such is the nature of Conquest by excess of wicedness to make it self above offending and punishment Then it cannot be in submission of the People to it being first conquered still before they consent and if they partly resist and gain conditions yet it is in respect of the power which is cause of all the following of what nature soever it be And it is not possible that any one can receive a Right from his doing wrong Some suppose upon the future settlement and equability of the Government established Title may result yet still all this is after the power and cannot imply in any kind a not Being of it being first supposed absolute at least not their condition to resist it Besides in the Case of a former Right the Peoples consent cannot evacuate a right in the former Prince outed or his posterity Now that it appears directly that none of these things make right or are of any force to it it is cleared by this that if the outed Prince can recover and regain Power these things vanish as unlawful and as wicked consentings and compliance and so long as the old Right can possibly retain its self in memory add but power to it and it is ever unquestionable One instance with us in England of sixty years discontinuance yet when it recovered power to act all the Usurpation went for nothing and the old came in as Right not as Conquest Where yet shall we find it Nothing but the Old extinguishing by long continuance of the latter and that becoming natural and consent goes with Nature so hard it is to the Titles of Princes and so precious to the People to retain them and so dangerous to lose them And all the Intervals filled and taken up with the uncertainty of Government and all the accidents that attend want of Title Therefore since only time and long time makes unquestionable Right to Princes it is of all Rights or Titles the hardest to be attained to and must be most absolute since nothing but User can give in its Authority therefore it is most unquestionable venerable unchangable independent of any other Cause and so under no other power and never falls but with the ruine of the People And this is a high perfection of Kingly Government since no other Form of Government can have this precious thing Title in it that is Right in the Person which is the Cement of Government and half the means of it and consent goes along with it whereby all the People act subordinately and this makes it easy and without force because of this tacite consent of the People to it for all operation of the Soul is but consent consent is the genius of the Government by which it acts and all the People and all common Interest doth center in the Right of it and find their rest And now I have done with the Argument I have only something of Observation from the natural effects of Rebellion and destroying rightful Government as we see it in ours Now the Work is done and all in the Power of the destroyers What comes of it Two very natural and great effects the one is Wickedness all manner of wickedness impieties false Religions Cruelty of manners and actings multiplicity of Tyrants having destroyed the great Tyrant-Government under a King as they called it all persons that get Power act as Tyrants Multitude of Tyrants out of the People themselves acting wickedly in all parts Cities and Towns where most Interest of the People lies strange Principles in profession and opinion and despising rancks and degrees of persons and of Kings and Supreams and bringing all into a contempt and baseness against order of nature and nature of Government which consists in difference and degrees and subordination To follow this subject of our present condition what a Monster England is become no such Copy of it in the World It must be all written and taken out of it self the strange infinite forms of Wickedness both in Faith and manners base horrible Conceptions monstrous Notions all hatched and have their production from the putrified matter of standing in condition of Rebellion and loosed from the rightful governing Power and running loose into parties and into their own sense having cast off the right Power which keeps to Order and Unity all Order and Unity being the effect of Government and the Monstrousness and Infiniteness that enters in the vacancy or deficiency of it for Errors in their nature are infinite whereas all true Beings have but their natural proportions and definitions The other is unsettledness which is the Curse of Usurpation and of destroying rightful Government that it cannot resolve it self into any thing of certainty or Being to the People under the power of it As we see these persons to perpetuate their Wickedness can make nothing of it The King 's Right and the wrong they do doth shine out of darkness it self out of that rubbish of confusion and destruction they would bury it under We see they can make nothing of all the Power having the whole it being the King's Power and the King 's Right they are confounded with it do but toss and tumble this Power over and over it can no where settle to make a Government but monstrous violence grows out of it and this is all they can create from it which doth admirably confirm the King 's right and that only in that doth consist the People's Interest and what a strange spirit and principle is in it that though troden down and debased reviled scandalized and kept out yet it riseth against all Power not in nature left or possible to make a settlement or Justice or Safety to the People without it the People undone by the usurping it so dangerous is a King 's Right when devested and displaced and so precious to preserve in its true place My last I will conclude withal which may reflect upon the whole is that I conceive the best way of calling Parliaments is frequently and never by necessity for when a King hath most need it proves most dangerous therefore it is never to be used as the last remedy Kings ought to have something in reserve to help them off that again if it grow averse and incline to danger And it was the total ruine of the King that he was so much a loser before he came to play this Game When all was distempered and disordered round about the out-Nations up in Arms and the home-People poysoned discontented then he calls a Parliament when no thing totally and mainly could have destroyed him but that for every grievance and every misery and every distress of the King 's served them for matter against the King and so turned the cause of putting himself upon them for help to be the means of their depressing him and destroying him It is like that our Saviour saith putting a new piece of Cloth into an old Garment it makes the rent worse so all the parts so fear and unsound as nothing to bear the searching severe remedy of a Parliament and apt to grow wicked with their Power FINIS
