all others besides themselves are to be excluded from Governing or chusing of Governours And amongst the ungodly that are to be thus excluded he reckons all those that will not hearken to their Pastours he means the Presbyterian Classis or that are despisers of the Lord's-Day that is all such as are not Sabbatarians or will not keep the Lord's day after the Jewish manner which they prescribe and which is condemned for Judaism by all even of the Presbyterian perswasion in the world but those of England and Scotland onely XV. If a People that by Oath and Duty are obliged to a Sovereign shall sinfully dispossess him and contrary to their Covenants chuse and Covenant with another they may be obliged by their latter Covenant notwithstanding their former and particular subjects that consented not in the breaking of their former Covenants may yet be obliged by occasion of their latter choice to the person whom they chuse Thes. 181. XVI If a Nation injuriously deprive themselves of a worthy Prince the hurt will be their own and they punish themselves but if it be necessarily to their welfare it is no injury to him But a King that by war will seek reparations from the body of the people doth put himself into an hostile State and tells them actually that he looks to his own good more than theirs and bids them take him for their Enemy and so defend themselves if they can Pag. 424. XVII Though a Nation wrong their King and so quoad Meritum causoe they are on the worser side yet may he not lawfully war against the publick good on that account nor any help him in such a war because propter fiuem he hath the worser cause Thes. 352. And yet as he tells us pag 476. we were to believe the Parliaments Declarations and professions which they made that the war which they raised was not against the King either in respect of his Authority or of his Person but onely against Delinquent Subjects and yet they actually fought against the King in person and we are to believe saith Mr. Baxter pag. 422. that men would kill them whom they fight against Mr. Baxter's Doctrine concerning the Government of England in particular HE denies the Government of England to be Monarchical in these words I. The real Sovereignty here amongst us was in King Lords and Commons Pag. 72. II. As to them that argue from the Oath of Supremacy and the title given the King I refer them saith Mr. Baxter to Mr. Lawson's answer to Hobbs's Politicks where he sheweth that the Title is often given to the single Person for the honour of the Commonwealth and his encouragement because he hath an eminent interest but will not prove the whole Sovereignty to be in him and the Oath excludeth all others from without not those whose interest is implied as conjunct with his The eminent dignity and interest of the King above others allowed the name of a Monarchy or Kingdom to the Commonwealth though indeed the Sovereignty was mixed in the hands of the Lords and Commons Pag. 88. III. He calls it a false supposition 1. That the Sovereign power was onely in the King and so that it was an absolute Monarchy 2 That the Parliament had but onely the proposing of Laws and that they were Enacted onely by the King's Authority upon their request 3. That the power of Arms and of War and Peace was in the King alone And therefore saith he those that argue from these false suppositions conclude that the Parliament being Subjects may not take up Arms without him and that it is Rebellion to resist him and most of this they gather from the Oath of Supremacy and from the Parliaments calling of themselves his Subjects but their grounds saith he are sandy and their superstructure false Pag. 459 460. And therefore Mr. Baxter tells us that though the Parliament are Subjects in one capacity yet have they their part in the Sovereignty also in their higher capacity Ibid. And upon this false and traitorous supposition he endeavours to justifie the late Rebellion and his own more than ordinary activeness in it For IV. Where the Sovereignty saith he is distributed into several hands as the King 's and Parliaments and the King invades the others part they may lawfully defend their own by war and the Subject lawfully assist them yea though the power of the Militia be expresly given to the King unless it be also exprest that it shall not be in the other Thes. 363. The conclusion saith he needs no proof because Sovereignty as such hath the power of Arms and of the Laws themselves The Law that saith the King shall have the Militia supposeth it to be against Enemies and not against the Commonwealth nor them that have part of the Sovereignty with him To resist him here is not to resist power but usurpation and private will in such a case the Parliament is no more to be resisted than he Ibid. V. If the King raise War against such a Parliament upon their Declaration of the dangers of the Common-wealth the people are to take it as raised against the Commonwealth Thes. 358. And in that case saith he the King may not onely be resisted but ceaseth to be a King and entreth into a state of War with the people Thes. 368. VI. Again if a Prince that hath not the whole Sovereignty be conquered by a Senate that hath the other part and that in a just defensive War that Senate cannot assume the whole Sovereignty but supposeth that government in specie to remain and therefore another King must be chosen if the former be incapable Thes. 374. as he tells us he is by ceasing to be King in the immediately precedent Thes. VII And yet in the Preface to this Book he tells us that the King withdrawing so he calls the murthering of one King and the casting off of another the Lords and Commons ruled alone was not this to change the species of the