of the King the Fountain in opposition to the King it is but an opacous Body the light withdrawn from it Grotius states the case Grotius de jure Villi 54.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
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
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