People or any party out of the King to resist his power for then he should govern no longer than the governed party were disposed to obey and so no Government at all nor is it possible in the reason of Government to put a power upon the governing Power and yet that to govern So as no Argument can be made for resisting because it is against Government it self But saith Mr. Baxter Then what assurance of Laws all at the King 's Will. Now the precise consideration upon this is that the very Nature of the Government and the King's Interest in it binds him to the good of it The Law saith Nulli magis tueri Rempublicam creditum est quà m Regi no person so believed to intend the good of the Common-Wealth as the King his sole Interest makes it so all others as Subject◠have private Interests in them and so have private respects which commonly consists not with the publick the King is the only publick Person of the Kingdom who hath no reason or consideration of his being but as King without that or beyond that nothing his whole being placed in it the publick is his private and this very reason in Nature of Government making the Government the same with the King is the full absolute cause of the certainty and good of it and is as much as is for any thing in Nature or any Being in the World since nothing can be more assured than Self-Interest for the good of it And therefore Kingly Government is the most certain Government because there can be no end out of it all contained in it the good of the Government is the King 's good without any difference Whereas in all other Forms of Government the Persons that govern have particular ends as private persons and this is truly the Nature of it never any reason can be for the abuse of Government by a King It may be abuse upon the King's Government but never out of any just end of it So as it is the foulest mistake that can be to suppose a King's Interest divided from the People's and that he must be held in chains for the People's good and certainty of Government when as the People directly lose all their good if the King want freedom of Will and Power to act The People's consistency is meerly in the King's power without that it were nothing presently the Government grows seditious and factious and moving in parts when the Regal Power cannot retain it And hence it is that those Persons that pretend for Liberty and Power over Kings are cause of Murders and Massacres of the People Nevertheless if it be objected that there are evils and abuses under a King's Government yet not so considerable especially here with us in England where hardly can be any great grievance the form of the Government being so equal as to make War for them Government hath many hard things come into it and extream difficulties and the evils of it are out of the People themselves stubbornly acting against the King and repugning to the means of Government and of Persons doing wickedly and great Ones oppressing and having their ends by wicked means Nor is it possible almost in any Government to have it so that the ordinary People can be able to find Remedy against the Oppressions of great Ones such as are wicked and turn even the Government it self into the means of it and the King is the party most extreamly wronged in it for all reflects upon the King and yet it cannot be helped but in degrees as things are subject to their accidents and so far only the good of Government goes and never to an absoluteness Now the manner is that where the universality meets in Parliament all is represented and they complain and supply the King's wants and this is the great means to redress And if some hard condition in the Government cannot be got mended at present yet extreams do never long endure but return to the nature of the Government they cannot hold out so as we see all excesses in Government are causes still of falling back and reverting to its right temper and commonly causes of pulling away something of the former with it as ever all violating of the grand Charters and Liberties are cause of binding them up and taking greater advantage of the King A King can never affect to govern ill but they may affect to have Power for Power is not simply good or evil but in the use of it and to have treasure and the People in Parliament not complying Kings are inforced to break out into extraordinaries and it cannot be helped for it is not to be supposed a failer of the means of Government all must dy and perish before it King James in the Parliament the 18th of his Reign tells them that in ten years he had not made use of them and had he not bin all peace he could not have lived so When the War began the contest was about nothing but that they would not trust the King and were resolved to bring him below them being an inexorable party and cruelty growing out of Religion is of all other the greatest Cruelty But the Laws and Rights were just the same as in all times formerly no alteration as to the great Interest of Regal right and the People's Rights which shews it is not alterable that which no time had wrought upon and all accidents had in all those ages and times come into it of so durable matter is the Government as no fear ever can be in it as to necessitate Arms of the People to vindicate it The People themselvs are the only destroyers of it Nevertheless though a King may seem all Power yet naturally and necessarily all Government involvs it self into the consent of the People and all Power comes out of them so as we are to see where the Interest of it lyes not meerly in the King's Will who is tied to more necessities than any other so foolish it is to think that though they have the Power of governing they have not the natural restraints and necessities of Government upon them We are at last to consider the infinite mischsef of a Civil War and the strange danger the People run into the greatest and most devouring Gulf that is in nature a body destroying its self and ripping out its own Bowels for it is all-acted within the body it self and the People know not whether they shall ever return to their Government again but live under perpetual Usurpation and Rebellion which utterly destroys a People to fall and live under the King's destroyers for Usurpation is all wickedness and all misery and all force and cannot be amended so long as it stands in resistance so as if possible the People's Interest is to get out of it and come under their Government And it is so far a King of England's cause that hath no military Power in governing as he will never inforce the