Government Which in the immediate words before he had affirmed to be in King Lords and Commons which constitution saith he we were sworn and sworn and sworn again to be faithfull to and to defend And yet speaking of that Parliament which contrary to their Oaths changed this Government by ruling alone and taking upon them the Supremacy he tells us that they were the best Governours in all the world and such as it is forbidden to Subjects to depose upon pain of damnation What then was he that deposed them one would think Mr. Baxter should have called him a Traitour but he calls him in the same Preface the Lord Protector adding That he did prudently piously faithfully and to his immortal honour exercise the Government which he left to his Son to whom as Mr. Baxter saith pag. 484. he is bound to submit as set over us by God and to obey for conscience sake and to behave himself as a Loyal Subject towards him
immediately from God I wonder by what right or authority they can pretend to take that from him which not they but God hath given to him Surely they will not say they may do it whether God will or no and of Gods Will that they should do so or may do so They can have no declaration or signification but either from some plain positive standing Rule in Scripture or from special extraordinary and immediate Revelation such as Abraham had for the sacrificing his Son Isaac or as Jehu had for the destroying the House of Ahab But as to this latter as I hope Mr. Baxter is not yet Fanatick enough to pretend so I am sure he can find no such declaration or signification of Gods Will for the former I mean in the Scriptures either of the Old or New Testament as They were always and universally understood by the first and best Christians It is true indeed that in the Scripture God hath commanded Kings or Sovereign Princes to govern according to his and their own Laws too that are conformable unto his and threatned them if they do not and punished them when they have not But where or in what place of the Old or New Testament hath God appointed or permitted all or any of the People to do so I mean to punish their Kings by Deposing them or by taking any part of the Kingly Power he had given them away from them Surely God did not only foresee but foretell that many of the Kings of his own People the Jews would be some of them Idolaters and some of them Murtherers and Adulterers and some of them Tyrants and great oppressers of their Subjects as appears by Samuels Speech unto them at the Election of Saul their first King but he doth not give them or any order of Men among them there or any where else any either commission or permission authoritatively to enquire into their Kings Actions or to call them to an account for them And therefore the Kings of Juda and Israel were Kings indeed and so are those Kings whether Despoticall or Politicall whether Successive or Elective which have no ordinary standing legal Power or Judicatory above them whereunto they are Subject and accountable as the Lacedaemonian Kings were unto the Ephori and therefore were no Kings indeed but in name and in title only But there is no such legal ordinary standing Power or Judicatory here in England above our King for Rex in regno suo non habet superiorem imò nec parem the King in his own Kingdom hath none above him no nor equal to him is a Maxim of our Law and therefore our King must needs be a Sovereign and a sole Sovereign according to Mr. Baxters own Principles and Concessions For this is one of Mr. Baxters own Principles that every Commonwealth or Body Politick must have a Sovereign the form of a Commonwealth saith he being the relation of Sovereign and Subjects to each other as likewise this is another of his Aphorisms or Principles that the Sovereign of one Common-wealth must be one and but one and by but one he must needs mean but one Person or but one Caetus or Company of men and consequently in which soever of them it is it must be solely and wholly so that to be Sovereign and not to be sole Sovereign seems to be a contradiction in adjecto From whence I argue that if there must be a Sovereign or Supreme Power in every State or Body Politick and that be the Sovereign or Supreme Power which by the Legal Constitution hath no Superior Power above it then the Regal is the Sovereign or Supreme Power in England because according to the Legal Constitution of this Kingdom there is no Power Superior to it or Predominant over it but all other Powers are derived from it and Subordinate and Subject and Subservient to it Again if the Sovereign of one Commonwealth State or Kingdom must be One and but One only then if the King of England be a Sovereign as having no Superior he must needs be he must be a sole Sovereign also Neither do I see how either of these Conclusions can with any colour of reason be denyed but by assigning some Power in some Person or Persons which by the Legal and Fundamental Constitution of this Kingdom is above the King or at least equal to him But as it is a Maxim of our Law as I said before that Rex in regno suo non habet superiorem the King in his own Kingdom hath none above him so it is a Maxim too that he hath not parem neither none equal to him so that according to our Law as there is none to judg him because he hath no Superior so there is no Way of trying him because he hath no Peers those whom We call Peers being his Subjects though They are Pares or Peers in relation to one another CHAP. V. The English Monarchy asserted against Mr. B. who would have the Kingdom of England to be a mixt Commonwealth My Lord Chief Justice Cook 's judgment on the point THIS one would think were enough to prove the King of England not only to be our Sovereign