People beyond Subjection which is their best condition The very end and design of the Government being to keep down the great Monster of it that threatens it so as on neither side it can be imaginable that Rebellion should ever be the People's best good remedy or necessity which is pretended for it when it is acted being so wicked and unlawfull in it self Therefore we see it is ever either of the People pampered with Peace and know not what belong to War or judge not of the good of Government though they have it but in some degree good or else are cheated into it by Treason in a party designing other ends And the Vulgar the Character of them is all folly and evil inclination as mis-judging and to be unsatisfied so as never any condition makes their good under Government but when it is utterly out of their own Power Now the evil and destructive mischief of Rebellion as all accidents of destroying and oppressing come into it must needs prove the unlawfulness for wherefore are things unlawful but as they in their Natures are wicked Rebellion being of all causes in nature the greatest cause of Wickedness must needs be the greatest unlawfulness We are a little further to consider of the difficulty of Government in its self how many things naturally oppose to the good of it though the common good of all the Members is placed in it yet the most in their particular good or profit would act against it or some prejudice to it as every unlawful acting is against it besides all the dangers that come into it and difficulty to the means of it And some King's Governments naturally as it were though from accident are obstructed with difficulties and dangers which they must still over-come or else they perish so that the best that ever I could discern in it is for a Parliament to help the King as much as they can possibly to the good of it And a King of England his necessity will ever bring him to meet the People in Parliament And still let it be noted that resistance out of a Parliament makes no difference at all for it is rebelling still against the governing Power and most destructive when it shall pretend a lawfulness in another power I shall come now to the King 's own acting Did he not deny his own Prerogative about Ship-money and all other extraordinaries Regulate the Privy-Council and take away the Star-Chamber High-Commission-Court dissolve the great body of the Bishops out of Parliament to please the House of Commons Establish a Triennial Parliament pass against his Judgment and Conscience the Act for condemning and executing the Earl of Strafford and after grant them perpetual sitting against his power of dissolving Did so much to his own preserving that he gave away the means of his preservation and wrought his own ruine by it The like he had done before in Scotland restrained his Royal power there rewarded the very Rebels and against nature justified their Acts of Emnity against himself and declared his own party guilty I have set forth this to shew the nature of Kings in this their condition and in relation to the People and wherein a King's Interest consists that is not to fight for his own which by peace he possesseth and likewise it disproves them about the War it self to prove the Injustice of it on their part mearly affected to destroy the Government and to decline the King To shew what compliers Kings are to peace we ever see all Kings style their People their good People most when they fear evil from them treat them by all possible means of satisfaction and lowly tearms send forth Proclamations to purge any evil apprehensions of the People awed even by the very thoughts of the People such is the nature of Government to implant fear in Kings which is their great Governour Henry VIII the veriest Tyrant in his nature of any man that ever was yet his Government as to the Commons was good he acted cruelties beyond any other King upon particular persons of the great Ones whom his Jealousy did reach to In his Government good in general and declined all things of breach with the People though he seemed absolutely to command them 'T is true There are no Princes so stout as those who are most just as Queen Elizabeth with her sure ground of goodness to defend her kept her Parliament and People at greatest distance from encroaching upon Royal Authority King James had innocency and worth enough in him to vindicate him still and the truth is if the People could but weigh and penetrate into the exigencies and urgencies of State Interests how hard a thing it is to do but indifferently well in the Work of Government as to the People's satisfaction they would not seek to take advantages of Kings and hold them to extreams and can never have any good in the nature of it for the misfortune of the King ever returns upon the People It was not possible for the People to know their own Happiness under the Government of former Princes and it is a Blessing man never is endowed withal to know the measure of his good whilst he enjoys it and this is the cause that they prize it not but throw it away and wilfully bring themselvs to misery King James in whose time the People had nothing to do but laugh and play and follow their own Interests no great Taxes not the half as of Queen Elizabeth as for the time no fear upon the Nobility no fear or danger from the Prince's humour Religion perfectly Protestant the King himself the great owner of Interests in the reason and science of them yet the People most ungrateful no more satisfied than if they had been under a bad Government tired out with their very peace It is his own words to them in the Parliament 18. of his Reign We indeed find by experience that a number of our Subjects are so pampered with peace as they are desirous of Change though they know not what This happiness continued in the substance though not in all circumstances till the people themselves destroyed it so as they acted their sin and their Plague in one We come in the next place to that wherein he betrayes himself to the utter overthrowing of his Cause which I foresaw he would do at last Object If the Souldiers must know beforehand that if they do purchase a Victory by their bloud when they have all done they must be Governed by him whom they have conquered and lye at his mercy they would hardly ever have an Army to defend them for who would do the uttermost that is possible to exasperate him that he knows must rule him when all is done Answ If this be reason with Mr. Baxter now why not at first What Faith could he have in his Covenant which he destroyes by a Principle in his understanding We at first looked upon their pretences as for