but our sole Sovereign and consequently the Kingdom of England to be properly and indeed as it hath always been accounted both at home and abroad a Monarchy or a Government in chief by one and by one only No saith Mr. Baxter it hath not always been accounted to be so For it hath been a Controversie saith he having spoken before of Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy to which of these forms our English Commonwealth was and is to be reckon'd and the uncertainty of this saith he was one cause of our Wars Whereunto I answer that I never heard nor I verily believe ever any body else did hear of any such Controversie here in England at least as to the Civil Government As to the Ecclesiastical Government indeed of the Church there hath been a Controversie betwixt us and the Church of Rome whether the King or the Pope be the Governor in chief of it as likewise betwixt us and the Presbyterians whether the King or a National Synod ought to have the Supreme managery of it But as to the Civil Government of the State there was never any question made for ought I ever heard by any of the otherwise Dissenting Parties but that it was Monarchicall and that the King was the sole Sovereign of it and in it before that Rebellious Parliament set up for a share in the Sovereignty which they did not at first neither but did in all their Addresses to him acknowledg him to be their Sovereign and that not as they were particular Persons only but as they were the representative Body of all the Commons of England neither did the House of Peers ever make the least doubt of doing so also nor of taking the Oath of Allegiance as to their
under the People and then the Sovereignty is wholly in the People and none of it in the King what Power or Authority soever is delegated unto him by the People especially if it be delegated sub conditione paenâ conditionally and upon penalty of forfeiture or any other punishment or else the Populus that is all or the whole body of the People doth subesse Regi is under the King and then the Sovereignty is wholly in the King what priviledges or immunities soever he may grant to all or any of his Subjects or however he may oblige himself by promise or oath to govern them according to the Laws of his own or Predecessors making So that the Sovereignty must either be Wholly in the People and then he that is called a King is indeed no King or it must be Wholly in the King and then the People have nothing to do with it or with any part of it Sovereignty being such a thing in the Body Politick as the Soul is in the Body Natural For as the Soul animates or enlivens the whole Body Natural not by being some of it or some part of it in one member and some part of it in another but by being as the Philosopher saith it is tota in toto tota in quâlibet parie by being all of it in all and in every one of the members according to their several capacities of receiving the several influences and operations of it in order to the preservation of the whole Body Natural so Sovereignty or the supreme Power wheresoever or in whomsoever it is it is that which animates and enlivens and actuates the whole Body Politick but not by being it self divided but by dividing and deriving its influences into all and every part of the whole Body Politick as the Sun doth its light by the dispersing of its beams or heat into and over the whole World and all the several parts of it though it self in the mean time remains wholly and entirely in its own Orb. CHAP. IX Grotius his Case hath no place in the English Monarchy where the King is sole Sovereign The Parliament never declared otherwise as Mr. B. saith they did but owned him ever to be so in their Addresses Sovereignty intitles to Majesty BUT supposing though not granting there may be and hath been somewhere or other such a division of the Sovereignty betwixt King and People as Grotius supposeth yet it is certain there is none such here in England for if ENGLAND be a Monarchy then saith Mr. Baxter himself the whole Sovereignty must be but in One only and if but in one I hope by that One he means the King and not the Pope though some of his Parasites will have him to be the Monarch of the whole Christian World in general and though he lays claim to the Monarchy of England in particular as held in Fee of him ever since King John surrendred the Sovereignty thereof to his Holiness But Mr. Baxter I am sure is not so much a Papist though in some especially of their Political opinions he doth symbolize with them as to acknowledg the Pope to be his Sovereign for then neither he nor his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that are like-minded could be as they fain would be every one a Pope in his own Parish neither do I think he is yet so far gone in Fanaticism as that by the King whom he grants to be the sole Sovereign in a Monarchy he meaneth no other King but King Jesus as the fifth Monarchy-men do here in England and the Presbyterian Whigs do in Scotland No I do willingly absolve Mr. Baxter from being guilty of either of these extravagant absurdities but that which I charge Mr. Baxter with is this that he denies England to be a Monarchy and consequently that the whole Sovereignty thereof is in the King though he himself hath sworn it is so when he took the Oath of Supremacy as I am sure he did or ought to have done when he was Episcopally Ordained as he saith he was but it seems he hath better studied the point since or is more enlightned than he was then Or perhaps the Parliament had not then or he had not heard they had declared this Government of ours to be no Monarchy but a mixed Government because the Sovereignty was not in the King alone but in the King and Parliament that is partly in the King and partly in themselves But when and what these Parliaments were or how and when and to whom they made such a Declaration he doth not vouchsafe to tell us which is an uncivil neglect of his Readers if he can and an impudent slandering of the King and both Houses of Parliament if he cannot I say of the King and both Houses of Parliament because it is the King and both Houses that constitutea Parliament the King as the Head and the two Houses as the representative Body of the People and he may as well and as properly call that Corpus integrum or a compleat Body that hath no Head as call either or both of the Houses a Parliament without the King Now I would fain learn of Mr. Baxter when any Parliament properly so called that is the King Lords and Commons did ever declare this Kingdom to be no Monarchy or that the Sovereignty or supreme Power was not wholly in the King Nay taking the two Houses without the King or a Commissioner for the King to be a Parliament as after the King left them or rather after they had driven the King away from them they falsly pretended themselves to be taking I say the Parliament in this notion for the two Houses only without the King did ever the two Houses declare the Government of England according to the legal constitution of it to be no Monarchy or that the Sovereignty or supreme Power was not in the King I confess I never heard they did so I mean by any conjunct Declaration or by any concurring Vote of both Houses no nor so much as by the single Vote of the House of Commons which being but one and the lower of the two Houses and who are always uncovered at their Conferences with the Lords are very often by Mr. Baxter called the Parliament because as he saith they are the Representatives or Trustees of the People of England whereas indeed they are the Representatives and Trustees not of the People but of the Commons of England only unless he will say that the Nobility and Clergy or at least the Lords Spiritual and Temporal are none of the People of England for surely they are not represented by the House of Commons And therefore if Mr. Baxter were to speak of it in Latin I think he would not I am sure he should not call it by the name of Domus Populi the House of the People but Domus Plebis the House of the Commonalty or as I think
an intire Parliament I mean the Act of Vniformity wherein the Parliament doth not only declare its own sense and judgment concerning the Kings sole Supremacy but prescribes an Oath to be taken by all that are to be admitted to teach the People what they are to think of the King I mean all that are to be admitted into holy Orders whereby they are injoyned to testifie and declare in their Conscience that the King is the only Supreme Governour of this Realm and I hope Mr. Baxter hath more reverence for Parliaments than to say or think that the Parliament did injoyn men to swear that which they did not themselves believe to be true especially those of the House of Commons who I think do all of them take the Oath of Supremacy And yet this so clear so evident and so irrefragable a proof of the Parliaments acknowledgment of the Kings sole Supremacy Mr. Baxter is pleas'd to slight as if it signified nothing calling it a sandy foundation for though he be pinched to the quick with this Argument yet he makes as if he felt it not and perceiving there was no help for him in Logick or Metaphysicks he makes use of a figure in Rhetorick which is either not to take notice of what they cannot answer or if they cannot chuse but take notice of it to slight or scoff at it as if it were not worth the answering or taking notice of And yet that he may not seem absque omni ratione insanire to have no pretence or show of reason for his slighting or rejecting of it he tells us that this Oath was made in relation to Papists only and was injoyned to be taken for the discovery of those that were suspected to be so Surely if we look to the first enacting of that Oath and the primary or original cause of it it was not for the distinguishing of Papists from Protestants for they were Papists in Henry the VIII's time and as great Persecutors of the Protestants as any were in those times that compiled and consented to the enacting and enjoyning of that Oath but it was to distinguish Papists from Papists Papists that would from Papists that would not acknowledg the Kings Supremacy And for the same end and purpose the same Oath was renewed in Queen ELIZABETHS time in the beginning of her Reign for the distinguishing of loyal from disloyal Papists as appears by the reasons she gave why She did not impose that Oath upon any of the Barons or House of Lords though many of them were then Papists because she did not as she said make any doubt of their loyalty but she caused it to be administred to the Popish Prelates and other Ecclesiasticks who had almost all of them plerisque omnibus saith Cambden taken it in her Father's time but refusing it then were deprived of their spiritual promotions for so doing lest they might teach the People to do so also and perhaps do more than so that is from denying her Supremacy in Spirituals to proceed to the denying of it in Temporals also which we see they are now come to not by their Popish but Presbyterian Teachers For preventing whereof and for obviating the scandalous interpretations that were made of it as that thereby she the Queen arrogated a Power unto her self sacrâ in Ecclesiâ celebrandi of performing divine Offices in the Church Illa edito scripto saith Cambden she published a Declaration wherein she affirms se nihil aliud arrogare quà m quod ad coronam Angliae jam olim jure spectavit that she arrogated nothing to