given me the Kingdomes of the Earth And Daniel most full the Pattent of the King as extensive to all Creatures and Powers under him Dan. 1. ver 37 38. The God of Heaven hath given thee a Kingdom Power and Strength and Glory and in all places where the Children of men dwell the Beasts of the field and the Fowls of the Heaven has he given into thy hand and hath made thee Ruler over them all An Illustration of Gods dominion over all Creatures and acting by Kings his immediate Vice-gerents to the end of the 5th chapter of Daniel being nothing else then Gods clayming his Title over Kings as derivative from God and accountable to him Now all this is from the great end in nature that Kings being to rule the people which is Gods proper Office and Attribute all Power and all Dominion and all Providence being his they represent God and are his Image and Effigies in Ruling and Governing and this makes their dependance to be meerly of God and not accountable to any Power under God The nature of it is shewed in that of Saul as being the first King to the Jews and being the institutive of it comprehends the nature of it The person was meerly of Gods choice not left to the people nor any power left in them much less over the King In that day shall they cry unto the Lord sayes the Text That is 1 Sam. 8.18 no power to be against the Kings Power but an appeal only to an higher Power that is to God himself his Author and Founder they might complain of him that was set over them but had not any Authority of their own over him And this makes it in its nature to be the greatest trust in the World because there is no remedy against it contrary to Mr. Baxter's sense abusing the Term making Trust subject The reason of this absolute subjection of the People to Government lyes in the nature of it that no medium can be found betwixt power of Governing and liberty in the people as not Governed to be subject only to the good of Government is no Government at all or to be subject at all therefore of meer force from its nature it leaves nothing in the wills of the people so as no such mean or half being of it can be by any constitution provision or Policy whatsoever when it comes to Govern all those things though part of the Government yet come under the governing Power Now for the Originals of Ruling Powers ordinarily amongst men as to the persons ruling in such a Line and Succession we shall find it to be still from a first Power before it came to Governing Power the one introductive of the other for Power is its matter and nature for we see all Government is Power and the Power will govern Therefore equivocally the terms and names are used sometimes calling it the Government and sometimes the Power so as it is the same and signifies the same thing inseperables in nature Government and Power no remove can be in it for where the Power is there the Government will go along with it Hence it is that there is never any discontinuance in governing Power over the people In the most confused tumultuous War and distraction that ever was yet there is power still somewhere or other that contains the peoples liberty and subjects them so as there is not one moment or minute of time in the World where society and community of man is that there is any vacuum of Power to be over them and although powers devest one another yet the Series of governing Power is still continued and in all such removes of the Powers yet the Power never falls but is kept alwayes up and is in some still and is as inseperable from the People as the matter and the Form which never are asunder For that which we call Power out of the People it is not the people but a Power acting upon the People and in such a circumstance of it if it become too powerful for the Government then it becomes the Government it self Now having shewed thus the nature of it it destroyes all those imaginary Theaters that they would erect and build popular liberty upon and popular right over Kings They would fancy governing Power to be of the wills of the people and the people the Author so impossible an assertion as I only leave it upon what I have stated and how contradictory it is to nature in all consideration of it so as still the people is but the subject matter of Government never the Author of it nor does Government ever come below the people in the cause of it but must derive out of its own cause which is power to be above the people and so in all end and acting of it All this is still to explode that Monstrous conceit of the peoples instituting the Government or more Monstrous consequence of it the people as the first cause of it to dispose of it and destroy it It is observable in Government that Laws and Liberties come afterward to the people after power of the Government it self In the Norman Conquest all lay flatted some time under it till afterward as the Reporters of those times tell us that the party of the Conqueror or their Posterity did revive the English Liberties first the Conqueror's absolute will served them to expel and dispossess the Natives and after they were glad of establishments in Government to assure their own condition and what they had gained So as hereby we see Governments the farther they go on from their beginnings the more they take in of composition to their first single Nature so as still the Originals of Government are most absolute Hence it is manifest that Power is their Fountain and first cause as such is their Natures and the People's Freedom still is under Government and when Government is most confused then is their Freedom least so as still Power is over them and are alwayes subject to it let the Form of it be what it will To consider it in common Reason and Understanding the King took his Being from the People's Trust in Mr. Baxter's sense therfore the People are to dispose of him This were for the People not to be governed for then the Right were in the People and the King betrayed to govern under another Authority to make it accomptable Therefore this supposeth a Monster in nature and it would evermore make Government destructive to it self for then it doth not govern for where the end and ultimate of Power is there the Government is I shall insert something that is legal in this pertinent to the Case of the King of England how he comes to be King Sir Edward Coke that was a man popular enough in his third part of his Institutes pag. 7. saith That there is no such thing of the Kingly Being in England as an Inter-Regnum nor any Act confers to the making