her self but what anciently belonged of right to the Crown of England Scilicet se sub Deo summam supremam gubernationem potestatem in omnes Regni Anglici Ordines sive illi sunt Ecclesiastici sive Laici habere quodque nulla extranea potestas ullam in eos jurisdictionem vel authoritatem habeat aut habere debeat Namely that she under God had the supreme Government and Power over all orders of men in England whether Ecclesiasticks or Laicks and withal that no foreign Power had or ought to have any Jurisdiction or Authority over any of them From which Declaration published by that pious and prudent Prince it is observable First That the aforesaid Oath of Supremacy was intended by Her as well for the asserting of her own Supremacy over all Orders of men in her own Kingdom in all their capacities as it was for the disclaiming and renouncing any foreign Jurisdiction that was or could be pretended or claimed over all or any of her Subjects in any capacity whatsoever Secondly From this Declaration of Hers it is farther to be observed that she will have her own Sovereignty and Supremacy in omnes Ordines Regni over all Orders and Estates of men here at home to be asserted and sworn to before they shall swear to disclaim and renounce all foreign Authority and Jurisdiction And with very good reason because it would have done her and will do her Successors very little or rather no good at all for their Subjects to renounce all Sovereignty from abroad as long as they are taught or suffered to be taught that there are any other Sovereign or any other invested with any part of the Sovereignty here at home but their Kings only Lastly From the aforesaid Declaration we may observe also that the Queen by the Injunction of the Oath of Supremacy professeth to claim nothing to be acknowledged or sworn to but what de jure and jam olim what anciently and of right did belong to the Crown of England and consequently that the Supremacy or Sovereignty over all Estates or Orders of men in England was from all Antiquity that is as I conceive from the beginning of Monarchy or ever since there were Kings in England and that not ex dono Populi by gift of the People or compact with the People but jure by right and by what Right not jure Electionis but Hereditatis not by right of Election but of Succession and jure Coronae by right of the Crown as being inseparably annexed to the Crown or rather inherent in the Crown there being none as I have already proved that can properly be called a King or Crowned Head whether by Succession or Election but he must be the supreme and sole Sovereign over all in his own Kingdom Which as to our Kings here in England as it was acknowledged by those Parliaments that enacted the Oath of Supremacy before the War so is it by the Act of Vniformity since the War or since the Kings return and consequently since the Crowns restauration to those Prerogatives that are of right belonging to it of which the Supremacy or Sovereignty over all in the Kingdom inclusively as well as in relation to all without the Kingdom exclusively is the chiefest For if there be any either within or without the Kingdom either superior over
him or equal to him or partaker in any part of the Sovereignty with him he cannot be said to be the only supreme Governour of this Realm and of all other his Dominions and Countries as by the Act of Vniformity those of the Kings Subjects that are to teach all the rest of their fellow Subjects are obliged not only to say but swear he is nor is it so much as to be imagined that the King Lords and Commons would have obliged any to take such an Oath if they themselves had not believed the whole subject matter of it to be true CHAP. XI The Oath of Supremacy further explained The Kings being declared the sole supreme Governor cuts off all pretence at home as well as foreign claim I say the whole subject matter of it for there be evidently two several distinct parts of that Oath both of which every one of them that takes it is equally obliged to swear unto of which the first is Assertory and the second Promissory In the former he that swears asserts the Kings Sovereignty affirmatively affirming him to have the sole supreme power over all Persons in all Causes within his Realms and Dominions and then negatively by denying any foreign Power or any without his Dominions to have any Jurisdiction over any of his Subjects or to have any thing to do within his Dominions And it is in regard of the latter of these two clauses only that this Oath can be said to be enacted and imposed for the discovery and conviction of Papists and that not of all Papists neither but such Papists only as believe the Pope to have the supreme Power over all Christians in Spirituals at least if not in Temporals whose Subjects soever they may be in Temporals But as to the former of these two Clauses in the Assertory part of this Oath which affirms the King to be sole Sovereign or that he is the Only supreme Governour in this Realm it seems principally if not wholly to be intended to assert the Government of this Kingdom to be Monarchical and to make it be acknowledged to be so For by swearing that the King is the only supreme Governour of this Realm c. they do virtually and by necessary consequence swear also that all other Governours within the Realm as they do severally and joyntly derive their Power of governing from him so they are joyntly as well as severally subordinate unto him and therefore none of them either severally or joyntly co-ordinate with him Because if any of them or all of them in any capacity were so or believed by the Parliament to be so the Parliament by enjoyning men to swear the King is the only supreme Governour of this Realm must needs be chargeable with enjoyning Perjury or which is worse with compelling others to swear that to be truth which they themselves do not believe to be so which cannot be avoided but by concluding that the Injunction of the Oath of Supremacy by Parliament is a Declaration of Parliament that this Kingdom is a Monarchy properly so called because the Sovereignty or supreme Power is in one Person only namely in the King and if in him only then in him wholly also And that this was the Parliaments meaning in prescribing and enjoyning that Oath of Supremacy may farther and if it be possible more undeniably and demonstratively be made to appear it is very observable that in the Rubrick prefixed before the Administration of that Oath which Rubrick is a part of the Act of Parliament as well as the Oath it self it is said the Bishop shall cause The Oath of the Kings Supremacy And against the Power and Authority of all Foreign Potentates c. to be administred c. It is observable I say that in the aforesaid Rubrick there is a clear and a very notable distinction made betwixt the two first Clauses of the Assertory part of the Oath namely betwixt the Clause affirming the King to be the only supreme Governor of this Realm and the Clause denying any foreign Prince Person Prelate or Potentate to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm The distinction I say by the Rubrick made betwixt the two Clauses is very notable for it is the first of them only that is called by the Rubrick the Oath of the Kings Supremacy whereas the latter is said to be against the Power and Authority of all Foreign Potentates and therefore is more properly to be called an Abjuration than an Oath And yet it is this Abjuration only that Mr. Baxter will have to be meant by the Oath of Supremacy whereas this abjuration is not the Oath of Supremacy it self but a Deduction only from the Oath of Supremacy For because the King is the only supreme Governour of this Realm therefore neither Pope nor any other foreign Prince Prelate or Potentate can claim or pretend to any Supremacy or part of Supremacy here in this Kingdom So that he that can truly swear the one may safely per modum sequelae by way of consequence swear the other also But though the truth of the former doth necessarily infer the truth of the latter yet the truth of the latter doth not necessarily infer the truth of the former For though it be never so true and never so undoubtedly acknowledged to be so that no Foreigner or none without the Realm of what quality or denomination soever doth or can justly pretend to the supreme or any part of the supreme Power either Civil or Ecclesiastical here in England yet supposing the supreme Power to be divided as Grotius supposeth it may be in some Kingdoms and Mr. Baxter saith it is here in this Kingdom it will not follow I confess that the King is or that the Parliament that made this Act and enjoyned this Oath to be taken did thereby acknowledg the King to be the only supreme Governour of this Realm But the Parliament by injoyning the Oath to be taken and those that take it not only abjurare to abjure or for swear all foreign jurisdiction but jurare to swear positively and plainly That the King is the only supreme Governour of this Realm over all Persons in all Cases and Capacities do evidently declare that They themselves believe and acknowledg the King to be so and consequently whatsoever division there may be of the supreme Power in other Kingdoms yet in this there is none For the first the most immediate and most natural deduction from this Proposition viz. The King is the only supreme Governour of this Realm is the excluding all others in this Realm from having any thing to do with the supreme Government of it And therefore the swearing to this Proposition alone is called by the Rubrick the taking of the Oath of the Kings Supremacy the following abjuration of all foreign Authorities being but a deduction and that not a primary but
not from the People that chuse such or such a Man to be their King but from God onely so that as the Woman cannot take away the power of a Husband from her Husband after he is her Husband so the People cannot take away the Kingly power from their King after he is their King And therefore he concludes That in case the Kingly or supreme Power should be made use of to the publick detriment he sees not how the Body meaning the whole Body politick by any just means should be able to help it self without the consent of him that hath the supreme Power What could he have said more convincingly for the Declaration of his own Opinion concerning the unlawfulness of the Peoples using Force against their King though he make use of his Kingly Power to the detriment of the publick or of the People in general And though he be such a King as he supposeth to have originally derived his Title from the free choice of the People or from the choice of a free People much less if he come in by Conquest For some multitudes saith Mr. Hooker are brought into Subjection by force Divine Providence it self so disposing for it is God that giveth Victory in the day of Battel and unto whom Dominion is in this sort derived the same they enjoy according to the Law of Nations which Law authorizeth Conquerours to reign as absolute Lords over them whom they vanquish Now this way that is by Conquest was their Dominion or Kingly Power over this Nation of ours originally derived to our present Race of Kings But may they therefore now reign absolutely and at their own Will and Pleasure as their first Predecessours who came in by Conquest did or might have done No Mr. Hooker doth not say so nor I neither but he saith and so say I too That by means of after agreement or rather by after condescensions concessions and grants of Kings it comes to pass in Kingdoms that they whose ancient Predecessours were by violence and force made Subject do by little and little grow into the sweet of Kingly Government that is a Government of Kings governing by Laws in a free and voluntary manner condescended unto And thus this Kingdom of ours of Despotical became Political by our Kings limiting and restraining themselves by Laws of their own and their Predecessours making and much more by restraining themselves from making any Laws at all but such as the Lords and Commons in Parliament should consent to And this is all the restraint that Mr. Hooker acknowledgeth our Kings to be Subject to and is this more than Mr. Baxter doth or can approve of This doth not hinder the Government to be truly Monarchical which Mr. Baxter saith it is not nor the Supremacy to be wholly in one Person both as to Ecclesiastical and secular affairs as Mr. Hooker saith it is and Mr. Baxter saith it is not So that it was not Mr. Hooker's restraining but his extending or rather acknowledging and defending the extent of the Power of all Kings in general and of the Kings of England in particular that Mr. Baxter doth not nor cannot consistingly with himself approve of We will instance in what he saith of our own King onely according as he himself desireth to be understood when he tells us that what he speaks of Kings shall be in respect of the slate and nature of this Kingdom And first he tells us That this is an hereditary Kingdom and that in hereditary Kingdoms Birth giveth right to Sovereign Dominion and that the Death of the Predecessour putteth the Successour by bloud in Seisin He adds That if it should so happen that a man without right of bloud be elected and put into possession with all the usual Ceremonies and Solemnities all such new Elections and investings are utterly void the Inheritour by bloud may dispossess him as an Vsurper the contrary opinion whereunto he saith is an unnatural conceit and an insolent position set abroach by seeds-men of Rebellion onely to animate unquiet Spirits and to feed them with possibility of aspiring to Thrones if they can win the Hearts of the People What say you Mr. Baxter is not this more in favour of such Kings as ours is than you approve I am sure it is more than you did approve when as you tell us in your Holy-Common-Wealth you were bound to submit to the present Government as set over us by God and to obey for Conscience sake and to behave your self as a loyal Subject towards them But what was that present Government It must be one or other of those Governments betwixt the late King's Murther and his Son's Restauration which in Mr. Hooker's judgment were all of them Vsurpations and consequently all that voluntarily adhered and submitted to them Rebels and Traitours because they did as much as in them lay to exclude and keep out the right Heir from the Crown in an hereditary Kingdom So that I do not wonder if Mr. Baxter found more in Mr. Hooker than he could approve as to this particular but it was not for his too much restraining the Power of the King over his People but for his restraining the Power of the People over their King by setting up what Governours and what Government they please contrary to the fundamental Institution of the Kingdom Again as Mr. Baxter might find more in Mr. Hooker than he could approve or had approved for limiting the descent of the supreme Power here with us to the next in bloud or the right Heir without exception so in regard of the supreme Power itself as it is vested in our King he might find more in Mr. Hooker than he did approve not for the restraint but extent of it and that in regard both of persons and of things And first of Persons For Mr. Hooker speaking of our King's Supremacy saith that thereby it is intended and meant to exclude partly foreign Powers and partly the Power which belongeth in several unto others contained as parts in that politick Body over which the King hath Supremacy in and by which words all Persons as well within as without the Kingdom are excluded from having any part in the Sovereignty or supreme Power here in England None without the Kingdom having any thing to doe with it and All within the Kingdom being subject to it And this is the true interpretation of the Oath of Supremacy whereby as I have proved before the King is acknowledged to be the onely supreme Governour in as well as of this Kingdom and by consequence exclusively not onely in relation to any that do pretend from abroad but also from any that may pretend at home to have any part in or of the Supremacy with him Whereas Mr. Baxter will have the Oath of Supremacy to be understood as intending onely to exclude foreign Pretenders to any Supremacy here namely the Pope and
Sovereign So that there being then no controversie of the Kings Sovereignty over the whole Nation whether diffusively or representatively considered nor consequently whether this Kingdom were a Monarchy properly so called or no this Controversie I say there being then no such controversie in being could not be one of the causes of the War as Mr. Baxter saith it was I am sure it was none of the causes then pretended And yet I am apt enough to think that the contrivers and promoters of the War that were then leading-men in the House of Commons and some of them in the House of Lords also did from the very beginning design and intend a real change and alteration of the Government it self though They openly pretended but a reformation of abuses that were in it only I mean they did intend to turn the Monarchy into an Aristocracy and to make a Duke of Venice of the King as appears by the 19 Propositions which when they thought themselves strong enough to own they made to him But this They concealed for a long time from the main Body of their Party for fear it might alienate most or many of them that had any thing of Loyalty or Conscience from them Or if they did communicate this arcanum this secret of their grand design to any it was only to those whom they were sure of as desiring such a change of the Government as themselves did and whose help they were to make use of for the bringing of it about I mean the popular Presbyterian and other Schismatical Preachers and perhaps Mr. Baxter was one of them Otherwise I should wonder how he comes to say as he doth the Parliaments have affirmed it namely the Kingdom of England to be a mix'd Commonwealth For sure by Parliament he meant Parliament-men for Parliaments say nothing but by Votes or Orders of the respective Houses and I verily believe there never was any such Vote pass'd in either of them if there were he should have done well to have named those Parliaments or at least some one of those Parliaments that had affirmed the Kingdom or as he calls it the Commonwealth of England not to be Monarchical but a mixed Government which no doubt he would have done if he could being so desirous as he seems to be to have it so But I can tell him of one who was Speaker of the House of Commons and as Learned a one in the Laws and Legal Constitutions of this Realm likewise as knowing what were the Powers and Priviledges of both Houses of Parliament as ever was before or since Him in the Chair and that was my Lord Cook who saith and saith it positively as a known and undoubted truth That this Kingdom of ours is a Monarchy and Monarchy successive by inherent Birth-right adding that of all others it is the most absolute and perfect Form of Governments excluding Interregnums and with it infinite inconveniences And now what say you Mr. Baxter Do you not think this Oracle of our Law for so I think he is esteemed by those of his Profession do you not think I say that he understood the Legal and Fundamental Constitution of this Kingdom as well as you do or any of those foreign Lawyers or Divines whose judgments perhaps you may rely on and be misled by I name Divines as well as Lawyers because some of the Protestant as well as Popish Divines have done what they can to lessen the Power of Kings the latter to make them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make them accountable and subject to the Pope and the former to make them accountable and subject to the People to their own Subjects which is as dangerous and much more dishonourable than the other CHAP. VI. Calvin answered who though he allows not private Persons to resist yet requires it of some Magistrates whom he supposes the Guardians of the Peoples Liberty No such Magistrates as he supposeth nor doth he say there are and if there were they would be extremely inconvenient to the publick This Opinion taxed by Grotius who yet himself supposing the Sovereignty shared betwixt the King and People in some case allows resistance AND yet this so dangerous and so dishonourable a subjection of Kings to their own Subjects doth Mr. Calvin the Patriarch of the Presbyterians approve of I call him the Patriarch of the Presbyterians because he was the first that after 1500 years Government of the Church by Bishops invented and set up a Government of the Church by a Parity of Presbyters without Bishops and this and this only can properly and truly be called Calvinism whatsoever he holds besides even the most rigid of his Tenets having been held by some of the Schoolmen and some of the Fathers also But this Calvin I say though otherwise a very Learned and as our judicious Hooker saith of him incomparably the wisest man that ever the French Church did enjoy since the hour it did enjoy him though he doth not allow of the resisting of Kings even the worst and most tyrannical of Kings by such of their Subjects as are but private men and consequently not by the generality of the People yet Si qui nunc sunt saith he populares Magistratus ad moderandam Regum libidinem constituti quales olim erant qui Lacedomoniis Regibus oppositi erant Ephori quâ etiam fortè potestate ut nunc res habent funguntur in singulis Regnis tres Ordines quum primarios conventus peragunt adeò illos serocienti Regum licentiae pro officio intercedere non veto ut si Regibus impotenter grassantibus humili Plebeculae insultantibus conniveant corum dissimulationem nefariâ perfidiâ non carere affirmem quia Populi libertatem cujus se Tutores Dei ordinatione positos nôrunt fraudulenter produnt I have put down this passage of Calvins in his own words which for the English Readers sake may be thus translated If there be now saith he any such popular Magistrates constituted I presume he meant legally constituted or appointed by Law for the moderating or restraining the lust or unbridled appetites of Kings such as were of old time the Ephori to the Lacedaemonian Kings and which Power also as things now are perhaps the three Orders or Estates have in several Kingdoms when they meet in Parliament I am so far from forbidding them saith he to interpose their Authority for restraining the raging licentiousness of Kings that if they do but connive at them when they impotently domineer and insult upon the poor Commonalty I do affirm that connivence of theirs is a nefarious persidiousness because they do fraudulently betray the Peoples Liberty whereof they know they are made the Guardians by Gods appointment In which passage of Mr. Calvins wherewith he concludes his Book of Institutions I observe that he speaks not with that confidence and clearness as he useth